Ga.’s wild and crazy Rep. Paul Broun strikes again
As TPM notes, the good doctor (sarc) wrote a letter for a mailing by the American Conservative Union warning that if health care reform passes, “your doctor may be banned from giving you or your loved ones the life-saving care they need!”
“Obama has created a new $2 billion federal bureaucracy — a national health care rationing board — that will decide if the medical care you need is “cost efficient.”
And if these federal bureaucrats decide that your treatment is not “Government Approved,” then your doctor will be ordered to deny you treatment… or risk facing stiff penalties!
Sadly, it’s senior citizens who will be hit hardest by Obama’s new plan.
Obama and his advisors are modeling this rationing board after European systems that use age and life-expectancy as key factors in deciding the “cost efficiency” of a procedure.
In other words: When mama falls and breaks her hip, she’ll just lie in her bed in pain until she dies with pneumonia because her needed surgery is not cost efficient.
That last paragraph just makes it all so special….
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294 comments Add your comment
Emory Eagle
August 15th, 2009
10:37 am
Jay,
I think the extreme views are pretty well documented
NRB
August 15th, 2009
10:38 am
Stop whining Jay,
You’re not getting your commie-care.
Emory Eagle
August 15th, 2009
10:39 am
Whoops, hit “submit” too early…but what about the cost of this bill? I’d like to see a couple posts about how to pay for it, because it sure as heck is going to cost more than expected.
I Report/ I Am The Mob :-) You Whine :-(
August 15th, 2009
10:43 am
Obozo lies about 46 million uninsured, he lies about life expectancy, he lies about high costs, he lies about the trial lawyers and ambulance chasers and bookman thinks Broun is “extreme?”
TGT
August 15th, 2009
10:49 am
For those who missed it: What I learned from my wife’s month in the British medical system.
ByteMe
August 15th, 2009
10:49 am
Eagle: you must have missed yesterday’s Town Hall, since Obama covered it very clearly then.
The shortfall is about $80-$90 billion per year (according to CBO estimates). About half to 2/3 is going to come from savings (CBO estimate says that as well) via changes in the rules and what’s allowed to be charged. The rest is coming from the promised Obama small tax increase on people making above $250K (about $30-$50 billion per year, which is pretty much small change in a $3 trillion budget).
Hey, Jay, when is the AJC going to get around to getting a real conservative to blog so that the wingnut whiners can all have their own “happy place” to hang out?
ByteMe
August 15th, 2009
10:51 am
TGT: you want foreigners to be treated as well as locals for our “free” healthcare? Is that the point of the article? If so, who pays for it?
I Report/ I Am The Mob :-) You Whine :-(
August 15th, 2009
10:51 am
Defensive medicine — the practice of ordering tests and procedures that aren’t needed to protect a doctor from the remote possibility of a lawsuit — is ubiquitous. A 2005 survey in the Journal of the American Medical Association related that 93 percent of high-risk specialists in Pennsylvania admitted to the practice, and 83 percent of Massachusetts physicians did the same in a 2008 survey. The same Massachusetts survey showed that 25 percent of all imaging tests were ordered for defensive purposes, and 28 percent and 38 percent, respectively, of those surveyed admitted reducing the number of high-risk patients they saw and limiting the number of high-risk procedures or services they performed.
Defensive medicine is notoriously hard to quantify, but some estimates place the annual cost at $100 billion to $200 billion or more.-Washington Post
When will Obozo be addressing this?
When the trial lawyers quit voting for the democrats?
What does it say of a “president” who regularly spews easily disputed lies about his agenda, other than he thinks you and I are too stupid or helpless to fact check him?
Do you enjoy being considered an idiot?
Say yeesssss! democrats.
RW-(the original)
August 15th, 2009
10:52 am
I think the Congressman has it wrong. Obama did say it was OK to give Mama a painkiller.
And now that Peter Singer is one of Obama’s advisers I wouldn’t rule out any extreme.
RW-(the original)
August 15th, 2009
10:56 am
the good doctor (sarc)
That sounds unnecessarily libelous without some detail about how Broun is a bad doctor.
I Report/ I Am The Mob :-) You Whine :-(
August 15th, 2009
11:04 am
Well, well, no wonder the British health system is so “great-”
Greater responsibility or the lack of it, rather than negligence is implicated by the word “malpractice”. In the US a specific medical malpractice law is in force to bring justice to the patients. In UK, a doctor will be liable only when proved to have not acted in accordance with the medical body’s opinion. In a lengthy and complicated battle, patients who feel that they are treated wrongly or given misinformation about illness can approach the law for compensation.
Ambulance chasers are illegal, hahahahahaha.
No John Edwards allowed.
booger
August 15th, 2009
11:09 am
RW, I noticed the same thing about Jay,s opening. He just called Dr. Paul Broun a “BAD” Doctor. He didn’t say bad legslator, or even call him an evil republican. He just told all Dr. Broun’s patients they go to a “BAD” Doctor.
That’s cutting edge stuff for a journalist.
Question
August 15th, 2009
11:16 am
Take a look at the following two items –
1) Asked whether he would have handled his verbal confrontation in Douglasville differently, [David] Scott is quick to answer. “Absolutely not,” he said.
2) the video of Sheila Jackson-Lee’s interview with Greta Van Susternen.
Both support the public’s view of the dems as arrogant and pompous. Who do these people think they work for????
Michael H. Smith
August 15th, 2009
11:16 am
Debating the President’s Portsmouth pitch
http://keithhennessey.com/2009/08/14/debating-the-presidents-portsmouth-pitch/
AmVet
August 15th, 2009
11:16 am
Broun is just another dupe for the Republican idiots and Georgia liars.
Predictable…
Woodstock weekend is here.
I often chuckle at the handful of the comical conned here who suck at the teat of the very music and ideas that represent the total antithesis of what they have sadly become. Or in some cases, what they always were.
Do these McCarthy (not McCartney) lovers just pretend that when they play that rock music that they too are believers in the forces for liberalism, progress and anti-authoritarianism in the world that are so clearly enunciated in that music?
And that they are NOT socially, philosophically and politically stuck in the past and have long been passed by?
Simply put, do they have some great self-loathing for idolizing the artists and songs that are synonymous with everything they are not – the counter-culture and the anti-war movements?
Or are they still just blind, conflicted and constipated forty years on?
Either way it is just one more indication of how laughably messed up they really are…
I Report/ I Am The Mob :-) You Whine :-(
August 15th, 2009
11:16 am
Let’s take the high number of $200 billion, that’s less than 10% of overall spending on health care. If you can “treat” it with drugs or cut it out, we’re number one.
TN- That^^ is just one tiny component of the tort/ malpractice/ ambulance chasing fiasco, try adding up the costs of John Edwards frivolously suing some poor doctor, extracting 66% of the damages for himself and all of the women that get butchered with unnecessary cesareans every year.
booger
August 15th, 2009
11:17 am
Byteme,
The CBO number of $80 to $90 million shortfall per year is only if Obama’s assumptions on savings are correct. The CBO does not believe these to be correct and says the cost will be much higher. This is after intense pressure from the White House to “get with the program”.
TGT
August 15th, 2009
11:19 am
ByteMe: You need to read it again.
One of the many points would be: “And compared with virtually any hospital ward in the U.S., Queen’s Square would fall short by a mile.
The equipment wasn’t ancient, but it was often quite old. On occasion my wife and I would giggle at heart and blood-pressure monitors that were literally taped together and would come apart as they were being moved into place. The nurses and hospital technicians had become expert at jerry-rigging temporary fixes for a lot of the damaged equipment. I pitched in as best as I could with simple things, like fixing the wiring for the one TV in the ward. And I’d make frequent trips to the local pharmacies to buy extra tissues and cleaning wipes, which were always in short supply.”
Finn McCool
August 15th, 2009
11:21 am
The Republicans did the same type of stuff in the 60’s when Johnson was trying to pass Medicare. Ronald Reagan even did radio spots against it.
They will learn to like it. If not, they can move to another country.
jm
August 15th, 2009
11:22 am
I wonder how many of those “unnecessary” defensive medical tests that we keep hearing about are performed in testing facilities that (surprise !) are also owned by the doctor’s office (no conflict of interest there).
TGT
August 15th, 2009
11:23 am
Also, as far as “foreigners” being “treated (health care-wise) as well as locals” or getting “free” healthcare–that has been a dream of the Democrat party for years.
Michael H. Smith
August 15th, 2009
11:25 am
Internal Memo Confirms Big Giveaways In White House Deal With Big Pharma
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/13/internal-memo-confirms-bi_n_258285.html
Oh liberals… If as your dear leader Obumer says the Public Option is about keeping the insurance companies honest, then why isn’t he and his Public Option keeping BIG PHARMA honest?
Finn McCool
August 15th, 2009
11:27 am
TGT, get a clue, dude. No human created system is perfect. Your going to find someone with a bad story about every system. Not only do you have people complaining about legitimate wrongs, you also have folks who just like to complain cause their soup was cold or whatever, and then you have folks who like to just hear themselves talk so they are constantly complaining or whatever gets them the most attention.
Heck, I even have a bad story about a library visit where the librarian busted my chops for talking on a cell phone in the stacks.
Bosch
August 15th, 2009
11:27 am
I wonder what’ll happen to Mamma who isn’t on Medicare yet and doesn’t have insurance if she falls and breaks a hip NOW.
Well, she’ll either not afford to get treatment, or have a few thousand dollars worth of medical bills.
Bosch
August 15th, 2009
11:29 am
Sorry, haven’t had required caffeine intake yet:
Well, she’ll either won’t get treatment because she can’t afford it, or get treatment which will cost a few thousand dollars.
Is that better?
I Report/ I Am The Mob :-) You Whine :-(
August 15th, 2009
11:29 am
Finn McFool- Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Medicare, eh?
Reagan was right, it only survives due to the forcible taking of money from other people and even with that, it still can’t pay for itself.
Nice example of a government debacle, though.
Is that what you libs consider a success?
Bosch
August 15th, 2009
11:32 am
Andy,
Forcible taking of money? It’s called taxes. We have to pay taxes. Why do you hate our country?
TGT
August 15th, 2009
11:34 am
Finn: Just thought I give the other side of the coin after all of the “outpouring of ilovetheNHS.”
ByteMe
August 15th, 2009
11:40 am
booger: you should go back to the CBO report. It was pretty clear that the number “$1 trillion” that freaked out so many people for some reason was over 10 years and before savings that the CBO estimated at least $500 billion (again, over 10 years). In general, we’re talking pocket change found between the cushions in the Senate/Lobbyist lounge.
I Report/ I Am The Mob :-) You Whine :-(
August 15th, 2009
11:40 am
Bosch- This great survived 180 some years before you socialists started forcibly taking money from other people to fund your human dependency programs, since then our educational standings have plummeted, inner city pathologies have sky rocketed, single parent children, abortion, murder, drug use, diseases, corruption are all byproducts of your bright ideas.
You’re proud of this legacy?
I myself think it needs to stop, right now.
I love my country and I hate what it has become.
Bosch
August 15th, 2009
11:41 am
Finn,
Well, it’s obvious then that we need to purge the Earth of libraries if that’s how we’re treated.
I Report/ I Am The Mob :-) You Whine :-(
August 15th, 2009
11:41 am
dammit- This great country survived…
Bosch
August 15th, 2009
11:43 am
Andy,
Oh my God! Are dogs and cats living together now too?
Give me a break Andy.
I Report/ I Am The Mob :-) You Whine :-(
August 15th, 2009
11:47 am
And Bosch, not only do I pay my taxes, I cheerfully give 10% of my income to the good work’s of the Lord.
I seriously doubt very many of you liberals can say that.
GEORGE AMERICAN
August 15th, 2009
11:49 am
THE GOVERNMENT CAN’T DO NOTHING RIGHT. NOTHING AT ALL!!!
I SURE AS HELL AM NOT GOING TO LET THEM RATION MY RIGHT TO HEALTH CARE!!!
JohnD
August 15th, 2009
11:51 am
Limiting medical malpractice lawsuits has zero effect on health care costs or even medical malpractice premiums. The Georgia Legislature passed med-mal tort reform 5 years ago. One of the strictest laws limiting the ability of patients to sue doctors and hospitals in the US.
What happened? Rates went up here and everywhere else in the country.
Why? The insurance industry is all about profit, stupid. Kind of like drug companies and the rest. They charge more because they can. What could be more old-school than that?
Tort reform worked great last time. Let’s do it again and see how little effect it has on health care costs again and call that ‘reform.’
Brilliant.
getalife
August 15th, 2009
11:55 am
Andy,
Writing gop hack comments on a blog does not qualify as a job troll.
Looks like Dick Army cut and ran like Palin after staging the astroturfing.
I Report/ I Am The Mob :-) You Whine :-(
August 15th, 2009
11:58 am
It’s kinda obvious that liberals don’t care about our embarrassing educational rankings, the abandonment of the core family, children living in fatherless despair, black on black capital crime, debilitating drug use, nope, they just want to grow their little government power fiefdom upon the foundation of your suffering.
Nice.
AmVet
August 15th, 2009
11:59 am
It strikes me that George W. Bush has a legacy eerily similar to OJ’s.
Both got away with murder.
OJ said he find the “real killer” and Bushie said he catch Osama Bin Laden “Dead of alive”…
I Report/ I Am The Mob :-) You Whine :-(
August 15th, 2009
12:00 pm
al-Gitmo: And what would you call this?-
Looks like Dick Army cut and ran like Palin after staging the astroturfing.
Kamchak
August 15th, 2009
12:02 pm
I sure as hell am not going to let them ration my right to health care.
Didn’t you get the memo? Health care is not a “right” guaranteed in the Constitution. Learn to stay on message.
Geez.
Bosch
The EPL started today. Chelsea 2 Hull City 1.
AmVet
August 15th, 2009
12:05 pm
JohnD, in a handful of cases your sage and terse analysis will fall on intentionally dead ears and willfully closed minds here…
But I find it a very compelling argument.
And the conned wanna ensure that the American people can’t even sue the murderous monoliths or seek any kind of justice from the white collar criminals.
(And certainly no organizing. No grass roots measures to change the failed status quo. Unless they are tea bagging it I guess.)
What the hell is wrong with them?
“Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power.” ~Benito Mussolini
I Report/ I Am The Mob :-) You Whine :-(
August 15th, 2009
12:05 pm
Anybody with half of a brain can go see the brutal statistics on how far we’ve fallen as a nation since the “great society” boondoggle, same as they can see the improvements made when Republicans enacted welfare reform in the 1990’s, well, except for the common liberal, that is, who apparently doesn’t have half of a brain.
GEORGE AMERICAN
August 15th, 2009
12:06 pm
GOVERNMENT IS A “WRONG” NOT A “RIGHT” GUARANTEED BY STYUPID LIBERALS.
booger
August 15th, 2009
12:06 pm
ByteMe,
These numbers are if the savings assumptions are correct. The chief budjet analyst for the CBO, Douglas Elmendorf’s assessment of the assumptions is that they are flawed.
getalife
August 15th, 2009
12:07 pm
Andy,
I call it the truth and blow back is coming.
Why are you bashing America:
“our embarrassing educational rankings, the abandonment of the core family, children living in fatherless despair, black on black capital crime, debilitating drug use, nope, they just want to grow their little government power fiefdom upon the foundation of your suffering.”
8 long years of your hero w did not fix it?
Taxpayer
August 15th, 2009
12:12 pm
Well, maybe this ignorant war mongering Republican doctor should support eliminating a few more F-22s and using that money to pay for some less cost efficient surgery, no doubt to be performed by him. God save us all from the likes of the Brouns of the world. What an idiot.
Taxpayer
August 15th, 2009
12:14 pm
Anyone with half a brain would certainly be expected to see the world in a different light — the color of trickle down yellow comes to mind. I suspect these people are also obsessed with Urinals.
joe matarotz
August 15th, 2009
12:18 pm
When you get past the hyperbole, the question is “Does the proposed healthcare program have provisions for limiting care based on cost effectiveness?” If the answer is “Yes”, the next question is ” What procedures will be subject to review for cost effectiveness?” And finally, “What are the parameters for judging whether a procedure is cost effective? If I need a procedure that is deemed to be not cost effective, what are my options?”
Instead of relying on the ramblings of the media, with their mandatory slant to either side, maybe we should be asking our elected officials to answer these questions. Better yet, I think we should be demanding full disclosure in language we can all understand. Just a thought…
Taxpayer
August 15th, 2009
12:20 pm
Y’all need to ease up on the whiner. He’s been reduced to a form of blathering that does not even live up to the definition of gibberish any more. The poor thing.
AmVet
August 15th, 2009
12:27 pm
25 Rules for being a Good Republican
1) Being a drug addict is a moral failing and a crime, unless you are millionaire conservative radio jock, which makes it an illness and needs our prayers for your recovery.
2) You have to believe that those privileged from birth achieve success all on their own.
3) You have to believe that the US should get out of the UN, and that our highest national priority is enforcing UN resolutions against Iraq.
4) You have to believe that government should stay out of people’s lives but it needs to punish anyone caught having private sex with the wrong gender.
5) You have to believe that pollution is ok, so long as it makes a profit.
6) You have to believe in prayer in schools, as long as you don’t pray to Allah or Buddha.
7) “Standing Tall for America” means firing your workers and moving their jobs to India.
9) You have to believe that you love Jesus and Jesus loves you, and that Jesus shares your hatred of AIDS victims, homosexuals, and Hillary Clinton.
10) You hate the ALCU for representing convicted felons, but they owed it to the country to bail out Oliver North.
11) You have to believe that the best way to encourage military morale is to praise the troops overseas while cutting their VA benefits.
12) You believe that group sex and drug use are degenerate sins that can only be purged by running for governor of California as a Republican.
13) You have to believe it is wise to keep condoms out of schools, because we all know if teenagers don’t have condoms they won’t have sex.
14) You have to believe that the best way to fight terrorism is to alienate our allies and then demand their cooperation and money.
15) You have to believe that government medicine is wrong and that HMO’s and insurance companies only have your best interests at heart.
16) You have to believe that providing health care to all Iraqis is sound government policy but providing health care to all Americans is socialism personified.
17) You believe that tobacco’s link to cancer and global warming are “junk science”, but Creationism should be taught in schools.
18) You have to believe that waging war with no exit strategy was wrong in Vietnam but right in Iraq.
19) You have to believe that Saddam was a good guy when Reagan armed him, a bad guy when Bush’s daddy made war on him, a good guy when Cheney was doing business with him, and a bad guy when Bush needed a we-can’t-find-Bin-Laden diversion.
20) You believe that government should restrict itself to just the powers named in the Constitution, which includes banning gay marriages and censoring the internet.
21) You have to believe that the public has a right to know about the adulterous affairs of Democrats, while those of Republicans are a private matter.
22) You have to believe that the public has a right to know about Hillary’s cattle trades but that Bush was right to censor those 28 pages from the Congressional 9/11 report because you just can’t handle the truth.
23) You support state rights, which means Ashcroft telling states what locally passed voter initiatives he will allow them to have.
24) You have to believe that what Clinton did in the 1960’s is of vital national interest but what Bush did decades later is stale news and irrelevant.
25) You have to believe that trade with Cuba is wrong because it is communist, but trading with China and Vietnam is just dandy.
Taxpayer
August 15th, 2009
12:29 pm
None of you have an insurance policy that guarantees 100% coverage of all procedures. The insurance companies have decided, without the input of real doctors (perhaps they have sought out input from Broun though), what they deem to be a cost effective cost for procedures and if your doctor exceeds that amount, then the patient must pay the difference (or more typically, the full cost since the insurance company likely doe not cover it at all if it might cost them anything) or simply not have the procedure. So how does this argument relate to health care reform? If we do nothing, that is what we are left with. And, how does that relate to what the Republicans want? Well, they choose to do nothing, except say no. Duh! What a brilliant plan. Don’t change a thing, GOP. Your plan is working beautifully. It is great. Perfect. Honest.
Emory Eagle
August 15th, 2009
12:58 pm
Byte Me,
Must’ve missed the town hall. Obama’s on the tube every day, though, so there should be plenty more opportunities. When has a government cost estimate ever been accurate? Obama’s numbers are based on HIS calculations. The CBO was pretty clear in its statement that this health care plan will cost much more than $1 trillion. And the “small” tax increase that you speak of will be anything but. Do you really think that the most productive people in this country are going to sit around and willingly pay higher taxes in the name of some perverted sense of “fairness”? No, they will find more and more creative ways to shelter their income, or stop working altogether. Then what? You start having to tax those making less than 250K, which the dems have been hedging on anyways. Just ask Charles Rangel, Joe Biden, Robert Gibbs, et al.
I Report/ I Am The Mob :-) You Whine :-(
August 15th, 2009
12:59 pm
Y’all need to ease up on the whiner. He’s been reduced to a form of blathering that does not even live up to the definition of gibberish any more. The poor thing.
hehehe, frisk the liberal first?
@@
August 15th, 2009
1:02 pm
jay, even you must admit…the bill has been written in such a way that it leaves open potential for abuse by the government. Interpretation is key and as of today no congressman has been able to clearly interpret what it means for the American people.
I believe it was intentional so they could do just that.
When Obama changed his wording from “Healthcare Reform” to “Insurance Reform” I thought — Hey, I’ve got no problem with reforming the insurance companies but then that’s not what he really meant, now was it?
Obama, The Artful Dodger with his healthcare bill, The Pickwick Paper(s).
I Report/ I Am The Mob :-) You Whine :-(
August 15th, 2009
1:05 pm
OK, so we got the liberals on record that educational failings, rampant drug use, fatherless children, murder of the unborn and blacks killing blacks in greater numbers than the war dead from both Iraq and Afghanistan is no big deal.
In fact, in a headlong assault on reason, they want to make it worse.
Lovely people, aren’t they?
Northern Songs LTD
August 15th, 2009
1:09 pm
AmVet – ok to share your 12:27? Cue more name calling in 3, 2, 1…….
Northern Songs LTD
August 15th, 2009
1:10 pm
AmVet – look for me tonight at Piedmont Park – I’ll be the one in the Beatles tee-shirt.
I Report/ I Am The Mob :-) You Whine :-(
August 15th, 2009
1:14 pm
We pursue the social problem of one million children per year born into fatherless homes and review some of the letters from hundreds of readers who wrote in to make suggestions on how to deal with a problem that began its steep rise approximately in ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~1965.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Two out of five black men in Washington, D.C., between the ages of 18 and 25 are in jail, on probation, or being prosecuted, in an area in which over 75 per cent of black children are born to an unmarried mother.
Just what we need, more government dependency.
AmVet
August 15th, 2009
1:18 pm
Northern Songs LTD,
Look for me, I’ll be wearing the Stop the War shirt…
To get back in the groove:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1c5pgo6zU10
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MWVo1fjRsQ
RW-(the original)
August 15th, 2009
1:18 pm
Northern Songs LTD,
I’m sure you don’t his permission to share material he obviously plagiarized. You can probably paste any of those items into google if you’re interested in asking the source if it’s ok to share.
Northern Songs LTD
August 15th, 2009
1:23 pm
Thanks for the suggestion RW. I can find references at least as far back as 2003, so it must in the public domain, which means no attribution is necessary. You rock…
Northern Songs LTD
August 15th, 2009
1:24 pm
grrr — >must be< —-
Taxpayer
August 15th, 2009
1:27 pm
I’m sure you don’t his permission to share material he obviously plagiarized. You can probably paste any of those items into google if you’re interested in asking the source if it’s ok to share.
Shame on you Amvet, for cutting and pasting from the GOP home page without giving them credit.
MorningStar
August 15th, 2009
1:29 pm
((((In other words: When mama falls and breaks her hip, she’ll just lie in her bed in pain until she dies with pneumonia because her needed surgery is not cost efficient.))))
This wretched excuse of a doctor serves a district in which many are in dire need of health care reform.
Bosch @11.27A.M….. wonder what’ll happen to Mamma who isn’t on Medicare yet and doesn’t have insurance if she falls and breaks a hip NOW
She’s S-O-L if she has lost her job, and can’t afford insurance. Oh ’scuse me, I’m sure the emergency room will fixer rite up, and they’ll attach her itty bitty house and 1/2 acre…….
((((I seriously doubt very many of you liberals can say that.))))
Huh? You don’t say! Now the dick taters are looking at my checking accout to see if I’m writing checks to the church…tithing that is….Holy cats and dogs!!!
((((One of the strictest laws limiting the ability of patients to sue doctors and hospitals in the US.
What happened? Rates went up here and everywhere else in the coun))))
Oh but we don’t wish to bring little tidbits such as this one up. It sticks in the craw of those who could care less about their fellow man, as long as they have theirs. Birth ‘em, don’t treat ‘em for illnesses, don’t feed ‘em. After all it’s “their fault” they were brought into the world. Oh, and if uninsured Mama breaks a hip 4 months before he SS starts, just throw her from the train!!!
Bruno
August 15th, 2009
1:30 pm
“Do these McCarthy (not McCartney) lovers just pretend that when they play that rock music that they too are believers in the forces for liberalism, progress and anti-authoritarianism in the world that are so clearly enunciated in that music?”
Actually, most of us grew up a long time ago and realized that there is no Free Lunch. Have you?
Taxpayer
August 15th, 2009
1:33 pm
Yes indeed, change is goooooood.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090814/ts_nm/us_financial_regulation_secAfter enduring a thorough thrashing for its supervision of the now-defunct Bear Stearns and missing Bernard Madoff’s $65 billion fraud, the Securities and Exchange Commission has made a near-180 degree turn to crack down on financial fraud.
Last week, the SEC filed charges against Bank of America, pursued its first naked short selling case and settled fraud charges with General Electric, as well as with former AIG executive Hank Greenberg.
Since SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro took the helm late in January, the agency has opened 525 investigations, a 10 percent rise over the same period last year.
And, there is a lot more of this type of change coming. Good change. No more hope required, the Republicans are out of control, in more ways than one.
Taxpayer
August 15th, 2009
1:34 pm
Oops.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090814/ts_nm/us_financial_regulation_sec
Crushing the pubt's
August 15th, 2009
1:36 pm
Broun is in a walking coma. Obama rolled over and he’s allowing Senate Finance to write a coop bill, not a public option and expansion of Medpac isn’t in the bill they’re writing. Obama is telling the House they don’t count.
The 6 people writing the Senate Finance bill are in the pocket of the insurance companies, and nothing will change and what Broun is describing happens every day in his district now and all over the country because of the insurance companies dropping “mama.”
AmVet
August 15th, 2009
1:39 pm
Taxpayer at 1:27, what do you expect from frauds and little minded Republiconned idiots who whine more than Mogan David?
So here’s how it goes down in the culture wars, conned:
You got Joe McCarthy, we got Paul McCartney.
You got John Ashcroft, we got John Lennon.
You got Kneel Boartz, we got Neil Young.
You got HeadRush Limberger, we got Rush.
You got Ann Coiulter, we got Ann Wilson.
You got Ronnie Raygun, we got Ronnie Montrose.
You got George Bush (eeew), we got George Carlin.
You got Paul Broun, we got Jackson Browne.
( I really couldn’t come up with any significant conned musical artists…)
OK. let the partying begin!
Me and 50,000 friends are gonna rock!
Jackie
August 15th, 2009
1:43 pm
@I Report/You Whine
Using those statistics to extrapolate, you would think more white men would be in prison for drug related crimes as the are reported to be 80% of cocaine user, 95% of meth users, 55% of crack user and 50% of marijuana users.
That does not account for the BILLIONS of dollars used to purchase and distribute and sell those drugs to the drug dealers.
Before we forget, do we begin to account for the hundred of billions of dollars stolen and embezzled, since you want to “use the numbers.”
And as far as government dependency, welfare and the welfare queen portrayal was a myth perpetuated by Ronald Reagan’s administration. More than 55% of the women on welfare were middle-aged white suburban women divorced by you the likes of you.
Let’s talk about statistics!
I Report/ I Am The Mob :-) You Whine :-(
August 15th, 2009
1:43 pm
“The United States now ranks eighteenth in Education among the World’s industrial nations”
- The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development November 19th, 2008
Gee, I wonder why-
Among the oldest group in the study (those aged 56–65), U.S. prose skills rose to second place. For those attending school in the 1950s, SAT scores reached an all-time high.
As the years go by, the United States slips down the list. Americans educated in the sixties captured a Bronze Medal in literacy, those schooled in the seventies got 5th place in the race. But those schooled in the nineties ranked 14th.
What a “great society”…………..we used to be.
Crushing the pubt's
August 15th, 2009
1:45 pm
A great way to finance health care besides getting the hell out of Iraq for real, is to take the fines that the tax dodgers who are now going to be prosecuted for hiding their money with USB in Switzerland ( the top couple hundred of 50,000) and seize their assets (which will be done as well) and transfer that money to a Healthcare fund. This is in addition to taxing people who make 250 grand or more which is not most of you commenting.
SEC was a farce with all the people working with Madoff and Madoff himself. Few people trusted it before, and fewer will trust it now and forever. They go after little guys with limited resources just as DOJ does for the most part.
@ Bruno–Do these so called conservative yellers at the town halls like the learning impaired Katy Abram, who want government out of their lives have any problem with all their phone conversations being wiretapped or email scooped up as it is now and has been since Bush and the increased illegal surveillance by the Government or is that aspect of government in their lives just fine with them?
jconservative
August 15th, 2009
1:51 pm
Report/ I Am The Mob
You Whine 
August 15th, 2009
10:51 am
“Defensive medicine — the practice of ordering tests and procedures that aren’t needed to protect a doctor from the remote possibility of a lawsuit…”
Whiner is correct on this one guys – at least from my own experience.
My wife had a serious injury: 2 x-rays, 1 cat & 2 MRI. Then they wanted to do more MRI. The first 2 MRI were online – any doctor in Atlanta could view them. A consulting specialist called in wanted to repeat the 2 MRI. I said NO, look online. Said he needed his own MRI & that our insurance had approved (they had). I said NO (our insurance was company funded & just administered by the insurance company). He complied, looked at the MRI online & finally admitted that he did not need the extra MRI.
Wife recovered nicely. I saved $6,000. The insurance company that administered our policy received a nasty letter for approving the 2 unnecessary MRI.
Moral of the story – bureaucrats suck whether private industry or government.
Taxpayer
August 15th, 2009
1:52 pm
Broun, the faith healer. He should have stuck with science. At least he had a prayer of a chance at succeeding with that approach.
What a loser.
Paul Broun compares Obama to Hitler
November 11, 2008
by Andisheh Nouraee in News
What can Broun do for us? He can start by saying fewer shockingly stupid things.
In the race between Paul Broun and Lynn Westmoreland to be Georgia’s Dumbassiest Congressman, Paul Broun just pulled way ahead…
Taxpayer
August 15th, 2009
1:59 pm
By the way, those MRI machines cost upwards of 3 million dollars and then the room for the equipment is another half million or more and then the skilled technicians, the ones that know better than to fry your pacemaker or any other metal on your body, cost another chunk even if it is only minimum wage labor that speaks no English. So, the folks that fork over all that capital to the doctors and hospitals and others expect to be repaid, with interest and that is above and beyond the straw man claim of lawsuits that would bankrupt an already insured doctor just trying to do his job. Tort reform has already seen to that much of it.
TnGelding
August 15th, 2009
2:03 pm
I Report/ I Am The Mob
You Whine 
August 15th, 2009
11:16 am
Included, it’s still less than 10%.
“According to Towers Perrin, a global professional services firm, malpractice litigation costs $30 billion a year and has grown at more than 10% annually since 1975. But that’s less than half the story. To avoid being sued, doctors use excessive tests and other procedures to avoid lawsuits, and stay out of certain areas of medicine. The result is higher costs for medical care.”
http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2009/08/06/the_high_cost_of_medical_malpractice_97346.html
TnGelding
August 15th, 2009
2:04 pm
Taxpayer
August 15th, 2009
1:59 pm
And sits unused 75% of the time.
TnGelding
August 15th, 2009
2:08 pm
jconservative
August 15th, 2009
1:51 pm
No where did you say the doctor ordered the extra MRIs to cover his rear from a lawsuit. They’re bad about ordering them to cover the costs of the equipment and to pad their income.
Bruno
August 15th, 2009
2:09 pm
“None of you have an insurance policy that guarantees 100% coverage of all procedures.”
Taxpayer–Let me break it down for you, since you don’t seem to have the ability to reason things out on your own: Health “insurance” is a legal contract between willing parties which necessarily contains limitations on coverage. Without such limitations, it would be impossible to calculate a premium large enough to have a sufficient reserve of money on hand to pay for all of the claims. Co-pays and deductibles are a necessary part of the system as well–only by sharing the risk/costs will consumers be vigilant and not indifferent to necessity and costs of every proposed test/treatment.
Your dream of a health care system which provides unlimited care is just that–a dream. In government-run plans, there have to be cost-controls as well, which results in “rationing” of care. The REAL question here is not one of unlimited care vs. limited care–care is limited in every system. The REAL question is should health care be a service whose costs are shared by all, collectively, or should it remain a matter of personal choice/responsibility(?). I vote for individual freedom/responsibility.
Jackie
August 15th, 2009
2:12 pm
@I Report/You Whine
Given those statistics that you are trying to ignore, when will you go and turn you hip in to law enforcement. You are a menace to society.
Help us all make this inclusive society a better place by doing the honorable thing. Wait, you and honor do not belong in the same sentence.
TnGelding
August 15th, 2009
2:12 pm
This was a very interesting discussion:
Wolf Blitzer will be hosting tonight’s Larry King Live and the show is being called: “Health Care Reform: Fact vs. Fiction.” Sen. Bill Frist, Dr. Michael Roizen (Chief Wellness Officer at the Cleveland Clinic and the co-author of You: On a Diet with Dr. Oz) and Dr. J. James Rohack from the AMA are confirmed to join Dr. Weil on the panel.
Edited by: Staff/WeilForums on Aug 13, 2009 6:53:58 AM
“Why I Am a Conservative on Health Care Reform”
“I appeared on Larry King Live Wednesday night to discuss health care reform with a panel of respected, high-profile physicians. I sounded the themes I wrote about in The Wrong Diagnosis: that Americans must change the content of health care, not just access to it, or we’ll remain among the unhealthiest people in the developed world, and the costs will sink us.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrew-weil-md/why-i-am-a-conservative-o_b_259869.html
Bruno
August 15th, 2009
2:19 pm
“Do these so called conservative yellers at the town halls like the learning impaired Katy Abram, who want government out of their lives have any problem with all their phone conversations being wiretapped or email scooped up as it is now and has been since Bush and the increased illegal surveillance by the Government or is that aspect of government in their lives just fine with them?”
First of all, Crushing, no conservative I know of supports the “yellers”, those who mindlessly holler generalities at the town hall meetings because there are far too many specific, legitimate concerns with ObamaCare that need to be considered. As for the Patriot Act, I don’t support it, although the vast, vast majority of your esteemed Democratic Congressmen voted for it. So take your beef up with them, not me.
Jackie
August 15th, 2009
2:23 pm
@Bruno
To add to the health care argument, the systems in Japan, Germany, UK and Australia DO NOT have a limit on care.
Secondly, insurance underwriting is based on the premise of probability of loss and severity of loss. This is used to determine the loss reserves required for the system to remain solvent and insure a profit. Given those numbers, if we take into account there is not 100% use of the system by those that pay a premium, then we have the ability to cover everyone for all occurences by calculating the total cost of prevention and treatment and dividing the cost by the population. This would give us an actual cost which could be broken down to reflect what cost could be assigned to each taxpayer based upon their actual income.
I believe there may be other ideas to refine my proposal, but, having a base to work from would give us the ability to have a reasonable business model.
Crushing the pubt's
August 15th, 2009
2:25 pm
I wonder who gets the money on those kazillion surgical bills I’ve reviewed/read where a single Tylenol costs $12 or a cling that you could buy at Kroeger costs $120. All of the hospitals grossly inflate itemized costs of everything used during a hospitalization and it’s passed on to you.
Not to worry because last week the hospitals were protected in a deal brokered by Biden, Rahm, Rahm’s sidekicks, and the Senate Finance Six to protect the hospitals any reduction in their fees by Medicare or an extended Medicare. That deal was the executioner’s song for a public option.
There was a similar deal brokered the week before by the same parties with Billy Tauzin representing Big Pharma.
The bottom line was protection of the insurance company rates and increases that will be paid by you or you will lose insurance and you’re on your own to pay the exhorbitant costs of procedures, surgery, and hospitalization. Medicine costs, already exponentially increased, are going to skyrocket because Obama rolled over and played dead for big pharma.
The most disingenous thing I’ve seen in a long time is Obama out there strutting as if he hadn’t already screwed Americans by brokering deals to protect big Pharma and Big Hospital and Big Insurance precisely the opposite of what he’s claiming. It’s all smoke and mirrors. Obama has allowed Senate Finance’s old men and one woman representing 2.2y % of this country to call the shots.
Health care delivery is poised to get a lot worse, and a lot less. Keep yellin’ at those town halls but the yellin’ is going to be a lot louder when you see what coops do to your medicine costs and insurance costs.
Bruno
August 15th, 2009
2:41 pm
“To add to the health care argument, the systems in Japan, Germany, UK and Australia DO NOT have a limit on care.”
Not true, Jackie. Every health care delivery system, whether private or government-run utilizes cost-containment by necessity. It’s goofy to believe otherwise.
“Secondly, insurance underwriting is based on the premise of probability of loss and severity of loss. This is used to determine the loss reserves required for the system to remain solvent and insure a profit. Given those numbers, if we take into account there is not 100% use of the system by those that pay a premium, then we have the ability to cover everyone for all occurences by calculating the total cost of prevention and treatment and dividing the cost by the population. This would give us an actual cost which could be broken down to reflect what cost could be assigned to each taxpayer based upon their actual income.”
Jackie–As I discussed above, the REAL question here is should health care be a shared cost or an individual choice/responsibility–the specific logistics of each system are a secondary consideration. Nationalizing health care isn’t going to magically provide low-cost, unlimited care, it’s just going to take away individual choice.
yabul
August 15th, 2009
2:48 pm
http://yfrog.com/7gcashforcdgersj
I Report/ I Am The Mob :-) You Whine :-(
August 15th, 2009
2:49 pm
Included, it’s still less than 10%.
TN, don’t look now, but 10% of 2.4 trillion is awfully similar to the amount of money Obozo says he needs.
Ever wonder why he don’t go get it?
Bruno
August 15th, 2009
2:53 pm
“I wonder who gets the money on those kazillion surgical bills I’ve reviewed/read where a single Tylenol costs $12 or a cling that you could buy at Kroeger costs $120. All of the hospitals grossly inflate itemized costs of everything used during a hospitalization and it’s passed on to you.”
Crushing–Everyone of every political stripe agrees that health care costs are out of control. However, those costs can easily be brought down by good old-fashioned competition and consumerism, and don’t require nationalization of health care. People getting back in control of their health is the answer.
I Report/ I Am The Mob :-) You Whine :-(
August 15th, 2009
2:53 pm
My hip is a menace to society!
Oh dear!
yabul
August 15th, 2009
2:56 pm
Nothing like a bunch of 20-30 something elitest liberal snobs thinking they know all about medicare and va health care. They quote polls and what ever kos and huffington spoon feed them, but they do not have a clue what they are talking about. Then they blame the Republican’s for the bill’s catastrophic failure, even though the libs control all branches of government. None of them post links or facts to back up their points, they just make them up as they go along. And I have not heard the libs fear of a female like they have for Palin. She is not even in office, and they are terrified.
So post links to your stupidity, moonbats. So we can laugh at you some more.
TnGelding
August 15th, 2009
3:00 pm
I Report/ I Am The Mob
You Whine 
August 15th, 2009
2:49 pm
Because mistakes are made and people are killed or maimed everyday.
jconservative
August 15th, 2009
3:02 pm
Here are some more numbers to chew on.
Between 2010 and 2030, the number of people on Medicare is projected to rise from 46 million to 78 million.
This is a program we already own, not one we are debating buying.
How are you younger guys going to pay for that?
yabul
August 15th, 2009
3:03 pm
“Because mistakes are made and people are killed or maimed everyday.”
Like in Iraq and Afghanistan? I thought your fearless leader was going to get us out of that war?
yabul
August 15th, 2009
3:03 pm
“How are you younger guys going to pay for that?”
They are not, we are.
I Report/ I Am The Mob :-) You Whine :-(
August 15th, 2009
3:04 pm
TN- Try to stay focused, babe, we agreed earlier that this was waste.
Ya know what I mean?
yabul
August 15th, 2009
3:05 pm
“Whoops, hit “submit” too early…but what about the cost of this bill? I’d like to see a couple posts about how to pay for it, because it sure as heck is going to cost more than expected.”
Libs do not ever worry about that. They figure the working conservatives will pay for their 21st century Great Society abortion.
Kim, Nottingham
August 15th, 2009
3:07 pm
“Nationalizing health care isn’t going to magically provide low-cost, unlimited care, it’s just going to take away individual choice.”
In the UK we have private health firms which run parallel to the NHS and are sometimes contracted to perform procedures by them. A person is free to take out private health insurance either for themselves or through their work if they wish. There has also been changes to the NHS over the past decade or so which give patients choice about how and where they receive the treatment and procedures they require.
The only aspect of health care which is solely out of private hands is accident and emergency, and to be honest if I’d just been run over by a car the last thing I’d be worried about would be where I got my help from.
yabul
August 15th, 2009
3:08 pm
“The shortfall is about $80-$90 billion per year (according to CBO estimates). About half to 2/3 is going to come from savings (CBO estimate says that as well) via changes in the rules and what’s allowed to be charged. The rest is coming from the promised Obama small tax increase on people making above $250K (about $30-$50 billion per year, which is pretty much small change in a $3 trillion budget).”
This lib buffoon actually believes that? Unreal. Pretty dumb for an elitest.
yabul
August 15th, 2009
3:09 pm
“In the UK we have private health firms which run parallel to the NHS and are sometimes contracted to perform procedures by them. A person is free to take out private health insurance either for themselves or through their work if they wish. There has also been changes to the NHS over the past decade or so which give patients choice about how and where they receive the treatment and procedures they require.”
If you are in the UK why are you commenting here? Don’t you have more pressing things to worry about? How is Madonna?