Photo: ginandtacos.com
Yesterday while I am watching my favorite Sunday comedy show, KCPO’s the FACTS(?), I couldn’t help thinking to myself, who believes this guy? Not the host, but their monthly visitor, Dr.(?) Allen Unruh. He can tell five lies in a single sentence without taking a breath.
The topic of the show was national healthcare, and as you can imagine, Allen is enraged over it. In fact he is so mad that he is hosting a rally at the Fairgrounds where he is bringing in a bunch of speakers (who have made millions off of for-profit healthcare) to speak about how terrible socialized medicine would be (for their pocketbooks).
I’ll admit, it was one of Unruh’s funniest diatribes in a long time. I almost watched the rerun of the show last night just so I could get in a few more laughs. Of course, Allen couldn’t resist bringing up liberty and justice, blah, blah, blah. But the real jist of what he was saying was that people don’t have a right to healthcare unless they can afford it. He blames the government (medicare/medicade) for driving up healthcare costs on the rest of us. Yeah, Allen, it has nothing to do with insurance companies and pharma companies making billions in profits.
But, it gets better. I was searching for the website that has all the featured speakers at his ‘rally’ and I found this site. How ironic that the tea baggers are asking you to donate to their cause – sounds kind of socialistic to me.
What a bunch of hypocrites. It you weren’t so pathetically funny, I might be upset about all of your bullshit.
Makes me wonder if he’s afraid government health insurance won’t cover chiro care.
Oh, I’m sure they will cover Medical Chiropractic care, just not the QuacktorPracktory he practices.
Isn’t this a GREAT country? I mean – even crazy people like the Unruhs – people who suffer so badly from cognitive dissonance and head-up-their-assery can organize silly events!
They get to vote, too!
I thoroughly enjoyed the last TEA party and am looking forward to the July 4th event as well.
I’ll be the one with the sign:
I SHAVED MY NUTS FOR THIS?
I’ll have the sign that says;
I shaved my balls for liberty.
“I shaved my balls for liberty.”
Is she friends with Charity?
No, Justice.
l3wis:
“No, Justice.”
She and I dated once, spent about $400 and didn’t even get a sniff of the promised land. I held my own rally outside her dorm room, spent a couple day chanting:
“No Justice, No Piece” It was all fun until the restraining order and all.
And hey, just for fun. perhaps you could point me to where that “right” to health care has been incorporated into the Consitution? Can’t seem to find it.
It’s in the same place that promises us public education, roads, infrastructure, corporate tax breaks, etc, etc. Maybe you can point out that section.
…water, sewer, parks, air-traffic controllers, police, fire departments, farm subsidies, CDC, FEMA…
The United States Constitution
Article I
Section 8
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes… to pay the debts and provide for the common defence[sic] and general WELFARE…
OIC, it’s in the: “Rights that aren’t really rights, but more of promises made by elected officials that lead the uninformed to believe they can get something for nothing by just electing enough of one certain party to power over another.” section.
Just one more stepping stone on this path:
“All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses, his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.”
Randall:
“The United States Constitution
Article I
Section 8
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes… to pay the debts and provide for the common defence[sic] and general WELFARE…”
Welfare
welfare n. 1. health, happiness, or prosperity; well-being. [<ME wel faren, to fare well] Source: AHD
Welfare in today’s context also means organized efforts on the part of public or private organizations to benefit the poor, or simply public assistance. This is not the meaning of the word as used in the Constitution.
http://www.usconstitution.net/glossary.html#WELFARE
Sy, you are stretching again. I just find it funny that our country is okay with ‘socialist’ roads and public education, but thinks ‘socialized’ healthcare would be a disaster. And who says it would be ‘free’? Our taxes would obvioulsy go up, but if it means 100% coverage and no insurance premiums I think it is well worth it. I guarantee the government will be bombarded with people wanting government coverage if it becomes available. I plan to drop my insurance and go to government care instead.
Just as I think it’s funny that you and those like you think Govt. run health care will be cheaper and better. As a Vet sometime how they like the VA system, know any?
and Education is the same deal, you don’t like the “profit motive” of big Pharma or big Insurance, how about the waste/incompetance associated with the NEA?
We didn’t drop to the middle of the international pack because we haven’t spent enough $$, in fact you can see a correlation between the growth of the influence of the NEA and our decline in testing scores that’s been going on since the ’60s.
Socialized libraries, liquor stores, used to have a socialized cement plant, over 500 plus socialized policing jurisdictions, socialized roads, bridges, sea and airports, socialized parks, etc., etc.
“We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
Single payer is long overdue. My health and its care is not anyone’s “profit”.
I know lots of vets that are very satisfied with the VA. The only vets I ever hear complain about the VA are the rich ones that can afford to have a doctor see them the same day even though the condition isn’t life-threatening. Government care will have it’s problems, but if you think making a profit off of sick people is the best system you need to do some soul searching brother.
Sy…
My point was: Congress has the power to tax and spend as they see fit. If that includes universal health care then it’s not “unconstitutional.”
But, I’m pleased that I made you think a bit – and even do a little research.
Ask a Vet sometime how they like the VA system, know any?
The one I know best gets pretty good care, though he’s on some sort of priority list because he actually saw combat – lots of it.
Any system we end up with will look more like medicare – a base level of coverage with supplimental private plans based on what you need.
l3wis:
“but if you think making a profit off of sick people is the best system you need to do some soul searching brother.”
The only reason our system has advanced as far as it has is because there’s been profit to be made. I personally think that if it takes $100 million and a decade to develop a drug and get it to market that whoever took the risk should get the reward. You choke away that reward and the market will find other avenues for a return, as it always does and will do so without prejudice.
and the VA is a mess, they waste a shitload of money because no one can keep a friggin’ appointment schedule updated:
“An OIG audit determined the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) lacks an effective method to track and report unused appointments, particularly those canceled in advance and those never filled by a scheduler. VHA also needs to implement effective processes to reduce patient “no-shows,†which cost VHA about $564 million annually.”
http://www.va.gov/oig/pubs/VAOIG-SAR-2009-1.pdf
Can’t wait for geniuses like that to be in charge of 1/7th of the Economy.
Randall,
Don’t flatter yourself, my point stands that the founders were talking about the general “welfare” of our populace, as defined above. To try to derive that cradle to grave health care is a “right” that we just haven’t been smart enough or have had the poltical will enough to implement is more of a stretch than Michael Moore trying on Lindsey Lohan’s thong.
Can’t wait for geniuses like that to be in charge of 1/7th of the Economy.
The only people talking about nationalizing the entire health care industry are republicans trying to scare poeple. I would be dead set against such a proposal.
The only thing seriously being batted around is a national single-payer health insurance system, which will look a lot more like medicare than the VA.
Ghost:
“which will look a lot more like medicare than the VA.”
Super, that’s quite the well oiled machine they have now isn’t it:
“According to records seized by investigators, the office staff (who was assured of the patient’s cooperation) used her name to fraudulently bill Medicare for a list of expensive treatment and medications.
Law enforcement officials said it’s just one of the many widespread, organized and lucrative schemes to bilk Medicare out of an estimated $60 billion dollars a year — a staggering cost borne by American taxpayers”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22184921
“The only people talking about nationalizing the entire health care industry are republicans trying to scare poeple.”
They are just beginning to catch on to the fact that this is a pathetic strawman that all but the blindly loyal few aren’t buying.
Now that they’ve figured out that only the few are buying their fictional picture of the proposed reforms their newest talking point is that the private insurance companies won’t be able to compete with a public insurance program, quite the opposite of the prior complaints that government can’t do it as cheap as private industry. They’re pretty much admitting that our current system is inefficient, unsustainable and exists only to rip off those who trust their very lives to it. It’s also painfully obvious that they’re admitting that the current system won’t survive under a free market system with one more competitor in the picture.
As for “the general welfare”: How long can we remain a viable country if we are spending an ever increasing portion of our wealth just to keep us alive, healthy and productive? How many people are collecting disability because they couldn’t afford basic health care that could have headed off what was once a minor health problem? How much productivity are we losing because someone couldn’t afford to treat a minor problem and how much are we all now paying to have that once minor problem treated in the ER?
Health care reform is a matter of economic survival and national security and the sooner we can get rid of this pathetic strawman war the sooner we can get serious and fix this badly broken system. If people don’t like the suggested reforms then please join in on this very serious discussion, we need to hear all voices. But so far all we’re hearing out of our friends on the right is fiction, accusations and weak, slippery slope predictions. If the right doesn’t get serious and join in on an honest discussion they’ll be assured of having no voice at all. This isn’t some silly political power grab, this is the lives of our people and the survival of our country at stake.
“According to records seized by investigators, the office staff (who was assured of the patient’s cooperation) used her name to fraudulently bill Medicare for a list of expensive treatment and medications…”
___________________________________________
Do you think that the private insurance industry is immune to fraud?
http://www.redcounty.com/orange-county/2008/06/oc-attorney-and-accountant-ind/
http://www.iii.org/media/hottopics/insurance/fraud/
http://www.ins.state.ny.us/frauds/fd08hlthrp.pdf
Here’s a great article about the Canadian health care system and how it compares – written by a Canadian living in the US.
http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_12523427
If this is what we end up with, I’ll be happy. If we start moving towards a British style NHS, I’ll go join the teabaggers.
Also, people cheat on their taxes all the time too. Does that mean the IRS is a huge, wasteful mess?
Sy says:
June 8th, 2009 at 8:29 am
And hey, just for fun. perhaps you could point me to where that “right†to health care has been incorporated into the Consitution? Can’t seem to find it.
******************************
As you know Sy one of my children went through cancer. It was nightmarish year for all of us. Luckily, insurance paid nearly all of the expenses that were encountered. Huge expenses were encountered along the way and still prevail today for all the followup care. No matter how good the insurance, it simply does not cover everything. Aside from being a survivor, the kid now gets to fight off collection agencies hounding him for as little $15.00 co-pays.
Now that’s for someone with good health insurance. Millions can afford no health insurance. Tens of millions more have very substandard health insurance. What about them? We both know Shoestring1989. We have both done something to make his life just a little bit more comfortable. I told my wife what I had done for Mark, and also about Falls Community Health Center here in SF where Mark was treated. I told her there was a place for our child had insurance not been an option. She wisely reminded me of the difference in the quality of care one gets depending on insurance vs non insurance. There are millions of people out there like Mark Sy. What about them? Just throwing a sleeping bag and a mealticket at them is not nearly enough. We, as a society are responsible for that Sy.
Snark says:
June 8th, 2009 at 7:26 pm
As for “the general welfareâ€: How long can we remain a viable country if we are spending an ever increasing portion of our wealth just to keep us alive, healthy and productive? How many people are collecting disability because they couldn’t afford basic health care that could have headed off what was once a minor health problem? How much productivity are we losing because someone couldn’t afford to treat a minor problem and how much are we all now paying to have that once minor problem treated in the ER?
Health care reform is a matter of economic survival and national security and the sooner we can get rid of this pathetic strawman war the sooner we can get serious and fix this badly broken system.
*******************
The system is badly broken and needs mending. We can do it. Drugs cost a fraction of the costs in Canada or Mexico. Why is that? I think the dude’s link has at least part of the answer.
BTW. Very good points snark.
Ghost of Dude says:
June 8th, 2009 at 8:57 pm
Here’s a great article about the Canadian health care system and how it compares – written by a Canadian living in the US.
http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_12523427
******************************
Great link dude. More people need to read it, and stop being told about the fear mongering going on.
Using my definition of fraud the problem is far bigger than official estimates.
I am on the fringes of the health care industry working with the elderly and disabled so I have a somewhat detached view of it. I see many gross examples of gratuitous, over testing and treatment. I have known many people who have gone through intensive and expensive surgeries and treatments for cancer or heart disease despite the fact that they are in the advanced stages of Alzheimer’s. In virtually every case that I’ve had the opportunity to talk to the patient’s family they tell a tale of being opposed to the futile treatment but were basically bullied by the doctors through guilt until they agree to proceed. In these cases quantity of life is either unaffected and sometimes even shortened and quality of life is drastically decreased.
In my mind this is not only fraud but just plain cruel and is only one type of example of the health care industry being far more concerned with their own welfare than the welfare of their patients or their country.
In my opinion no health care reform will be successful unless we change the very structure of the health care system. The problem with that is the health care system has an incredibly strong lobby while the patient advocacy lobby has very little monetary influence to battle the big business interests.
It’s time for congress and ourselves to decide whether we should support the interests of every citizen in this country or a relatively small handful of corporate interests. While the right seems to think that the answer is to provide even more freedom and less oversight to those who are blatantly defrauding the system I fail to see how that will do anything but exasperate the problem. Maybe it’s time we quit coddling and enabling these criminals just because they have a bigger voice ($$$) than their victims.
I like the part in the DP op-ed about 31% of healthcare costs being spent on paperwork. I still shake my head about that. One of Gore’s campaign promises in 2000 was to streamline the paperwork system. Dean brought it up again in 2004. And here we are, 9 years later and still nothing done.
From the DP link:
“Myth: There are long waits for care, which compromise access to care. There are no waits for urgent or primary care in Canada.”
and
“Myth: There aren’t enough doctors in Canada.
From a purely statistical standpoint, there are enough physicians in Canada to meet the health care needs of its people. But most doctors practice in large urban areas, leaving rural areas with bona fide shortage.”
That sound like bona fide bullshit to me:
WHY ONTARIO KEEPS SENDING PATIENTS SOUTH
LISA PRIEST
From Saturday’s Globe and Mail March 1, 2008 at 12:45 AM EST
More than 400 Canadians in the full throes of a heart attack or other cardiac emergency have been sent to the United States because no hospital can provide the lifesaving care they require here. Most of the heart patients who have been sent south since 2003 typically show up in Ontario hospitals, where they are given clot-busting drugs. If those drugs fail to open their clogged arteries, the scramble to locate angioplasty in the United States begins.
“They rushed me over to Detroit, did the whole closing of the tunnel,†said Eric Bialkowski, 47, of the heart attack he had on March 14, 2007, in Windsor, Ont. “It was like Disneyworld customer service.â€
While other provinces have sent patients out of country – British Columbia has sent 75 pregnant women or their babies to Washington State since February, 2007 – nowhere is the problem as acute as in Ontario.
At least 188 neurosurgery patients and 421 emergency cardiac patients have been sent to the United States from Ontario since the 2003-2004 fiscal year to Feb. 21 this year. Add to that 25 women with high-risk pregnancies sent south of the border in 2007.
Although Queen’s Park says it is ensuring patients receive emergency care when they need it, Progressive Conservative health critic Elizabeth Witmer says it reflects poor planning. That is particularly the case with neurosurgery, she said, noting that four reports since 2003 have predicted a looming shortage.
“This province and the number of people going outside for care – it’s increasing in every area,†Ms. Witmer said.
“I definitely believe that it is very bad planning. …We’re simply unable to meet the demand, but we don’t even know what the demand is.â€
Tom Closson, the Ontario Hospital Association’s president and chief executive officer, said 30 per cent of Ontario’s hospital medical beds are currently occupied by patients awaiting more appropriate placements, such as assisted living centres, a nursing home, a rehabilitation facility or even their own homes with proper home-care supports.
That squeezes the system at both ends: Patients in intensive care units whose condition improves cannot get into step-down units, and some emergency patients can’t get a bed at all, he said, adding that “everything is jam-packed at the moment.â€
and:
Under that model, patients – and often doctors – are sometimes viewed as a financial drain.
“We keep coming back to the same root cause,†Dr. Day said in a telephone interview from Ottawa. “The health system is not consumer-focused.â€
Patients first learn of the problem when they are critically ill. Jennifer Walmsley went to Headwaters Health Care Centre in Orangeville in October and was diagnosed with a cerebral hemorrhage due to a ruptured aneurysm. That acute-care hospital does not have neurosurgery and no Ontario hospital that does could take her. She was then rushed to a Buffalo hospital.
Headwater’s chief of staff, Jeff McKinnon, said three neurosurgery patients have been sent to Buffalo in the past year. Others have gone to Toronto, Mississauga, Hamilton and London.
Radiologist Louise Keevil said Headwaters has an arrangement with neurosurgeons at other Ontario hospitals to send electronic images for their assessment, but “the limiting factor is availability of beds in their hospital.
“The physicians are very accommodating but their hands are tied by availability of service.â€
Kaukab Usman had a heart attack after a gym workout in Windsor on Dec. 9. She was rushed to hospital and given clot-bursting drugs. When they failed, she was sent to Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, where she had angioplasty on one clogged artery and two stents inserted.
“It was a miracle for me to be alive,†Ms. Usman said in a telephone interview from Somerset, New Jersey, where she is recuperating.
Aaron Kugelmass, director of the cardiac catheterization laboratory at Henry Ford Hospital, said a system is in place to get these patients the care they need expeditiously.
“We try to make their length of stay in the U.S. as short as possible,†said Dr. Kugelmass, associate division chief of cardiology. “If they are stable for discharge, we discharge them to home in Windsor, with clear follow-up plans.â€
Cross-border emergency health care should become less frequent when Amr Morsi, an interventional cardiologist currently in Orlando, Florida, comes to work at Hotel-Dieu Grace Hospital in Windsor in April; a second interventional cardiologist is to come on board there by end of year.
http://www.wlu.ca/documents/29431/EC248_Article_Why_Ontario_keeps_sending_patients_south.pdf
This article was written a year ago, Angioplasty has been around for 30 years and stents have been used for the last decade at least. They are now getting around to offering that service up in Windsor, not some rural outpost, but a MSA of what a half milion or so?
Sy-
Are you going to try to sell that post on Amazon.com?
Like I’ve said before, their system ain’t perfect, but it works 99% of the time. Ours, not so much. If you have decent insurance, it’s a great place to get your medical care. If you have shitty insurance, you could lose your house as punishment for having cancer. There is absolutely no way to justify that. None.
If you have no insurance and no money, everyone else gets to pay for your care through higher medical costs and health insurance premiums, which if you’re on COBRA can cost as much as most peoples’ monthly mortgage payment.
Sy-
Are you going to try to sell that post on Amazon.com?
I’m flattered you feel it has that kind of potential, but no, I’ll stick to second tier sites like this one.
and Dude, 99% of the time? really?
Canada has 1/10th of our popualce and GDP, plus they have nothing comparable to our immigration problem. They’ve had this system in place for decades, yet they still have the wait times that cost their Economy over $14 billion a year.
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20080115/wait_times_080115/20080115?hub=Canada
and Dude, 99% of the time? really?
I’ll stand by that.
Like I said, there is no way to justify someone losing their home because they had cancer and shitty insurance. They may have been treated immediately – or at least relatively quickly – but are now bankrupt. This is wrong no matter how anyone tries to spin it.
Well, GoD, you know how the saying goes, “At least you got your health.”
GoD:
“I’ll stand by that.
Like I said, there is no way to justify someone losing their home because they had cancer and shitty insurance. They may have been treated immediately – or at least relatively quickly – but are now bankrupt. This is wrong no matter how anyone tries to spin it.”
I think spin is something we should always look at while actually assessing the problem, wouldn’t you agree?
“The cost of health care now causes a bankruptcy in America every thirty seconds,” President Obama said at the opening of his White House forum on health care reform just now.
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/03/false-talking-1.html
I think spin is something we should always look at while actually assessing the problem, wouldn’t you agree?
So is a family paying $800 for health insurance every month. Unacceptable – especially when almost a third of that premium goes to pay administrative costs.
The quote you put out was a pretty obvious exagerration. However, if one person goes bankrupt because their insurance didn’t cover their medical bills, that’s one person too many in my book. Maybe I’m just too compassionate for my own good.
Sy, please tell me who is proposing a Canadian style health care system?
“Sy, please tell me who is proposing a Canadian style health care system?”
_______________________________________
That’s what I thought, pure diversionary strawman.
Sorry, Snark…well the Dude for one, his link for two, and Canada has been held out as a model for the US by several on both sides for good & bad reasons. And like the US, they also have had issues with their system, both internal and external.
But, we are talking about adding more than the size of their population(33 mil) to take care of the 40 million uninsured, plus we are going to do this before or without addressing our porous border situation. (all borders, btw). If we’re sticking with “paygo” now, than all that needs to be either discretionary spending (ie earmarks) or in budget with the same amount cut out.
So, I say address the unisured, or at least half of them (20 mil), by getting more insurance competition to small businesses, which are 99% of all businesses. We have 80 employess, we have like 5 options for coverage. Smaller ones have next to nothing, and what they can get is bunk.
If every 1-10 person operation could offer the same health insurance coverage options as a medium or large companies, and those on say the bottom 50% of income could get a voucher per employee from the Govt. to buy the insurance to where it’s mostly or fully funded for them, you’d get the twin economic benefits of reducing unemployment while injecting some seriously needed liquidity into the Insurance industry. Who could actually get back into the business of selling insurance again. Small businesses hiring 1-2 people is what historicaly has pulled our Economy back out of recessions. And if instead of having to choose between spending $10K on a truck or spending $10K to insure the 2 employees, you could do both this year, that would ripple through the economy many times over.
Same type of deal that made Welfare Reform work back in the Clinton Admin., after the Republicans pushed it through. Clinton get’s the credit, and I’m cool giving it to him. Just like I’d be cool with something like what I described above getting passed. You could actually get that done for a number that would look modest compared to the others we’ve seen.
The only real difference between your proposal and Obama’s as I understand it is the choice of insurer used to pick up the slack.
As one of the great unwashed and uninsured I would be thrilled to be able to buy into Medicare. I deal with Medicare/Medicaid patients every day and never hear complaints about their coverage except maybe that they cover too much. I can’t say the same about those who are also using a private insurance supplement. The complaints I do hear are of the abuses from the doctors, something that must be addressed aggressively in order to have any system remain viable.
Aside from the fraud perpetrated by the health care industry, Medicare’s main problem is that it covers only the high risk pool, picking up the slack that the private insurers refuses to carry. If the lower risk pool were allowed to buy into it Medicare would have a much more sustainable business model saving us in taxes not only to support the current inefficient model but also what we are now paying to cover the uninsured via the ER and the increased disability liability that arises from those who are unable to be treated when their health issues were still minor. Right now Medicare is much more of a welfare program for the insurance industry than it is for the population.
The newest talking point coming from the republican congress should tell us something. They are complaining that the private insurance industry couldn’t compete if a public insurer was tossed into the mix. Now we just have to decide what is more important, the survival of an industry that can’t withstand the competition of a more efficient competitor or the health, welfare and survival of our citizens, government, business community and health care industry. To me the answer is obvious.
Sy, I would like to thank you for a reasonable and civil discussion. It’s refreshing after listening to the clowns on the Argus forum.
Back at ya, Snark…your posts always make me think and for that I am fan.
Sy, I would like to thank you for a reasonable and civil discussion. It’s refreshing after listening to the clowns on the Argus forum.
Hey! I resemble that remark.
Hey, I’d like to hear more jokes about Jason Suck-farts. He, and especially that wife of his, are lying ultra-religious crackpots!