Lies the candidates tell

They're probably parsing it in terms of the care you get if you get non-emergency care. Which, we still may not be the best, but at least it's not a laughable statement.

But what do they know? They are all either beneficiaries of socialized medicine for the elect (them), or independently wealthy.

Links?

Karl: The link to the UPI story is at the end of the pull quote.

Recently spent 1 day and night in hospital.
1. Suction container with lots of lovely stuff breeding was never removed from room
2. IV came loose--nurse simply wiggled it back in -- got infection from that
3. Nurse leaned across me with runny, sniffly nose -- got sick a day and a half later
4. Nurse insisted I take pain drug which I did not want -- oh well, slept well
Medical CARE? Yesterday refused to go for hospital stay for asthma/bronchitis -- thank you, I'll stay home.

Hope you sanitized and disinfected yourselves after 4 hours of debates.

Quality health care is a royal pain WITH insurance, what about the 47 million Americans who don't have it. . . Oh, I forgot, get a job that has health insurance. . . oops, sorry, duh!

Now we have a UHC country club study group deciding whats timely and effective. You know Revere just cause you say it doesnt make it so. This is also a very left wing group doing a "study" about OUR system. And then they compare us to France and Oz. Please.

They also are a mainly tropical disease group. Here is a nice little link related to malfeasance in the UK system. I believe its called the killing fields in their system.

http://aftermathnews.wordpress.com/2007/10/13/uk-hospitals-turn-into-ki…

Again, the difference here is that I am not going to have a bunch of elitists deciding what healthcare I get or not. I will make my own decisions and well, if we put it in it will disintegrate right before our eyes as the true costs keep rising and rising. It will be bad enough under Medicare, another lefty program that we cant afford but UHC dooms the country. We might have healthcare but we will get our asses kicked without the military. This pushes us back to the nuclear option only and WADR Revere, I like to have my ground pounders and Navy well supplied and supported.

Truth be known in Iran in 79, we simply didnt have the forces available to do them and it would have put us in direct contact with the Russian border for the first time in history. Jimmy Carter gave rise to your arch-nemesis R. Reagan. If Hillary or Obombme gets in there then we are going to be in a fur ball so fast it will astound you. How does 200 dollar a barrel oil sound, 300? Cant pay for oil with worthless paper. Social programs AND government spending suck the value out of the money. So we have to withdraw as Hillary/Obombme's special interest IOU's and the governments general spending for the military. One or the other will get cut and we know which one under HilBilly. Obombme is an unknown.

It would automatically guarantee the drilling of oil in Florida and the ANWAR. Lots to consider when you say they won the debates. Lets just say there is no clear leader on either side and we really only have to pick the best worst choice on either side instead of making a blanket statement. You are way too biased against Republicans because we are way too biased for religion and the demand that the money that people make remain in their pockets and with a limited government under the Second Amendment to the Constitution and other parts. UHC probably wont pass anyway because we have enough votes to stop it.

You would think that the right to lifers would be all over that and demanding universal health care in order to save 100K souls from perishing too soon. I guess they only count until they are born. Why isn't Huckabee up in arms over all these unnecessary deaths ;)

Revere, you're an MD, right? Judging from Randy's post above, which meds do you think he was off when he wrote it?

Randy: Just because I say it doesn't make it so? LOL. BTW, they are not mainly "a tropical disease group." They are one of the major schools of public health in the world, not a "group." UHC is on the way because big US corporations want it. But feel free to decline it and pay your own way.

Big corporations will want it for the one big payday..... Then they get about a 15% increase in taxes. Then they'll just raise the prices to accomodate that increase and we get soaked in a value added tax program. It will raise gasoline by about 18 cents per gallon. BTW jet fuel is a smooth 5.65 a gallon now.

UHC is dead on arrival into the Senate and if not there in the Supreme Court.

Hey NJ, you know I dont put up personal attacks on people or make assertions that they are on drugs even in jest, especially in someone elses house. How about knocking that crap off? There has been and is way too much of that going on here nowadays and directed at me and others. Its really setting some people off. It puts us off topic and its an ISP violation by all standards.

Revere, this is the same group that forced the UK government to improve services three years ago and it cost them 1/2 billion to do it. Now they are specifically rationing healthcare because they overspent and you dont get a procedure when you need it, you dont get the best medicines unless you can afford both. Just isnt going to happen and even in Canada they wanted to prosecute someone for going outside the country to get help.

Just across town in London one of the finest facilities there said just the opposite of what you are asserting here and I have posted that more than once as links. So we get longer living old people and maybe a few more young ones but those young ones are those that really are already doomed now arent they? They dont have food, they live in substandard housing. They rob and steal to get what they want and when they get shot, we are now going to get to foot that bill too. And we get to pay for the rearing of bastard children that will never amount statistically to anything. So where does it say that I have to be responsible for them? Pass a law, make us all criminals by condition.

We dont need any more of those types and I have to say that the ability to play golf is not what we are supposed to be paying for in Medicare UHC either.

They are simply outliving the system and its going broke and fast. Your answer? Raise taxes. You dont mind paying them. Well good to know that things are going so well for you. There are three states down here that vie for last place in income levels and they are Miss, Alabama and AR and this IS a big deal in the South. I mean secession type stuff because they cant afford it. Why? The states have to make payments into the system too. So where is that money going to come from? They'll simply raise taxes again, and again to cover the shortfalls that will come again and again.

You also assert that this is the coming Messiah of what we should do in healthcare. I firmly disagree. I am no more responsible for paying for someone elses healthcare than they are me. Then there is the limit on who pays. Basically no one in the South is going to pay crap if the limits are set the way they are now. 80 grand for a family of four? Jesus. I dont know anyone BUT me that makes more than 80 grand. Its an auto-layoff if its implemented and I have told my people that I will immediately cut the personnel in half, they will lose their insurance and I wont be paying for any of it except via...income taxes. So the system will automatically be short the first year, big time in the second and then 3, 4, 5 they are going to realize they made a BIG, BIG mistake.

On the other hand if its implemented the haves are going to be responsible for paying for five people right off the pop, then in 2012 when things start going to hell it will be 8 and 2020 its going to be give or take 12. But those haves will be cut down like knives because its going to put all the money into the hands of government. Government is in full control. So they start cutting services and rationing inside of 5 years and thats when the poop is going to hit the rotary grinder. Healtcare simply goes to the devil. We are short 8000 GP's now in Tennessee. Where are they going to come from? There isnt any money to pay for this unless you cut the balls out of the military and that simply isnt going to happen. We cant right now by any stretch of the imagination.

Yep, back to the days of Gimme Jimmy. You remember, the Dow was at 1100 when he started and at 750 when he left. The interest rate was 19% the day he left I believe and that was to good customers. The unemployment rate was 8-12% depending on who you spoke to. In Split the diff at 10. Yep government programs, there arent too many that the libs dont like. But what about those other socialist programs. This is going to put them all in the dirt. There isnt going to be any money at all for it and inflation I bet will be about 8-10% if the Carter years were any example. Pull back on the military, lose a city this next time out.

And thats if something doesnt happen in the Middle East which it will because we wont be able to stop or influence the outcomes. The Iranians want a Hillary or Obombme win.

"the difference here is that I am not going to have a bunch of elitists deciding what healthcare I get or not".
You already don't decide what you get, your insurance company does. On a whim. And you won't find out until after you incur the cost - but in order to get treatment you will have signed something that says no matter what you will pay (including lawyer fees to collect from you if you don't pay). I have been denied benefits after precertification that was provided in writing. I have been denied benefits because my plan covered the doctor but not the facility he practices in even though it's listed as his office address. The last time I called to make sure the respirator for my daughter was covered (she had pneumonia & her pediatrician said it would be cheaper to use it vs going to a hospital), the insurance rep said, "it should be covered, if they deny it, I'll fight for you". Denied. Appealed. Denied. There is nothing elitist about wanting a system that's efficient, uniform and fair.

Of course they get the greatest care in the UK... Just like we do here.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,321409,00.html

Again, the difference here is that I am not going to have a bunch of elitists deciding what healthcare I get or not.

Elitists like doctors, you mean? Or like wealthy white Republicans?

I will make my own decisions and well, if we put it in it will disintegrate right before our eyes as the true costs keep rising and rising. It will be bad enough under Medicare, another lefty program that we cant afford but UHC dooms the country.

Amazingly, sheer ignorance of the numbers seems to be the way forward here. You already spend more of your tax money on health care than they do in France, Germany or any of those other socialist hellholes. You also spend more of your money on private health insurance than any other country. I don't think there's a system in the world that manages to combine the Worst Of All Worlds in quite the same way as the USA. Excessive taxation funding the poor's visits to ERs, a lack of preventative care causing them to go to the ER rather than visit a GP, the lower-middle classes struggling with substandard or non-existent insurance and the upper middle classes dealing with bureaucracies, endless forms and the fact that their health cover is inextricably tied to their job with all the downward pressure on flexibility and competitiveness that brings.

And amazingly, people still defend that? If nothing else, it's certainly cheaper living in a socialist hellhole.

We might have healthcare but we will get our asses kicked without the military. This pushes us back to the nuclear option only and WADR Revere, I like to have my ground pounders and Navy well supplied and supported.

What the hell has this got to do with anything? In a country as reliant on its military boondoggles as the USA, do you really think that it's going to lose some of its massive corporate welfare checks on the first signs of an economic sniffle? I mean, this is beside the fact that I'm absolutely sure there's a spare £100Bn or so kicking around in there. For example, you could not pointlessly invade some little pissant country and then spend five years staying there to try and justify someone's masturbatory power fantasy about bringing "democracy and freedom" to the ignorant savages.

It's very telling that, in a country that spends more than the entire rest of the world combined on its military, that all military expenditures are automatically unquestionably Right and Good and nobody wonders where you're going to get the money, but as soon as you start talking about making sure a lower middle class family doesn't have to struggle if one parent loses their job the wonks come out and, oh no, surely that much expense would just cripple the economy, just cripple it.

If you were spending all that money stockpiling and building up a reserve against an incipient Chinese threat I could almost understand it. It would still be dumb, but it would be comprehensibly dumb. But burning it in Iraq as opposed to spending it on healthcare really does show how monstrously out of proportion the conservative mindset is.

I was going to chip in along the lines of McDuff just above, about the US health system (not about Mr Kruger and the military, whose view points are perfectly clear though I do not share them) and he said it better than I could.

Just to add: The US system, while heavily socialised, is also paternalistic, as employers "pay" for their employees, in flagrant contradiction to US values of personal responsibility, etc. This is odd - overall the health system is incongruent with the general ideology or rhetoric. No doubt that explains much of the confusion, and a general unwillingness to get down to nuts and bolts - costs, waste, health outcomes, etc. in a rational manner.

On another level: US system has managed to break trust, - .. the belief that cooperation and caring are necessary for keeping humans healthy and happy - between the patients, medical professionals, and the various intermediaries (insurers, drug companies, etc.) This is a serious matter which can t be translated into numbers, or only partly so (eg. litigation costs.) How would one calculate the toll of depression that afflicts those who are ill, struggling with impossible payments / situations, bad or partial treatment, etc.? Practically every unhealthy American I ever met was seriously depressed..

The US health care system isn't one of the best in the industrialized world. It is one of the worst.

Only if you believe its primary purpose is actually to provide healthcare. If you think its primary purpose is to make money, it probably is the best in the world.

Dunc, you hit the proverbial nail on the head. Any way a hospital can cut down on service and care in order to raise the profit level, they will do it.
As a person who has lost both parents and one father-in-law to medical mistakes (ALL of them could have been avoided), I know first hand the true cost of profit driven medical care. No matter where the money comes from, be it private insurance payments or government payments, until we take the profit OUT of health care it will still be crappy.

All in all though the system in the UK, Canada, France, Oz all have one thing in common.... crappy service. And just because they tell you will get what you need that doesnt make it so. Nor will it really save any money.

G. Daddy is a pilot right. Under this new system because of the inefficacies of who will pay under a graduated progressive tax, you are going to get several new relatives....About 5 to start off with. Those relatives will not be living with you but more likely the equivalent of your nearby hood. Your tax rate will start to climb for state and federal taxes. When you figure out you wont have anything for retirement because they will have to soak you to pay for the have nots.

This isnt about having something its about a concept. Healthcare is a service, its not a right and its a government takeover. You lost your parents to medical mistakes? How old were they when they died? Were they still in the productive years say below 60? Here is the entire decimation of our system. Social Security will take all the money already, taxes for all that other socialist crap we do in the country will take all the money and now you are going to give the US government whatever else is in your pocket because someone else thinks it belongs to them. This will kill the economy because there aint but just a small part left for you to live on.

By the time we figure it out if implemented it will be just like Tennessee and now Oregon.... cant pay for it and it creates a welfare state that people move to just to get the benefits. Let 30 million Mexican illegals move into that system and we are done.

Its just math, its not health insurance. Its just communism in a different form. They want us all subservient to the system and the limited government clause along with 13 other issues will likely make it unconstitutional.

Here is a news flash. Put in health care in the UK in a browser search. EVERYDAY they are banging something over there about it. Same here under insurance and its all because someone says that we OWE someone else insurance. Bullshit.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/glasgow_and_west/6903799.stm

Here is one where the UK is trying to get this ....privatize their healthcare and only provide basic services. Why? BECAUSE IT COSTS TOO MUCH!

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/jacky_davis/2006/06/jackiedavisnhs…

How about a system G. that will remove your ability to sue when you get that same crappy service as the government pulls back. You need a gall stone removed. Fine. Get in line. You there in the back with the terminal cancer... the system doesnt cover that new drug. You have to wait until we evaluate it.... You will be long gone of course.

Over here. We are the drug companies. Since we dont have a lot of customers, we are going to raise the rates to the one big assed customer and game the system. We will of course do this each and every year and you will have to raise taxes but this takes this to a fixed cost and fixed supply system. They will know what to get each year and they will simply with hold it until they get what they want for it.

We have to have it? Too bad because even under the UK system and Canada they can wait you out for services, and procedures and general healthcare. They dont have to do squat except take our money to fill the the pool that will always inevitably be empty.

Its a disaster. People die just like G.'s parents everyday in the UK and thats the reason they fly to Orlando to get health care they cant get in their own country. This is some bullshit story that they are fabricating to make us just little comrades under a communist system. Its just like the Jimmy Carter Energy Department that we are spending 34 cents per gallon to fund.....We have to have it. But in the same breath we are STILL waiting for that energy to show up. We need to do something with healthcare but dont tell me that I have to pay for someone elses problems. Just think about government funded abortions. How you gonna walk that one thru Congress?

Yep, its going to be a debaucle for sure. Sue, you think its any different in the UK. Your daughter would be triaged and given drugs, and maybe that ventilator and sent home. She isnt sick enough. The provision in Conyers bill is for the complete takeover of the system. They simply tell the hospitals they are going to be bought out.

There are systems that want to prosecute you for seeking outside UHC help. Jail for going to Orlando.... you think they give one big crap about your kid in government? Insurance companies are profiteers. You buy into. Government though will take the healthcare system and TELL you what you are going to get. If you die waiting then its an equally dead all around system. So if everyone is suddenly equal, the guy that THEY think is ahead of you because of condition knocks your daughter out of the queue and she dies its tough luck.

Most people havent seen what it does to have government into their lives in an all ecompassing way. They make all decisions for you in this respect. Reveres 23 year old clerk makes the decision now. Its the same 23 year old who after you fill out a bunch of paperwork to GET what you want puts you into a line. Great if you have cancer. They dont want cancer patients because they are considered to be the major drain. Too much to treat, too little resultant outcomes. Palliative care for them and hospice.

Listen we can go around and around on this. Its a service and not a right. You make it a right and someone is going to have to pay for it and when that till goes finally dry you'll see a collapse of it just as we did here in under five years of implementation under TennCare. A billion dollars in debt in under five years in a state with 6 million people. Do that math and tell me what you come up with.

The Republican candidates' message was the US has such superior health care we shouldn't do a thing to change it. It might result in a system that's not the best in the world.

Too late for that.

Sad news! It will be interesting to see if we ever can turn it around!
Dave Briggs :~)

I'd like to get back to the drugs Mr. Kruger is supposedly on - maybe a little of that Tennessee ditch? I do not think that trying to understand what motivates completely ignorant, maniacle, paranoid thinking violates any blogging standards.

I agree with McDuff, it's about priorities. It's also about incentive systems, politics, power, and hypocracy. We can become healthier as a nation, but, at this point, we can not do it in a way that does not feed the current infrastructure. That's a reality. We'll see what happens in the next two years.

Uuuhhhh, Randy? I didn't say you were on drugs. I implied you were not on the on the ones that had been prescribed for you. Since you don't seem to get around much, you should know that saying someone is "off their meds" is a common response to people whose writings are, well, illucid.

As for the "someone else's house" comment, if Revere thought it was out-of-bounds, he/she could have said so: you aren't the comment Staatspolizei. And if you think a mild insult like that was

really setting some people off. It puts us off topic and its an ISP violation by all standards.

boy, oh, boy, do you have a lot to learn.

So let me be simple here. Your posts are wack. In a discussion of health care, you have meandered to Iran in 1979, oil drilling in ANWR and off the Florida coast, the 2nd Amendment, referred to Obama as Ohbombme (no personal attacks, huh?), Jimmy Carter and socialism, income levels in the South, and tied it all together with choppy sentences, run-on sentences, sentence fragments and badly spelled words.

It may all make sense in your mind, but out here, you're are just a crazy person. Now go back to whining about evolution, or the Trilateral commission, or catching Teh Gay from doorknobs, or the CIA and mind control rays, or whatever else you guys rail on about.

Look NJ. I dont do drugs, I dont take drugs. I dont have any that are prescirbed either.

You can call me crazy if you want but DONT ever again say that I take drugs or make the allusion that I do or have. I spent about 5 years in drug interdiction in Central America and saw a lot of people die because of it. NJ. That really pisses me off.

We understand each other?

I again direct you to the slander and libel section of the US code and state laws and the provisions of every ISP out there.

Barack Obama is a public figure and he is the one that falsely said that US troops were strafing and bombing civilians. That is a complete lie and he knew it when he said it. He is also the one that admits to taking illegal drugs.

And back to the post NJ. Here is the reason we will HAVE to drill the Anwar, Florida and the Gulf. When government spends money inflation rises. We will contribute to a UHC system but it wont pay for itself. Never has. If you had been here a couple of weeks ago you would have seen that even the London College freely admits that rationing is inherent in both systems. One by ability to pay, the other the ability of government to tax.

With a runaway inflation rate the only way to stop the hemmoraghing is to cut the cost basis. That is foreign oil. Everything we do is directly related to oil and indirectly the energy from it. If the OPEC doesnt take our paper and/or the paper is worth so little, the only way to stop the outward flow is to internalize the costs and that means domestic oil. This is about the lies that candidates tell.

Here is the biggest one. We must cut our dependence on foreign oil... Thats a mantra of the Democrats and has been for two decades. Its not off base. On the other hand we are sitting on huge oil reserves off the coast of the US and the one way to stop dependence on oil is to drill our own. The eco-nuts tried to stop the Alaska pipeline and by one vote it passed. The result? The end to the oil embargo by the Arabs. Two of them in fact.

https://content.nejm.org/cgi/reprint/349/25/2461.pdf

Here is a multi-peer paper by NEJM on the subject and it outlines pretty well what UHC problems are against private insurance. They both suck because on one hand one is starved for money at all times. The other is that depending on the provider the other is starving money from the system in lieu of profiteering.

In reference to the Jimmy Carter days right or wrong he was saddled with the woes of three previous administrations. One of which was Johnsons Great Society that he tried to put into place while we were in the middle of a war. A much larger war to boot. One that I was drafted for but never went. But four years later I found myself in the military as a volunteer. I have seen things that would make a goat puke. I served in four theaters and quite frankly when you are in a war, the last person you want at the helm is a liberal because it becomes first a Clintonite love in and then a Kerry/Obama you are strafing women and children. My position on wars are simple. Kill them all. They dont get back up. If they are good ones, you do what you can to support them. If they are bad ones and there is a big definition of that (Osama was OUR boy during the Russian invasion), enough to call into question the whole thought processes.

But we are presented with a major dilemma now. Social Security is insolvent again. Answer....Raise taxes. Medicare will have 12 people in their system in ten years for every 1 thats not. Answer....raise taxes on everyone including the seniors who wanted to play golf until they died. Now they are greeters at Wal-Mart.

Now we get to UHC. Unfunded mandate that will because of levels and limits will initally offer the world to everyone (Medicare) but end up delivering substandard care. It also will be perpetually broke. And here is the big earth shaker for Revere and the others that want it deeply. I respect their desire to improve healthcare for the poor, but it hasnt changed a thing in any of the countries in question that have it. The UK is seeking actively now to privatize their system. There will be no new grant monies, there will be no new research. Why should they fund anything because now the only way to produce anything new in that field will be to tax, tax, tax. Then because costs spiral out of control, we have inflation and sooner than later on this the economy shuts down. Its all based on income taxes here. Cant sit back and just say the corporations want it. They have to have customers and there wont be any if the money is all taken up supporting people who wont support themselves. I categorically exclude people who have no other way to get healthcare. But the government insurance is nothing more than pissing it down a well. A pine box full of money and the simple epitaph would read, "Here lies Joe. The government spent XXXX just to put him into a pine box after 72 years."

You add illegals to the system and it will crash even more quickly.

So you see NJ its all interconnected and either you dont agree or you dismiss it. I want the US to become very nationalistic in its approach in the near future because if we dont we are going to lose this nation permanently. The only way to ensure we dont is to strictly enforce the Constitution. That would also be part of the interconnectivity.

BTW-your last comments are taken. I will be sure to run my posts by you for grammar and spell-checks from now on. Thats another lib idea... We are better than you.

There is a difference between the big picture and snapshots. The libs always feel that its the problems first rather than America. I am a conservative but very middle of the road. Sometimes you just have to belly up to the bar and do whats right for the majority rather than the minority. Pretty tired of minority problems as a rule.

The basic facts are out there. The US spends more per capita than these 19 industrialized nations and yet the care is worse (at least in aggregate).

Yet, many genuinely are reluctant to change. Why? The answer could be simple ideological paranoia. OR maybe it's that all this money is really, mostly spent on a few that get very good care while many get little care. The average care is poor, but the very bi-modal. Certainly, those with good care may not want to lose something good they have so others can gain.

By George, you have it. I dont want to change because it will lower my standard of care in lieu of someone else and simply because they think they are ENTITLED to it. To boot I have to pay for them to have health insurance and not healthcare. The idea is that someone else would pay for me is ludicrous. 1/3rd of America doesnt have health insurance because they cant afford it. Guess what, they surveyed those poor Americans and all but .05 percent had HBO and Cinemax.

New law. If you dont have health insurance but you have HBO then you are not entitled to it. You have to dump one in lieu of the other. Sorry.

Those seniors who want it and the poor who can get healthcare now just want their cake and to eat it too. This isnt free and it never has been and never will be. You give up one side of your life to participate in this and that is control of it by government.

Prior to 1940 less than 3% had healthcare insurance. Then we did and it was an accepted employment benefit. Now its a liability to corporations who are trying desperately to compete in the world with those who DONT have it. E.g. GM and Ford would get a one time windfall of about 3 billion each. Then blop, they gotta pay new taxes to pay for all of the new "Entitlements". Guess the should have thought that one thru a bit.

Whats next after substandard healthcare is taken on? Substandard housing? Lets build them a house too for free and lets use someone else's wallet to do it. Ah, just sock them some more.

Ideologically paranoid? How about a bit more informed on what really is happening in those other countries. And the bottom line is that as that age of survival increases, so do the costs and tremendously at that. We are an already older nation. Now we go to UHC in the face of totally not being able to pay for it. Come up with real answers on how to pay for it other than I'll get more for less. Uh-huh. Says who? That hasnt happened and the shiny example is the UK snow bunnies that head to Orlando every year to get themselves fixed.

So the supposition is that quality and quantity will increase as a result of UHC. We go from excellent healthcare for some to poor healthcare for all. Its all based upon an assumption that UHC is the bomb and that health INSURANCE is a right. We already have a huge UHC going on now... Medicare and the VA and we all know how well those two are functioning. You know, those two things are run by ...government. Revere has commented frequently on how well it functions. Such well run systems. Lets extend that to everyone in the US. It will just produce more older people that are marginally able to contribute if at all. That will be a constantly diving number so by the time my kids have their own children they'll be paying for co-insurance that the two-tiered system will be alive and well in the US. The poor get it in the tail again.

Its all about how much money is pumped into it. They cant get that money from 1 guy thats going to be getting in the shorts already from the 12 people for just Medicare in ten years. So they'll be taxing retirees and the SECOND that someone doesnt get a procedure, medicines or something like that, they'll be suing the USGovernment thus raising taxes again when they win. UHC is the universal hose connection to everyones wallet. A permanent cash cow for government that they can steal from anytime they want. I have been paying SS in taxes since 1972. If I had stopped at age 35, taken all the money and put it into the markets and used the average increase I wouldnt have to worry about a thing. My money would be worth a little over 950,000 now based upon the average increase.

Rationing from one end of the spectrum to the other. At least I get to make my own decisions with insurance and its a known problem. This other will ensure we all get socked with a 20% increase in taxes overall and burn the economy. It is a round robin approach to a problem. We put it in and then it takes us out. This is supposed to make sense?

More for less? How about less and less for more and more. Just hit the start button and more and more begins.

I have been forced to come to the conclusion that "Kruger" is actually an inbred, nuclear family, of roughly thirty-five people...all of whom are certifiably nuts. The Government keeps them confined in the Vice President's antiterrorism bunker, where they are collectively chained to computer keyboards; and, along with an uninterrupted diet of "patriotic" martial music ("Rambo" plays, in a perpetual loop, on a huge IMax screen), each of them is intravenously fed massive amounts of psychoactive drugs(they're not black, so they're not administered placebos for syphillis) . At six month intervals they are transported to Guantanamo Bay, for R-and-R; there they are allowed to water-board as many prisoners as they wish. Their health care plan, provided -- cost free -- by the "Government," consists of a second iv setup, for their other arm (even more potent psychoactive drugs; taxpayer supported, of course); personally administered by Chuck Norris.

Jesus Christ, Randy...lighten up!

What happened to all the MRK apologists that were defending his irrational doomer positions last week? It seems to be a classic case of cherry-picking his positions to determine his sanity.

Dearest M.,

You can call me crazy if you want but DONT ever again say that I take drugs or make the allusion that I do or have...

We understand each other?

I again direct you to the slander and libel section of the US code and state laws and the provisions of every ISP out there.

As I said,

you should know that saying someone is "off their meds" is a common response to people whose writings are, well, illucid.

I'd dearly love to see the expression on a judge's face when you try to explain that a popular euphemism expressing a personal opinion of someone's sanity is in fact a libelous claim.

So, aside from your post threatening me, you have spit out something like 300 words trying to explain your position this evening. But like I said before, your work is illucid. It reads straight out of crank.net.

I also note that you refer to me as a "lib", apparently because I pointed out that your writing shared many characteristics with the works of other Internet cranks. The fact is, nothing I said can actually allow for the correct determination of my political leanings. And I don't think that I am better than you, just saner. Hence I referred to you as being "off your..."

Ooopsie!

Dylan- With all due respect I dont want to trade a fucked up system where I have a choice not to buy insurance, for one thats even more fucked up, under government control and I get a brand new nuclear family for which I have no relationship to or for. It starts under UHC with a family of five, that increases to 12 by the time I get to retirement in about 20 years. Oh we will be living large then.

By the way. Didja know that the people in Mass now have to PROVE they have health insurance to get a job? Their disaster is just starting. Unemployment ticked up to 5% in December? Its been in since July-ish. A jump of .6% in under a month from November to December and a full percentage point since July-ish. I make it to be close to 7% by March... Not cost effective to do business in the state. I have been watching the Globe there and the public notices and the bankruptcies are cranking right on up... Businesses that is.

And Dylan thanks for your assessment of the family problems that I have. They are of course completely wrong, fatuous and if you are under 35 then you havent covered near as much ground as I have in the last 32 years since high school and college. I hold two aviation BS's and insane people are everywhere in my busines.

But, I stood in Honduras, Grenada, Saudi Arabia and in the Horn of Africa. Everything you say has a tinge of reality to it. I and quite a few others believe that we are under full blown attack by those who would drag this country down. Its the politically correct who think that I give one big rats crap about what the rest of the world thinks. We are a violent and irrational people in the US. Yep, dont piss us off is what I always say. But we have to be insane to go after people in Iraq....Right? How many people do they need to kill? Its a bad position?

I think not? Except for a beam in the first attack in the 90's the WTC's would have happened on WJC's watch. The first shots in this war were fired then. Waterboarding?I would cut a terrorists gonads off with pinking shears attached to a 220 line if I thought it would produce viable information to prevent attacks. Guess what? They would do the same to us.... How about bombing the UN HQ in Iraq. Now whats wrong with that? They must just be disaffected and pissed off at the US. The response here? I mis-spell words.... Not really, I just dont use Word to post up, or spell checker and this keyboard sticks sometimes.

There are those here that are so far left that the yellow pole is a faint memory off of the third base line. Those are the ones that scare me. Elitists who think that George Soros and the Clintons are the answer to their problems. There are those that are so far right that the same applies Sitting around and calling me a doomer, irrational, illucid, someone that would be in charge of Al-Ghraib, waterboarder, asshole, etc.etc. it doesnt bother me at all.

Its the auto-response from the left though. Push the button. Be ready for the response from them. Its always in the same vein. I must be stupid or something if I dont agree with the left. To disagree with the left that would destroy the military in lieu of health insurance is a sin in their eyes. How could I say no? Its easy. Its under the second amendment and it states that a militia as "being necessary to the security of a free State". It also applies to the supremacy clause in the body of the Constitution. All powers not given directly to the US Government reside with the states. The states are the people and in varying degrees of insanity in their own niche's. UHC will take that right away and you become subservient to the government. If I am irrational not to want that, or if that makes me insane then the Founding Fathers were all nutcases too. Herein lies my problem with the libs. They dont want us to have guns even though its in the constitution and bill of rights. They just up and well, we will just override it. They want UHC but they formulate nothing except to take more taxes to pay for it without consideration for what it will do to the country. We dont need more older people. We need dead older people. UHC extends their lives. Great! Then what and to what end? Substandard nursing homes and it will be the one single all consuming issue if we put it in. Why? Because there wont be money for anything else in government and certainly outside of it.

Now you might understand a little more closely to what I am referring to. Demise of the country via taxation. We have no money for anything other than UHC in 10 years, or Social Security, or other social programs. Its as they say, "the economy stupid." Thats not a slam Dylan. But if the economy goes south it will be because they raise interest rates after they hit us with taxes and they spend it. The old two dollars for every one spent to account for it. 23 yr old clerks in the government are going to be making the same medical decisions as they are now.

LIke I said. Toss one fucked up system for another fucked up system. It doesnt make sense.

Sweet Jesus Palomino!

I guess the appropriate solution to our health care problem is "Kill Them All."

Wenchacha-No, not really. How's this? For once government needs to do nothing. De Nada, zilch. Its as I said, how can we afford to keep even Medicare and Social Security going if someone doesnt hit the dusty trail? Everyone is living longer past retirement age. Do we add two whole generations to this?

Its hard to think about but I will fit into that category in 20 or so years. I am a tail end boomer. Its not hard in thought, but it is harsh. The boomers didnt follow thru with someone to pay for their health and retirements in the form of children. Its a self correcting problem though in 30 to 40 years for sure. They will be gone for sure then, but due to economic conditions our children very likely will not have enough kids to support them either. Catch-22?

One answer IMO is to open the doors to Europe and other countries again for immigration as they did from 1875-1928. All applicants would have to be 38 or less, have children or be able to have them?

Randy wrote:
" Since we dont have a lot of customers, we are going to raise the rates to the one big assed customer and game the system. We will of course do this each and every year and you will have to raise taxes but this takes this to a fixed cost and fixed supply system. They will know what to get each year and they will simply with hold it until they get what they want for it."

I am an Australian GP. Our PBS pharmaceutical GOVERNMENT subsidy system is envied by the world. You see, we have a buyer monopoly. So the buyer has the power, (the evil SOCIALIST GOVERNMENT) not big pharma, and it can set the price it is willing to pay. If you have a health care card (for people on low incomes)you pay $4.40 per prescription. Most folks pay about $20-30 per prescription with a safety net for the chronically ill so they do not pay over a certain amount per year.

Big Pharma don't like it, but they have no other choice. The people and the government save money.

Every day I fall on my knees and thank God I am in this health care system and not America's.

To each his own AttilaB......

If you think Big Pharma is the problem, stick around. We are already thousands of docs short that wouldnt normally see the poor because of the insurance to socialism thing just in the State of Tennessee. The meds as a rule arent made there, its somewhere else. If their magins get socked in the US, plan on an increase there. This is my problem with this in a capitalistic society. They will use it for control. I can also assure you that the median age in Oz is not what it is here. There arent enough little payees for the future. The end result is retirement homes, government run because the people here wont be able to afford anything else. They will get their S. Security check, it will be taxed heavily just so they can live in a government retirement home.

Re: the pharmaceuticals. Thats about what I pay now... under my insurance plan. You know, thats the one that I had the choice to purchase or not. This is the divergence we will hit and inflation will go runaway here. But this is an experiment. They have to have a mandate to make it work and that means it becomes part of the taxation system.

Voluntary? It will never work if it is. Buyer monopoly? What do you do if they dont want to sell it to you for that price? Beg? Threaten a takeover? Hey thats what Conyers bill here states. Government control of all medical care. Crime if you practice outside of their system.

AB- I dont know anything but what I read about UHC and every country is cutting back services, and /or raising taxes to cover the shortfalls. The threat is a 1984 but dont worry about that. The civil war will start long before that.

The UK and Australia are both looking at managed care rather than UHC in their futures. You might be enjoying that system now. But what if the reverse is that you end up with a system thats more like ours? Why would they be suggesting it except for the costs of dealing with all of the older people. Them suckers are living longer after retirement. Now theres the unexpected. But living longer and being productive has to be equated into years and days rather than decades. How many people actually work past 65? The ones that still are paying off their houses is who.

But its all about the illusion that healthcare is not here for those who need it. Its for those who feel that government should be the insurance company for all things. Yeaks.... Remember Katrina and Rita? Then by the same token you get into the cradle to the grave business and thats flat communism. There is also the misconception that its free. Far from it.

Should people here have to be totally destitute to get health insurance via Social Security or state run programs? Well thats a states rights issue. Each state is different but what Hillary wants to do is federalize this and it gives the Congress a brand new cash cow to steal from. Think not? They have done it from EVERY intake program that was ever incepted and not GB2 either. They have done it since Roosevelt. But its more the Congress. They write the IOU's for the country and apart from the human suffering involved BF would solve a tremendous number of problems for us in the future. Otherwise they better get used to getting paid in a lot of worthless paper money.

I will never see a viable S. Security, Medicare or state run program. It simply costs too much. Enjoy your system while you can.... They are talking about taking it to managed care now. Now why would they do that?

And when they can tell you what to do with your body....they have full control.

http://news.scotsman.com/latestnews/Victory-in-organ-donor-campaign.366…

I suppose it's difficult responding as I'm not familiar with many of the specific issues you face in your political and economic system. It is very difficult for me to understand why the US could not get a better and more efficient health care system if they increase the proportion of health care given by the public sector. Our mixture of private and public health care has a much bigger proportion of taxpayer funded spending and yet we pay much less for much better and accessible health care.

"Re: the pharmaceuticals. Thats about what I pay now... under my insurance plan. You know, thats the one that I had the choice to purchase or not. This is the divergence we will hit and inflation will go runaway here. But this is an experiment. They have to have a mandate to make it work and that means it becomes part of the taxation system.

Voluntary? It will never work if it is. Buyer monopoly? What do you do if they dont want to sell it to you for that price? Beg? Threaten a takeover?"

Just curious, does your insurance plan cover medications like cholesterol lowering drugs? BP meds? Chemotherapy for cancer?

In regards to the buyer monopoly, most medications have various equivalents by other drug companies, so if one company was to refuse to pay the price offered, another would step up and accept.

In regard to an "opt out" system of organ donation, I think it's wonderful! The implications speak for themselves. So many lives saved, so much less good kidneys going up in smoke. But you still have the option to have your body saved for the fire or the worms if you wish.

In a democratic country, the "government" is not some evil conspiracy against the people. It is flawed, but much of it actually consists of a system to make life better for all of us by doing things that we all need that are impossible or inefficient for private enterprise to do.

Attilabulbiller: It isn't necessary to respond. Randy (MRK) always says the same thing. He has an obsession about "socialized medicine." His views are irrelevant as universal health care is on the way because it will improve the health of the country and is favored by the business community. Ideologues will lose this battle -- at long last. But it will still take time. Meanwhile, thank your lucky stars you live in a country with decent medical care, not one like the US where medical care is at a developing world level of access (and often quality) except for the well off.

Attila-Yep my insurance covers this and more. Its because I pay for it. This program will create a two tier system and poor people will end up on the bottom rung of the ladder... But hey they are covered. Uh-huh.

I have wonderment in why the premiums keep rising and whats covered keeps dropping in Medicare. Revere just keeps hammering away that this is the cats meow. He never addresses the numbers. I am a Republican.... we like numbers and would never jeopardize the country for an experiment that has failed at state levels now some four times. Its another disincentive program that sounds good to the liberals. But they put this up and they say "gotta have it" but they never have a way to pay for it other than from the productive Americans.

You see Revere and AB, your suggestions dont square with the facts that both OZ and the UK systems are going broke. They are broke nearly every year, but never in the first year post of a tax increase or premium increase. It also doesnt square with the fact that their citizens are climbing onto planes and flying to the US to seek care that they cant get from their own systems.

If the systems are working so well then explain that to me and everyone else, please. WHY IS THAT? In spring and fall of every year the UK snowbunnies arrive and flood the hotels and hospitals in Orlando. Thats where Virgin Atlantic flies into. Its not for Disney either. Please, do explain. I am not being snarky but I do want to know WHY they are showing up here. Same applies to Canada. They load up the border hospitals at those times. No one has ever explained that to me.

We pay a lot for drugs here, but then we end up there in Canada and Mexico to buy those that are exactly the same thing here to pick them up cheap. Now if they are the same manufacturer and its the same stuff and we go to UHC it would mean that we have been subsidizing everyone via our costs here. What if that goes to UHC? It likely means your costs in the socialized systems will go up. Or will they be taking that over too? Congressman Conyers UHC bill makes a provision for the complete and total takeover of the healthcare system and that includes hospitals. Those are private entities. Communism is the end result. The all encompassing US Government that already does such a great job at everything.

This is a operation in semantics. Communism is what it is under socialized medicines cloak. They have turned healthcare into a percieved right and not what it is, its a service. They seek to put government in control so that all people can have health insurance. But its really about the cash cow. So its really health insurance they seek with the perception being that it will always be free and no copays. They'll be bitching when the costs outrun the intake and the copays rise like a rocket.

The problem is that the idea that the government becomes the net for everything. That IS Communism.

Obsessed? Oh Hell yeah. I want to make sure that this country survives what is coming. In five years, healthcare will be so far at the bottom of the list that it might not even be listed. Once the true cost of such a system in our particular society come to bear, they will dump it. That is if its not ruled unconstitutional via the mandatory participation requirement to make this happen. Massachusetts's requires proof that you have health insurance to get a job now. So their unemployment rate has ticked up almost a full point since July when it was put in. Part economics, part because its too expensive to work there. So it leaves the elitists in place. They push the crap off into New Hampshire and Conn, and Rhode Island where they can live off the grid.

Here is the major difference Attila. Our system is one of choice. 68% who say they cant afford heath insurance have HBO/Cinemax and they also have a computer connection. They also live in an owned home. They also drive a car, but they cant afford health insurance? They can also get health care if they cant get health insurance and that is free or graduated but they refuse to buy insurance or dump certain things to get it. They all want a net that they dont have to pay for but they dont understand the ramifications of such a system. If its such a good idea our two main already well operated UHC programs of Medicare and VA care would be doing so much better now wouldnt they? Soldiers from off the field cant get the care they need and Revere has posted this up many times. That is fully government controlled and its part of a money pool that government decides what will go into it, even though they take the money in via taxes. They create the pool and then they will wade in it. They cant steal from Social Security any longer.

Need to cover a new weapons project? Need to cover a new expressway...screw the people who paid in for healthcare. Raise the premiums and cut services. All of this has already happened in EVERY UHC program.

There are also massive costs that are out of pocket under Medicare that are NOT covered that have to be borne by someone least able to afford it... A retiree. They are also starting to cut back on what they will pay for by procedure and name of drugs. Generic costs are rising....

Our tax system also is based on graduated income rather than what I think it should be and that is a flat tax on everything. The idea being of redistributed wealth rather than equality for all. There arent enough millionaires out there to pay for this. I have a neighbor who is 75, quit working at 65 had a heart attack just before Thanksgiving. He was in the hospital for 41 days. His out of pocket? 28,000 bucks. He has no way to pay for it other than to sell his house, or to pay them off via his S. Security check. He owns his home, its worth about 1.5 million. Worked all his life, paid into the vaunted social system and then when it comes time to pay back it doesnt cover it. It doesnt even come close. He is by definition a millionaire but only if he sells his house to cover the shortfalls. He will be terribly inconvenienced? So these that think this is free are full of crap. In all reality he will be infirmed for another year or so, then his second one will come. Totally invalided. Home health care. Hospice can only be down the road. Criteria for this are slipping too. They dont want you in the hospital... it costs too much.

Medicare costs have skyrocketed in the last 15 years and now they have to double their premiums this year to start to cover the shortfalls. Even though they cant afford it seniors have to start to decide whether again to eat or have health care. This is the crux of the matter. Truth be known, most people at my age will never see S. Security or UHC. Both will become such minimal systems that people if they have the right will opt out of it completely. Hell, its what I recommend now. Put everyone on notice that everyone born after January 1, 2008 that Soc. Security will be paid into until they are 35, after that gone. Same with Medicare. After the next 35, no Medicare. VA-automatically make it a cost of care service. Whatever it is, is what it costs to fix these guys. The DoD BEFORE they pay for any systems or weapons they have to pay to take care of these people. Might end up with better weapons and protective gear as a result.

Here is a link to a group that wants to preserve Medicare. Understand that this is a biased group.

http://www.ncpssm.org/news/archive/2008_medicare_premiums/

It clearly states that there will be only a 2.3% increase in the cost of living (COLA) but their premiums will double to pay for the rising costs of UHC Medicare. Their numbers, not mine. This puts what I have said before many times into perspective. The COLA will adjust upwards as government takes the money from them, then they spend two dollars accounting for the money they took, then they give it back to them as health insurance and Social Security. Inflation can be the only result. Thats basic high school economics.

Coupled up with a constant war state that regardless of issue right or wrong is there and sucking up more money yet it absolutely will be inflationary. They will raise taxes because they are spending too much, they will then raise the interest rates because they are spending too much. High taxes and high interest rates will result in a dead economy and no way to pay for the programs, so they raise taxes again and deepen the recession.

The other part of this is that the OZ system is pushing towards managed care... so why all the fuss Attila? Not a slam but I didnt go into this thought process unprepared. I read constantly. I have multifunction displays on my computers and it allows me to run four to six screens at once along with Windows in each. So the net is up, the weather, the UHC news, browser searches and so far I have only seen cons to the question. Costs, Costs, Costs to government. What has happened to individual responsibility on this planet?

Understand that I see that people get healthcare under those UHC systems. They do here too.There is also a public sentiment that this is free. Its not. The suggestion is that I would pay for someone else, and they for me. Far from it under our system. Thats evidenced by the graduated income tax system.

There is still a big problem with UHC. It still doesnt square with the facts and that is that the health insurance at all costs types are demanding that everyone participate. I am all for a fully government run indigent health care program. We have one now. I am not though for a system that demands that I participate in what becomes the downfall of the US. It will consume all money and the economy with it. Social programs are great but the ones that push them through never have a way to pay for them except thru taxation. The assertion-It makes their lives easier.... Be sure to tell that to someone in China. They have UHC.

As for the opt-out this shouldnt even be a question. Assumption of agreement by government is one of the reasons the US became a country. It is an invasion of a persons life. All rights not given to the federal government remain with the states, and the states are the people in them. You are looking at it only as a doctor, not as a person who has the right to not even have to say no. Whats next on that one? Mental patients being harvested like a corn crop?

Note the cuts to state healthcare

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/01/11/MNCUUD91O.D…

Randy: What's your point? I would think you would be pleased by this. How much we want to pay for health care is a political decision and if the voters like it/don't like it they can speak to the Governator at the ballot box. They can do what they do now, buy their own insurance or pay for their own docs. If we cut defense spending (and I hope we will cut the goddam heart out of it) what does that mean? That the military is socialized defense? (which it is, of course). What's the point you are making? That health care is expensive? Duh. So is the military and the police and fire and IATA and the FAA and highways. Duh again.

Here are a couple of points. First is the state of CA doesnt have a military other than their NG units. Paid for by at 80% by the federal government so there's not a lot of cutting there. So no military there to cut.

Its not a political decision for the time being, its a personal one. They were planning to expand it, now they find that particular potato in the hopper at a minimum of 2 billion in the hole. The military is socialized defense. You will find that in the Constitution but not entitlements and then especially Federal health insurance. Health care is expensive, in fact in CA its one of the largest if not the largest cost for the state. It will tip over in a year or two for sure as being the biggest if their own projections come to bear.

The fire and police are states issues and the Federal government doesnt control them. So thats one argument out. The IATA is the International Air Transport Association and the FAA controls air traffic and have nothing to do with the issue at hand and that is that CA has spent themselves into a 15 billion shortfall for all budgets. 2-4 billion is arguably health insurance for the poor. Now they have to raise taxes and the rationing has already begun. The docs and hospitals are running 90 days to get paid. Thats my point Revere.... How long do you think this system is going to last in a huge state as big as CA when they cant pay for it now?

They were talking about expanding it, now they are trying to reduce it. To fix the problem, the first answer? Taxes are going up. Second answer. Rationing.

So we sit back and watch the tumble begin. So they have 5.1 million that are uninsured...still. They have about that many on the rolls. So they are say give or take 3 billion in the tank with the first group and now 5.1 million more. That comes to a short fall in two years of six-eight billion even if they raise the taxes. How much do they want to spend on health insurance when they force expansion by insurance companies to uninsurables and pre-existing conditions? We will find out. Thats my other point. We did that same experiment here and we began losing one family every 10 minutes. They were crossing the border to get out from under the taxes and declining business base.

And thats the biggest point of all. Even if you cut the military to J. Carter days levels it still wont pay for the costs of UHC. And there are some antsy Russians and Chinese out there. Move the military conventionals back and leave only the nuclear umbrella and thats the only thing that we could use. Might want to take that into consideration.

Stick around. We might get to see the third use of a nuke in our lifetimes as a result of this. I'm glad its happening in CA as well as it will result in it turning over politically after those bills start coming in.