Cluelesss bunch, aren’t they?

Americans can have 100% medical for LESS than the government spends now, but man! those dems like to spend money…..

Posted by: Bubba at July 30, 2003 10:38 AM

And its not just the Dems anymore. Bush’s 400 billion dollar perscription drug plan isn’t a whole lot better.

Posted by: Michael Van Winkle at July 30, 2003 12:35 PM

Prettysoon now, Nobody is goin’ to have a leg to stand on. We’re goin’ to give dem Germans free healthcare now, aren’t we? Never mind. I can stand on my free wheelchair for my free ride to the FreeHealthCareCarousel, where the jackasses and elephants all spin in different DIE-rections. Let’s face some facts here. If you want to live longer, you gotta pay longer. Pretty freakin’ simple, ain’t it?

Posted by: Cap'n SPIN at July 30, 2003 12:55 PM

The bread and circuses is getting thick. And it doesn’t matter there’s no legal leg for the candidates to stand on (no leg for Bush, either). American health costs have spiraled BECAUSE of government intervention, not for a lack of it. Kucinich, that clueless asshat, needs to ask a few doctors at his local hospital about Medicare patients, you know sit down in the cafeteria with a cup of coffee and his sleeves rolled up, so he can hear 1st hand why Medicare patients are the Plague Dogs of modern medicine. No one wants them, no one wants to see them, they’d have them killed if it were legal. There’s no money in treating Medicare patients and NOW he wants every American in that boat. No wonder he’s sucking 1% of the vote, he’s probably got the attention of every closet commie who ever smashed a Starbuck’s window.

These are the same jokers screaming about Bush’s DEFICIT? What do they think they’re going to grow in this garden? No nation on earth has ever taxed itself into prosperity and it’s not about to change. The present perversity has one half the country essentially paying no federal tax, one half paying all of it. All needed now for nation ruin is for one demogogue to get the non-paying half to vote the paying half into slavery.

If one of these butt-munchers gets into office, I think we’ll see Atlas Shrug. Why work to make this group look good? The whole lot, dumber than a sack of hammers.

Posted by: torpedo_eight at July 30, 2003 09:36 PM

T-8 - How old are you? I’m beginning to be concerned about things like Medicare, because I’m headed towards retirement. Yes, I have good medical. Yes, I am a Vet, and yes, I think that everyone ought to be able to earn an honest wage, and they ought to be entitled to an honest retirement income. Why do we have to have the freakin’ insurance companies in the middle of this game, and why do we have to pay so much for so little?
Drugs, if you have to have them for anything, are a nightmare. Hospital costs, for ANYTHING, are bank busters. My fear is that we’re going to have to wait another 4 years to grab the attention of a conservative that will listen. I don’t think we’re going to get a solution to the medical thing this time around.

Posted by: Cap'n SPIN at July 31, 2003 12:15 AM

I don’t understand bushes drug plan either. But i should look at it.

Americans pay 2-3 times more for drugs than we do.
Nobody here gets ‘free” drugs unless your on welfare.

here, you can get a tax credit if they drug costs exceed 7% of your net income.
That helps low income/retired people on small fixed incomes. The rest of just pay. How often do you need drugs anyway? just keep healthy and you don’t need them

Posted by: Bubba at July 31, 2003 03:29 PM

Dear Spinny - I’m not close to retirement yet, but I’ve written off such things as Medicare and SS. They will not be there when I retire. They might not be there when YOU retire, as SS should reach its equilibrium around 2007-2009. At that point, monies coming into the Treasury will be exceeded by monies paid out. I know the jokers on Capitol Hill like to throw around 2037, but that includes (listen closely) the UNFUNDED MANDATE. In other words, congressional forces project the existence of a program that doesn’t have the money to cover the projection.

I worked for an insurance company for 8 years and I can tell you, they’ll give you an umbrella, but when it starts to rain, they’re going to want it back. Their involvement in American medicine is as deep as it is now because we’ve asked to protected from EVERYTHING and they’ve been more than happy to comply. It’s our fault for asking, it’s their fault for complying. If auto insurance were structured this way, your insurance would pay for oil changes. Insurance needs to go back to the original concept, to protect us from catastrophe. Buying medicine is not a catastrophe, but believe me, if the Feds get hold of it, it will be.

As P.J. O‘Rourke opined: “If you think medical care is expensive, wait until it’s free.”

Posted by: torpedo_eight at July 31, 2003 06:18 PM

Actually, the whole health care scene(meds included) for American seniors is a problem that doesn’t really seem to have a solution that will please everybody. It is a political football: Everyone running for President has to have a plan for Medicare and every incumbent, as a means for political survival, has to take a stab at the problem, even knowing that they’re only blowing smoke, especially where meds, the most expensive ongoing issue in health care, are concerned.
There are a lot of us who have the money to shoulder these expensive, insurance or not; Some via inherited wealth, others because of prudent investments, others because they have built and own successful businesses.
There are a lot of people who can’t, who simply do not earn enough money during their working lives to put any away and still meet the demands of immediate survival. We can’t all be chiefs, there have to be a few indians out there to do the work many of us will not: The janitor we never see who cleans the building at night, the woman who sold you the pair of Levis at the jean store, the cashier at the market, the guy who made the pizza you had delivered last night.
These are people who probably see a weekly takehome of $360.00 or less per week, which is coolie wages in most places in the U.S. Even with two parents working in that scale and trying to raise a couple of kids at the same time, how much can they put away?
What kind of savings or investment income are they going to have when they retire? Will they even own a home? Who’s going to pay for a $100.00 a pill prescription to combat or keep stable an old age disease, let alone pay for lengthy stays in a hospital and expensive surgery?

On the other side of the coin, especially in view of the record amount of retirees we’re now getting into, the government simply can’t afford to provide free, or even mostly free Medicaid venues(again, including drugs) on any long term basis without taxing most of our working citizens into the ground.

My point being that there is nothing any politician of any party can promise that will solve this problem, and nothing they can do.

I personally believe that, even though there may be a lot of rough times ahead for seniors in the health care arena, these problems will be worked out in the marketplace as they so often are.
There are entrepreneurs in America(people who collectively make this country the great nation it is) who are experts at finding target markets where others see none and figuring out ways to capitalize on them, often to mutual benefit, and I think it is here that the health care problems of seniors will be addressed and conquered.

Posted by: Seth at August 1, 2003 12:17 AM

“Billy, I got a gun so give me all your money now!”

“Wha!? …. Hey aren’t you running for the Presidency under the Democratic Ticket?”

“Shut up kid. Give me all your money now”

“Why are you after my money!?”

“I proposed a $212 Billion dollar Health Care Plan and Billy since your ‘white’ and your parents are ‘rich’ (i.e. they make over 20k a year), I have to start collecting! There’s no other way to pay for it!”

“But who benefits from this Health Care Plan?”

“Shut up kid and give me all your money.”

Posted by: Jeff MacMillan at August 1, 2003 11:21 PM

LMAO!!

Posted by: Seth at August 2, 2003 03:37 AM

Every 1st world country in the world provides medical coverage to its citizens. Except for the US. Oh look, and they spend half as much! Oh and look, the have better results -longer life span, lower infant mortality, etc.
And then some LAME ASS coments how these people on medicaid should be shot.
Hey, heres a story: man needs drugs that cost 13$ a day. he loses coverage and cant aford them. A week later he has a siezure and is now spending the rest of his life in a “persistant vegitative state” at taxpayer expense of course. Only in the U.S. of A.

Posted by: Aaron at August 2, 2003 05:55 PM

Aaron, how’s tricks in the socialist world?
The U.S. isn’t the most successful country in the world because of the government micromanagement that today’s liberals are so set on engendering, it is thus because our form of government, untampered with, allows the forces of the marketplace to work relatively unhindered. Sure, there’ll always be an Enron or two in the pack, but otherwise our system works just fine.
It is the private sector(and the entrepreneurial elements therein) that is responsible for the country’s prosperity, and here are you and yours, wanting to politicize everything in sight. You liberals are forever trying to make a federal case(literally) of every issue that comes down the pike, getting the government involved in agendas that really aren’t their forte. The government is not your mommy and daddy. Get used to that. Live with it.
If you people didn’t do everything in your power to get in the way of our capitalist system, it would work more smoothly and more problems would be solved more expeditiously. What makes me despair of you folks is the fact that most of your “spokesmen” have already become rich off the same system they attack.

As they do most other problems, private industry will eventually solve the healthcare issues, it’s just a matter of time until someone finds a way to earn a profit while providing needed services that are affordable to the targeted market.

Posted by: Seth at August 2, 2003 06:43 PM

Aaron: It’s not a question of what “every 1st World country” does, it is a question of what our government is allowed to do. Since it’s obvious your government-run school did not cover this concept, allow me to reiterate. Ours is a government of enumerated powers and limits. If our Constitution does not explicitly state control over a subject (such as healthcare, such as education, such as diversity), then those subjects “…are reserved to the State respectively, or to the people.”

Does our healthcare costs more than it should? Of course, but that’s because the government has incorrectly and illegally involved itself in the process. That said, we still have the highest quality level of coverage of any “1st world” country. A good part of our “shorter life span” has nothing to do with healthcare and has everything to do with an underground traffic in illegal drugs that murders thousands of participants and innocent bystanders every year.

And if we’re going to get anecdotal, here’s one for you: the head of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce was referred for an MRI by his doctor, who suspected an aneurysm. Since Canadian healthcare is “free”, it is, by its very nature, rationed. The poor man died waiting for his MRI, and yes, of an aneurysm. As American medicine is still driven by the market rather than the government (yet!), there are more MRI machines in my average Midwest city than there are in all of Canada.

Because even “free” medicine has to adhere to market forces, with no disincentive to consume medical care, the only result is rationing.

Or a good hospital in Detroit, Buffalo, Cleveland, Erie, Minneapolis. Ask any Canadian.

Posted by: torpedo_eight at August 3, 2003 11:46 AM

T-8. Love it! Keep up the good work. Launch torpedos at will…

Posted by: Cap'n SPIN at August 4, 2003 09:55 AM

There are as many translators as there are humans.

Posted by: Green Matthew at December 11, 2003 03:24 AM

Insanity is forgetting to believe a few lies.

Posted by: Smith Gavin at December 21, 2003 04:17 AM

Against boredom even the gods contend in vain.

Posted by: Murray Ralph at January 19, 2004 01:14 PM

this is mostly referring to the proposal of providing Universal Health Care.
Systems need money to come up with remedies to diseases Good will undoubtedly plays a part, but profit drive pharmaceutical corporations. Pharmaceutical corporations are still the driving force in medical research, and all the world’s citizens benefit from this research. If the prices of new medications quickly drop as cheaper methods of production are found. The cost of making these drugs immediately affordable may be that many future remedies will never be produced, and rich and poor alike will become unable to take advantage of them. I mean we only need to look at the last 25 years to realize that the number and variety of diseases in the world is increasing faster than we can keep up with, so any kind of deceleration in research would be detrimental to world health in the long run.
What are your rights? The American concept of it them are officially stated in the Declaration of Independence. It upholds man’s unalienable, individual rights. The term “rights,” tells us that a certain behavior is right, not to be interfered with — and that anyone who violates a man’s rights is wrong. All legitimate rights have one thing in common: they are rights to action, not to rewards from other people. The American rights force no obligation on other people, only that they must leave you alone. The system guarantees you the chance to work for what you want — not to be given it without effort by somebody else. The right to life does not mean that your neighbors have to feed and clothe you; it means you have the right to earn your food and clothes yourself, if necessary by a hard struggle, and that no one can forcibly stop your struggle for these things or steal them from you if and when you have achieved them. In other words: you have the right to act, and to keep the results of your actions. But you have no right to the actions or products of others, except on terms to which they agree. While you have a right to life, it is your duty to take care of it. That means that you must provide yourself with health care. Can people afford health care on their own? Even leaving aside the present government-inflated medical prices people can afford it. Where do you think the money is coming from to pay for it all — where does the government get its “unlimited” money? The government is not a profit making endeavor; it has no source of wealth other than confiscation of the citizens’ wealth through taxation. Some people may think it would be the rich who’d be paying for Universal Health Care however as has been proved time and again, there are not enough rich anywhere to make a dent in the government’s costs; it is the middle class in the U.S. that is the only source of the kind of money that national programs like government health care require. So in reality it would be people like you and I paying for the countries health care. Some people can’t afford medical care in the U.S. But they are a small minority in a free country. If they were the majority, the country would be in bankruptcy and could not even think of a national medical program.
Universal health care looks like it may end up as one more problem in the long list of governmental decisions which are used to gain support from the voters without concern for what is actually best for the country. The bottom line is that politicians on both sides have their eyes set on remaining in power, no matter how much dishonesty that goal requires. And until voters take it upon themselves to become truly informed beyond what they hear in campaign ads and debates, our leaders will continue to come up with policies which benefit themselves, regardless of what benefits the nation most.

Posted by: ashley at March 9, 2004 01:44 AM