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Alfred1, the best reason abortion is legal.
If you were shown to those currently opposing a woman’s right to control her own body, there would never be any argument about it.
The title should begin with “Whom should you listen to,” not “Who should you listen to…”
The pronoun “who” needs to be in the objective case because it is the object of the preposition “to.” One way to recognize this is to change the title into an independent clause (like a statement) by rearranging the words. “You should listen to whom…”
#88 Alfred1
Wow.
I now understand where you are coming from and its not a happy place.
freddybobs68k proudly claims by using anecdotal comments:
How do I know that? Because America pays more for worse health care. And I know that because I’ve experienced it – _actually living in other countries_.
Wow! Big Whoop!
Well, two can play that game. I worked in Northamptonshire England (Northants) for a few years and saw the horrendous queues for the local dentist. I’ve seen the nurses wearing sweaters in hospital trying to stay warm. I’ve seen the outrageous 18-month waits my employees had to endure for elective surgery. I’ve heard the doctors complain about the restrictions they work under.
When hypocritical multi-millionaires like Will Ferrell sarcastically complain about other multi-millionaires because they didn’t like how they made their money, I know the wacko-left has lost the argument.
Ferrell thinks it’s OK to make hundreds of millions of dollars speaking the words other people wrote on camera, but running a company that pays for other people’s health care should be something that only earns one just enough to get by.
#90 jbenson2
Whats good for the goose… If its ‘Wow! Big Whoop!’ then why recant your apparently worthless ‘experiences’? Can’t have it both ways.
The fact is that universal health care as practiced in the majority of the industrial world is cheaper and provides better care to the majority of people. Thats what all the studies show including the WHOs show.
And that backs up my experiences, of both living in the Uk and the US. It also backs up my extended families experience – who live in the Uk.
It also backs up my experiences in working and staying in Germany, Spain and Switzerland.
You can get all mad about it and stamp your feet, but there it is.
So if you discount all experience other than your own as worthless – then perhaps you’d like to show the studies and the explanation of how what the US has works better – in efficiency and health care provided to the majority of people – to the rest of the industrialized world.
Now that’d be interesting.
# 92 Alfred1
That’s great and all, but if its true – why does the rest of the industrialized world have universal healthcare and in doing so live longer, healthier lives. And pay less?
If what your saying is correct – surely, surely it should cost much much more, and people should live much shorter lives?
Assume I’m stupid. Spell it out for me. I want to understand how it works.
#95 Alfred1
‘Your argument would be sound IF we weren’t comparing apples and oranges…they don’t taste the same.
What is being proposed in Congress is not like the rest of the industrialized world…’
Okay fair point. So can I assume that you would then be for it if it was something more like in other industrialized countries?
I mean I agree, in that what I understand of the bill it’s half arsed. And that’s a damn shame.
But I want to get this straight – assuming we had a bill for universal health care more like other industrialized countries, that was short enough so the average person (including members of congress) could understand it, you’d be for that? Ie – in principal you are for it?
And if not why not? Because in your previous mail if I’m reading it correctly – you think it is better, its only obamas ‘bill’ and the ‘incompetent’ representatives which are the problem.
#94
Well you are just wrong. So I will spell it out for you. Life expectancy is not a good indicator of judging any medical care system. There is a lot that goes into the life expectancy number that isn’t really health care related. You need to look at the system when someone gets sick to see how the system works. Read this paper from the University of Penn. repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1012&context=psc_working_papers
According to the World Health Organization it’s accurate that we spend the most money than any other nation, but also according to the WHO the US is #1 in patient responsiveness. This means we spend the least time waiting for care, and that contributes to a more efficient and effective recovery. It also means we are the most responsive to patients needs in choice of provider. We recover more often, go
back to work and continue our careers for longer periods. This is part of the reason Americans are the most productive people on the planet.
The US totally dominates Europe on all kinds of cancer survival rates. Prostate Cancer for example mortality is 184 percent higher in Canada than in the United States, 604 percent higher in the U.K., and 457 percent higher in Norway (for poster #14). When contrasted with some of the same developed countries (Canada and Britain), Americans have better access to new medical technologies as well, including those that fight cancer.
We also have access to the all the advantages of the latest technology. Nearly 80% of all global drug development occurs in the US, which may be why our cancer survival rates are higher and we have more people benefiting from new medications. In fact, we’re responsible for the vast majority of all health care innovations. Now many of our friends around the world refuse to pay for this drug development and arbitrarily price fix drugs or threaten to breach the drug patent, which does cause us to shoulder more of this cost. That’s a problem that nobody is talking about.
But leave it to a leftist to look at our situation and say “Yep it’s broken.” Sure there are problems but none will be solved by having the government take it over. One thing is clear though. It’s certain that the people that will for sure benefit from a takeover are the 500 some odd politicians in Washington that ironically will not subject themselves to the same system. Does that sound like it’s on the up and up?
98–shittty==all you have identified is that if you have money, you can spend more of it in the USA. Life Expectancy is made up of many factors. If we excel the world in our healthcare, then could you identify the other factors we fail on? Clean Water? Vaccines?==well, maybe so given thinking like yours. What other factor does the USA do so poorly on that it drags down our world class healthcare? Hummmmmm?????
You just demonstrate one more nauseous time that “you have yours, so screw everyone else.”
Pedro’s pretty smart, and you have him fooled, but not the average liberal who can tell shit from shinola.
#98 smittybc
‘Well you are just wrong.’
Really? How so?
You don’t seem to be denying the US system costs more. You also don’t seem to want to take into account that it costs less per person when everybody is covered.
So the only thing you are arguing is the quality of health care. Okay thats fine – I mean I agree you can get great health care in the US, you just have pay much more for it.
Therefore you can have everybody have good health with universal healthcare. It will cost you less. AND if you want additionally great healthcare, you can get additional health insurance. That is broadly how it works in other industrialized countries. Moreover – in the Uk you can I believe get money back from the government if you do want to go solely private.
So whats the beef? Hows the US system superior again?
In the paper you cite – it also agrees health care in America costs significantly more. And then argues the results are at best ‘comparable’. Even if that were true – and I think the study is warped as it presumably only applies to people with health care – in best case your argument based on the paper is in America we pay towards twice as much for the same result.
I think paying twice much for _at best_ the same result amounts to ‘broken’.
freddybobs68k still clings to his outdated beliefs:
The fact is that universal health care as practiced in the majority of the industrial world is cheaper and provides better care to the majority of people. Thats what all the studies show including the WHOs show.
Freddy, get with the times and check out the news today.
The future of Obamacare? Just look to England to see how socialized medicine really works (or does not work).
You have to pay more and work longer and get inferior coverage.
The British Free health boondoggle is forcing a radical reform of pensions and a rise in the national retirement age.
Just peachy! Right Freddy?
http://bit.ly/2nIB2Z
#102 jbenson2
So you’re not going to argue the points. Just avoid them.
Idiotic. Soooo lets take what your saying as true.
In the Uk they pay 8% of GDP. Note their GDP per capita is less.
In the US it’s 16% (from the paper from smittybc).
So they pay less. Dramatically less than they do in the US.
And yet you. You jbenson2 – apparently the man of the minute – figure that that has implications on pensions, and therefore Uk health care is a ‘British Free health boondoggle’. Err doesn’t that mean we’re screwed – as we pay more? So good point – the Uk has problems with paying for it even though they pay less than half of what we do. Brilliant.
Anyways. Why not get back to the crux of the issue. Which is that the other industrialized nations pay significantly less and at worst get similar health care (assuming smittybc’s skewed paper) but generally – by child mortality, length of life etc get better health care.
I never described it as perfect.
And then the article you cite. Okay – so why do you think the Uk (and the US for that matter) has all of these problems.?You may not be aware of this but a large section of the Uk economy is the financial sector. Far more than the US. Recently you may have been aware of an economic crisis – arguably created by the financial industry. The Uk has been hit comparatively hard because the financial sector is a larger part of the Uk economy.
So do you want to try and figure out what the root cause of what is going on in the uk? Why financially it may be struggling? I’ll give you a clue – its not the NHS. Why + how can I be so sure?
BECAUSE IT COSTS MUCH LESS THAN IT DOES IN THE US.
Less than half per capita.
So lets try again.
Universal health care as practiced in other industrialized nations, costs significantly less, everybody is covered, and they arguably get better healthcare (or worst case as good as if you take smittybcs paper at face value).
Why do you think the US cannot achieve the same? Why don’t you think this is a good thing to have? I mean – whats the problem? I don’t get it.
Freddybaby
Just like you have done, I presented anecdotal information, facts and details. The difference is that I have supplied current and up-to-date links, not hackneyed cliches that are spit out over and over by the liberal left.
#104 jbenson2
‘The difference is that I have supplied current and up-to-date links, not hackneyed cliches that are spit out over and over by the liberal left.’
I feel I have to constantly repeat myself – because it’s not refuted it seems – universal health care costs LESS, covers EVERYONE, and arguably provides BETTER HEALTHCARE.
Stop flapping in the wind – and come up with a coherent argument, and I’ll be happy to hear it. If you’ve got this great apparently ‘up to date’ evidence to refute the point then lets see it.
Prove the statement wrong. I’m happy to change or modify my view on new evidence. So bring it on.
#104 jbenson2
And whilst I’m at it – if you want to win an argument you need to be able to argue.
This is how an argument works. I make a point, and then you make a counter point, and if I can counter that I will do and so on and on, until hopefully some conclusion is reached.
In this forum you bring up a counter point to the original assertion. I make a counter point to that and then you give up.
Its not exactly convincing stuff. And certainly not winning material.
#101
You are wrong because what you state is just not the case. Insuring more people will cost more. Having the government take over health care will result in lower quality of care and ultimately cost more because government is massively inefficient, there has never been an economic model that suggests otherwise. Assurance Maladie (French care) ranked overall #1 by the WHO has been in the red since 1989.
I give you mortalities on cancer (primarily because of how cancers are collated more precisely between countries) and you say they those rates are comparable. I think 200-500 percent mortality differences are significant, you don’t. That’s fine, we disagree.
If you are looking to control costs, you have to look at what is driving costs. The main drivers for costs are:
1) The indiscriminate and wasteful use of technology and testing.
2) Our prices for drugs, devices, and services that are dramatically higher than in other industrialized nations (primarily because we as consumers place a high demand on our providers for these).
3) Administrative overhead.
4) Defensive medicine.
Two of these three things are demand side problems and are very hard to correct. Certainly if the government took it over, it would be harder to correct.
I accept the premise that our health care prices and overall costs will not likely ever be as low as other industrialized nations simply because of our higher GDP (economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/14/why-does-us-health-care-cost-so-much-part-i/) . But the GDP gap explains only part of it.
But we are just kidding ourselves to think that the government will give us the savings we need to maintain the current quality but reduce the price. This is simply not how government health care has ever worked. All we will accomplish is making matters even worse when costs continue to explode and the new promises we will have made to those today become unaffordable in ways that will make our current health care system look like a bargain.
If we want to get real, it will take a head-on assault on these above 4 problematic villains. That will likely require us to deal more directly with the demand side as well as the supply side. The politicians have no chance at a solution.
If you are really interested (unlike bobbo the child who is only interested in dogmatic idiocy hence I rarely respond to the drivel) in savings in healthcare you should listen to this:http://www.rwjf.org/pr/product.jsp?id=35368
#107 smittybc
Okay – that’s interesting + I’ll check out the link. Hopefully the thread won’t be dead before I can see it, think about it and respond.
this all sounds so much like when they broke up Ma Bell (for our own good). Prices skyrocketed, service degraded, and now the various carriers are getting away with murder. Get one of those “special offer” mailers for some low phone service, lately? They say $19.95 unlimited nights and minutes. So, sign up…and what do you get? A bill for $59 bucks. They add in this tax, that tax, this service fee, that service fee, blah blah blah. That was illegal when the phone service was REGULATED.
Our health system is already broken, but taking a hammer to it and breaking it further (to benefit whom? The insurance giants? The for-profit hospital foundations) is not going to help us. It’s a joke, and a sham. If it weren’t there wouldn’t be so much noise, and so much talking president head on the airwaves.
#50…try using your argument with NO HEALTH INSURANCE.
I can’t afford $300 a month for myself and another $200 each for my kids. Seriously, dude, health care costs more than food, and if I have to chose between that and food, guess what wins out.
You cannot chose any doc/hospital you want if you have no way of paying…..and, if you have assets, the hospital won’t talk to you, because they can get government money for you. You have to either have enough money for insurance, or be without any money.
Fucking right wing nutjobs drive me crazy.
#107–smitty==accurate slurs aside, that is one of your better posts. Expertly twisted to remain irrelevant, but still pretty good.
Freddy–please post back with your evaluation. I’m not going to listen to a 78mb file. Smitty advertises it as about how to save money in health care. “Traditionally” thats not what RWJF is all about and the web page that links to the audio program is not about savings==so I smell a pile of red herring.
smitty–if you have the attention span, let me deconstruct your argument and demonstrate why I scorn you. You say: “You are wrong because what you state is just not the case. Insuring more people will cost more.” ==== NOT once we get rid of the for profit system and replace it with government run healthcare. Those stats are in. USA pays 16% of GDP and leaves 45 Million uncovered. OF COURSE, if you extended THAT program to everyone the system will cost more but that is no one’s plan except the Repuglicans pushing their masters bankruptcy plan for America. The high cancer survival rates in the USA don’t factor in the number of people who die from untreated cancer because that is a “chronic condition” that you cannot get care for thru the Emergency Room–cancer is not an emergency. The Repuglican Health Care plan applies==go Home and die Quickly.
What I don’t understand is why someone smart enough to obviously avoid facts and conclusions that get in the way of a desired outcome as you do is not smart enough not to. I can assume greed as a paid shill of the Ins Co’s, but I can’t assume stupidity.
Real puzzzler.
So, not a Friday Night Drinker like I used to be, I started to listen to the RWF audio program.
At 2:40 the bias appeared: “Aligning Key Players” in the health care arena which included “the payers.”
Any presentation wishing to Align the Payers of health care with anything but the dust bin is not worth listening to.
The first 2 minutes pretty well confirm what Freddy has been posting and the rest of the non-shill world already knows. The USA health care system sucks in full view of 37 other health care systems that are up, running, working, satisfying most of their citizens.
Only in america.
I’m waiting for the left to explain why this must be done at the Federal level. Obama seems to want to turn the entire industry on its head without any existing US system as a basis. There is nothing stopping the States from implementing a single payer system.
Right now, there are only one or two States that have any kind of health care system in place and in every case it is bankrupting the State and in no case has it reduced cost. Given that the US is already bankrupt, what makes anyone think that a similar plan won’t bankrupt the US? I know that France for example, is dealing with massive budget issues directly related to their health care offering.
Say it until you finally get it: the US is B-R-O-K-E. No money would be an improvement. We have less than no money. A bum on the street has a higher net worth than the US. We are trillions of dollars in the red. When the total national debt including all obligations like social security is less than 10%, then, maybe, we might, possibly consider discussing some sort of universal health care coverage. Until that time, the best solution is to pass health care legislation to foster competition, improve regulation of insurance companies, encourage the States to implement some sort of plan to cover their constituents so that in the future we might have something on which to base a Federal solution and most importantly: STOP SPENDING MONEY WE DON’T HAVE.
but..if we didn’t spend money that we didn’t have, we’d have no money at all.
Food for thought.
This is by far the best explanation of the Muslim terrorist situation I have ever read. His references to history are accurate and clear. Not long, easy to understand, and well worth the read. The author of this email is Paul E. Marek.
A German’s View on Islam
A man, whose family was German aristocracy prior to World War II, owned a number of large industries and estates. When asked how many German people were true Nazis, the answer he gave can guide our attitude toward fanaticism. “Very few people were true Nazis”, he said, “but many enjoyed the return of German pride, and many more were too busy to care. I was one of those who just thought the Nazis were a bunch of fools. So, the majority just sat back and let it all happen”. Then, before we knew it, they owned us, and we had lost control, and the end of the world had come. My family lost everything. I ended up in a concentration camp, and the Allies destroyed my factories”.
We are told again and again by “experts” and “talking heads” that Islam is the religion of peace, and that the vast majority of Muslims just want to live in peace. Although this unqualified assertion may be true, it is entirely irrelevant. It is meaningless fluff, meant to make us feel better, and meant to somehow diminish the spectra of fanatics rampaging across the globe in the name of Islam.
The fact is that the fanatics rule Islam at this moment in history. It is the fanatics who march. It is the fanatics who wage any one of 50 shooting wars worldwide. It is the fanatics who systematically slaughter Christian or tribal groups throughout Africa and are gradually taking over the entire continent in an Islamic wave. It is the fanatics who bomb, behead, murder or honor-kill. It is the fanatics who take over mosque after mosque. It is the fanatics who zealously spread the stoning and hanging of rape victims and homosexuals. It is the fanatics who teach their young to kill and to become suicide bombers.
The hard quantifiable fact is that the peaceful majority, the “silent majority”, is cowed and extraneous.
Communist Russia was comprised of Russians who just wanted to live in peace, yet the Russian Communists were responsible for the murder of about 20 million people. The peaceful majority were irrelevant.
China’s huge population was peaceful as well, but Chinese Communists managed to kill a staggering 70 million people.
The average Japanese individual prior to World War II was not a war mongering sadist. Yet, Japan murdered and slaughtered its way across South East Asia in an orgy of killing that included the systematic murder of 12 million Chinese civilians; most killed by sword, shovel, and bayonet.
And who can forget Rwanda, which collapsed into butchery. Could it not be said that the majority of Rwandans were “peace loving”?
History lessons are often incredibly simple and blunt, yet for all our powers of reason we often miss the most basic and uncomplicated of points: Peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence. Peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy if they don’t speak up, because like my friend from Germany, they will awaken one day and find that the fanatics own them, and the end of their world will have begun.
Peace-loving Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Rwandans, Serbs, Afghans, Iraqis, Palestinians, Somalis, Nigerians, Algerians and many others have died because the peaceful majority did not speak up until it was too late. As for us who watch it all unfold, we must pay attention to the only group that counts; the fanatics who threaten our way of life.
Lastly, anyone who doubts that the issue is serious and just deletes this email without sending it on, is contributing to the passiveness that allows the problems to expand. So, extend yourself a bit and send this on and on and on! Let us hope that thousands, worldwide, read this and think about it, and send it on before it’s too late.
The first thing the fanatics will do to the silent majority is to disarm them.
WE NEVER LEARN FROM OUR HISTORY!!!
#117 ECA – History
Thank you for that. Probably your best contribution to this blog, ever.
#117–ECA==yea good post. Kinda explains the Repuglican Party being taken over by their extremist nutbag hard core of religionist extremists and their unending attempt to force their views on the Good Old USA.
How come its that same group that has all the guns?
#117 ECA
– however, in the interests of accuracy, you should have pointed out that the original article ended with the words”the fanatics who threaten our way of life”
The last 9 lines of your post, including the comment about the silent majority being disarmed, have been added by someone else.
#121–Pedro==another excellent comment. You are on a roll today. Did you just read a book or something?
This is my health care plan:
http://tiny.cc/B2FmU
Tell me if yours is better or just different, I pay $54/month (includes dental).