1. Rabble Rouser says:

    Obamaforever, very good!
    These climate change, and health care deniers all have their heads where the sun does not shine, and it smells like a toilet.

  2. tcc3 says:

    Derek – Healthcare costs and overhead are crippling our private industry. “Get a job that provides it” is a dying remnant of a bygone era.

    If you lose your job I guess you should just not get sick. Your fault for not planning ahead.

    I suppose you better get to providing roads , police, schools, military, and fire protection for your family.

  3. tcc3 says:

    Besides – employer sponsored health insurance is no guarantee of anything. Its run by the same shysters.

    Why would we want to perpetuate a system that by design takes in money and then denies care to make a profit? If you don’t like “providing for someone elses family” then why do you like to provide for our corporate overlords?

    You’re hanging on to your wallet so fiercely that you don’t even feel the hand that’s already in it.

  4. LibertyLover says:

    If this doesn’t explain the problems in Washington, nothing will.

  5. stopher2475 says:

    By the way. Here’s the salary of your poor little lemonade girl:

    Ins. Co. & CEO With 2007 Total CEO Compensation

    Aetna Ronald A. Williams: $23,045,834
    Cigna H. Edward Hanway: $25,839,777
    Coventry Dale B. Wolf : $14,869,823
    Health Net Jay M. Gellert: $3,686,230
    Humana Michael McCallister: $10,312,557
    U.Health Grp Stephen J. Hemsley: $13,164,529
    WellPoint Angela Braly (2007): $9,094,271
    L. Glasscock (2006): $23,886,169

    Ins. Co. & CEO With 2008 Total CEO Compensation

    Aetna, Ronald A. Williams: $24,300,112
    Cigna, H. Edward Hanway: $12,236,740
    Coventry, Dale Wolf: $9,047,469
    Health Net, Jay Gellert: $4,425,355
    Humana, Michael McCallister: $4,764,309
    U. Health Group, Stephen J. Hemsley: $3,241,042
    Wellpoint, Angela Braly: $9,844,212

    Cry me a river.

  6. Obamaforever says:

    From: Obamaforever

    To: chris (aka the Church Lady)

    per #39

    I like most of your post even though it was
    ‘pie in the sky’.

    What I did not like was the first part, Church Lady.

    Church Lady, you can apologize to the King of
    the Retards. Just do not do it in my name, please!!

  7. Dallas says:

    #41 Good anecdotal data!!

    However, you need to also convey this in cartoon animation so the republican sheep can begin to understand it.

  8. LibertyLover says:

    #41, Wow, those numbers are high.

    Now, can you find out how much those companies made gross and net?

    I’ll give you a hint — the salaries are less than 1% of the profits and the profits are about 5% of the gross.

  9. Dallas says:

    #44 So how much of the grand total of net, gross and salaries actually went towards the delivery of medical care?

    Hint: Rhymes is HERO

  10. LibertyLover says:

    #45, Since the majority of the health care costs in this country are paid by insurance companies, I would say close to $2.26 trillion in 2007 alone.

    Just to give you an idea how many zeroes that is:

    2,260,000,000,000 <– Total Expenditure
    123,899,190 <– Total Salaries (from above)

    Those salaries accounted for 0.0055% of total HC expenditures.

    Hell, I don't even buy lottery tickets and my percent chance of winning is higher than their salary percentages.

  11. Obamaforever says:

    From: Obamaforever

    To: LibertyLover (aka pry my cold dead fingers)

    per #44

    cold dead fingers, do you know anything about
    accounting? How do the health insurance
    companies account for the money they give to
    lobbyists, to U.S. representative, to U.S. senators, etc? They would say this money is overhead-not profit. What a goofus.

  12. LibertyLover says:

    #47, I would have answered in a somewhat reasonable fashion had you initiated first contact with me in a more respectful manner.

    Do you wish to try again?

  13. Dallas says:

    #46 I don’t think your get what I mean by actual delivery of medical care.

    These insurance companies contribute nothing to the delivery of medical care.

    The numbers you provided further exemplify that huge amounts of money in our system goes to pure waste and overhead.

    This is the tragedy of the debate. People (I’ll avoid saying sheeple for this post) actually think a medical insurance worker renders medical care. They don’t!

  14. Obamaforever says:

    From: Obamaforever

    To: LibertLover (aka my feelings are easily hurt or pry my dead cold fingers or goofus)

    I see that you do not have a comeback!!!

    I am “sorry” that the above is expressed
    in a disrespectful manner. I will lose, maybe
    at most, a second of sleep!!!!!!

    bye, fingers

  15. LibertyLover says:

    #50, Ah. Someone else to add to my block list.

  16. LibertyLover says:

    #49, Then why ask how much of it went toward it? The insurance companies paid for it, thus they facilitated it.

    We may not like HOW they do it or how much they charge to do it, but they did do it.

  17. Rick Cain says:

    I would rather have insurance run by government bureaucrats than by private bureaucrats.

    As a government employee, I know for a fact employee pay sucks, and even at the top the pay sucks. No billion dollar bonuses for joe-q-federal worker.

    Private insurance is an un-necessary for profit entity that removes valuable health care dollars out of the system and costs the patient, doctor and hospitals money. Why do you think everybody needs insurance? They’re the ultimate bookmakers in the horserace of life.

  18. Thomas says:

    Economics 101:
    1. What happens when you reduce the number of suppliers of a service to one?
    2. Do monopolies provide lower prices to consumers than in a competitive market?
    3. How does a consumer’s decision making process change when someone else is paying for a needed service?

    #53
    > Private insurance is an
    > un-necessary for profit
    > entity that removes valuable
    > health care dollars out of
    > the system and costs the
    > patient, doctor and
    > hospitals money

    “For-profit” entity = One that strives to reduce costs and increase revenue. Translation, there is no such thing a “no profit” entity (unless you are filing your tax return ;->). Even “non-profit” companies strive to reduce costs and increase revenue. The only difference is that they reinvest their profits back into the system. So, are you saying that a government run agency wouldn’t try to reduce cost or increase funding? If they have no competition, what is their incentive to provide better service?

  19. deowll says:

    I go with #5. Okay I don’t live in California. I have relatives who do. Lovely place to visit but I don’t want to live there.

  20. Uncle Patso says:

    # 32 Obamaforever:
    “[…] You may have wondered why you have not heard much from the insurance companies. […]”

    Oh, but we have; they’ve been spending ten million dollars a week fighting this since about October. TEN MILLION DOLLARS A WEEK. That buys a LOT of PR, not to mention lobbyists, lobbyists and more lobbyists, fake grass roots organizations, newsletters, alarmist web sites, “motivational” speakers, blogs, gossip, rumors, columns, chain emails, talk radio callers, talk radio hosts, TV “newsmen”, “evangelists”, commentators, pundits, perhaps even the occasional senator or representative.

    I’d say about half of what appears parroted in the comments section of this blog was originally commissioned by that ten million dollars a week…

    = = = = =

    # 54 Thomas:
    “[…] So, are you saying that a government run agency wouldn’t try to reduce cost or increase funding? If they have no competition, what is their incentive to provide better service?”

    Populist politicians will get all up in their business otherwise!

  21. Mr. Fusion says:

    #52, Loser,

    #49, Then why ask how much of it went toward it? The insurance companies paid for it, thus they facilitated it.

    You missed quite a lot there. First, the insurance companies handle about 1/3 of all medical payments. Medicare and Medicaid, VA, cooperatives, free care, co-payments, and patient paid make up the rest.

    You want to discuss your “Death Panels”? The California Nurses Association did a study to find that a 22% of insured patients were denied coverage by their carrier. The highest at almost 40% of submitted claims.

    Insurance payouts equal as little as 65% of premiums. That 35% is called overhead and is eaten up by denying care to their customers. In contrast, Ontario Canada provincial health plan spends in the order of <1% on overhead. No one is denied and Ontario's citizens don't want to exchange their health care for the American style.

  22. LibertyLover says:

    #54, “[…] So, are you saying that a government run agency wouldn’t try to reduce cost or increase funding? If they have no competition, what is their incentive to provide better service?”

    Populist politicians will get all up in their business otherwise!

    And then they’ll be bought off like Mary Landrieu.

  23. LibertyLover says:

    #58, Quit changing the subject when you talk to me.

    Why would you sacrifice others to save your wife?

  24. Obamaforever says:

    From: Obamaforever

    To: All

    per #32

    In my post #32 I expressed the opinion that
    the Health Care industry will implode in
    ten years or fourteen years depending if the
    Health Care bill passes or does not pass.

    What I did not state in my post is what will
    happen after the Health Care (HC) industry
    implodes.

    When the HC industry implodes the U.S.
    government will, with hat in hand, ask the
    Canadians for help. Since they are so nice they
    will help us. It will also would be smart to take the best from the Europeans’ health care plans and add these best parts to the Canadian health care plan.

    When all the work is done we will have our
    single payer health care plan.

    For their help the Canadians will send down
    lots of moose burgers for us to eat-just kidding
    vegans!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    In conclusion, we have three possibilities for
    who will run our Health Care industry:

    1, health care insurance companies (run by the
    Repukes)

    2. the government

    3. space aliens (this is for all the anti-Health Care Reform Retards)

    I vote for ‘the government’.

  25. freddybobs68k says:

    Check out the Jan 2010 issue of National Geographic. They have a graphic showing health cost against life expectancy. Only two countries shown don’t have universal health care – the US and Mexico. In the US average health cost per person per year 7600USD, in mexico 800 USD a year. In terms of life expectancy they are fairly close.

    The Uk is 2000USD and is in the middle of the group. Switzerland it was around 3000USD. They both do better than US in terms of life expectancy.

    Soooo… better health care, for everybody for dramatically less can be yours.

  26. chris says:

    I’m in a rather positive mood, taking a very long view, on both the health debate and financial industry reform. The conventional wisdom has really shifted on both issues. Because insurance companies and big banks are politically connected they will be able to fight a worthy delaying action, but it is only a matter of time.

    Too bad Elliot Spitzer had a zipper problem, because he could have really helped move things along.

    Now, as they say in politics, to my esteemed friend Obamaforever. You have obviously mastered no arguments, facts or figures. You can marshal no blistering offense and cannot mount a convincing defense.

    When you see an argument that you disagree with you ought to respond to it with rhetorical strength AND poise.

    What you’ve got right now is without content. There are a bunch of people here who I disagree with completely, but at least I respect their ability to explain(or have) a viewpoint.

  27. bapeeager says:

    I think you are right. But you should cover more on this topic.


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