Whether drama or comedy, it has captured the political ratings that’s for sure.

Some random thoughts:

1. Please stop calling it Health Care Reform – as someone wrote yesterday, don’t yield on the language – call it what it is – Health Care Takeover.

2. Comprehensive Health Care … – In the words of Inigo Montoya – “I don’t think it means what you think it means” – Anytime you hear that word – “Comprehensive” – substitute “Doomed to Fail”. Heck, anyone who’s ever run any business project knows that small, simple, incremental steps tend to work, while massive overhauls almost always fail.

3. A lot of the fight over this Health Care stuff has to do with a basic misunderstanding. On the right, commentators often mention the role of insurances and risk, etc. But health insurance has morphed. It’s not really true insurance anymore. It’s become “This stuff is too expensive, but I need it, so I want someone else to pay for it”. I think this difference in concept needs to be addressed. Many people who would normally support a free-market approach, ie, pay for your checkup like you would for a vet visit, are too afraid of that route because the current prices are too high. So how do we get there?

Posted by Brain Fail
2010-03-12 10:01:40

It’s idiotic and ignorant to call it a take over. You’re just trying to frighten your uneducated base.

In other words, just like what you try to do every day.

I pay plenty for my health insurance. We as a society pay more for inferior results compared to any other country– health care costs us more to treat fewer people.

Then leave.

You’re already being ripped off if, like me, you have insurance, and your side doesn’t even understand the problem, which is that we collectively pay more for less treatment.

Thank you for proving your stupidity with that post. You obviously have no clue how insurance works.

Travel abroad and see for yourself.

You first. Just don’t come back.

Posted by Jack Schite
2010-03-12 10:01:40

Agitprop.

“Travel abroad and see for yourself.”

Yeah, you’ll see all the foreigners coming to the United States for their health care.

David Brooks calls your type out today:

In a sensible country, people would see Obama as a president trying to define a modern brand of moderate progressivism. In a sensible country, Obama would be able to clearly define this project without fear of offending the people he needs to get legislation passed. But we don’t live in that country. We live in a country in which many people live in information cocoons in which they only talk to members of their own party and read blogs of their own sect. They come away with perceptions fundamentally at odds with reality, fundamentally misunderstanding the man in the Oval Office. ”

I love it when conservatives use the “you like it so much elsewhere then move there” arguements because it shows their narrow mindset and perspective. You may have been told that we have the best system for health care in this country, but a little time spent abroad is illuminating. Everyone gets health care in every other first world country. Everybody. That’s why there aren’t crazy people on the streets in other countries. The US has much room for improvement but it starts with knowledge and compassion, and everyone knows republican compassion is an oxymoron, and republicans keep themselves willfully stupid. Death panels and Sarah Palin for example.

ok, here’s the links in order:

1. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1257243/Greek-riots-Up-60-000-people-streets-protest-government.html

2. http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/jul/07/london-homeless-rise

The Dims are breathing and have life left in their bodies, though their hearts are cold and hard as stone.

You cannot afford to turn your back for a fraction of a second.

These are folk that love 3A.M. votes with only a handful of participants present.

Patrick Henry: Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined…. O sir, we
should have fine times, indeed, if to punish tyrants, it were only sufficient to assemble the people!

From a purely economic point of view, I beleive government run health care in other industrialized nations vs the American Health care system results in a net economic positve for those other nations which have government run health care. That may seem counter intutive, but hear me out.

It is a fact that health care costs in America eat up a much greater proportion of the American economy than do health care costs in industrialized nation economies which have government run health care. Another fact is that there is no real difference in the health of Americans vs the health of citizens in other industrialized nations which have government run health care. A final fact is that the costs of health care in Ameica contribute to American made products going on to the global market at a disadvantage when comapred to products made in industrialized nations with government run health care.

Given the facts above, lets look at the cause. Americans have less incentive to take responsibilty for their own personal health than do citizens of industrailized nations with government run health care. Americans get lazy taking care of their health becuase they believe that the “best health care system in the world” will come to their rescue and bail them out of the consequences of their poor health choices. The citizens of industrialized nations with government run health care have great incentive to take responsiblity for their own health. They will do all they can to avoid not having to be treated by the government run health care system. Hence they take good care of their own health.

Bingo: Adopting a overnment run health care in America vs the present American Health Care System would actually prove to be a net positive for the American economy by making Ameerican made products less expensive and more competitive in the global market.