Primary June 6th........
 

Response:

My existing taxes accomplish this already, in that I pay many thousands in taxes and the government feeds boatloads of people. I'm willing to pay more taxes to feed more. So, I suppose my answer is "Yes", although we can quibble about the delivery mechanism.

Alternate response if I posted like Hank:

SOLYENT GREEN IS PEOPLE!!!!

Response:

Seriously, Hank, where did this come from? How do you get from my gentle suggestion that our health care system might be less than magnificent for all Americans to this?

Alternate response if I posted like Hank:

Spanky says that Medicaid and Medicare should not exist, and that the government should have no role at all in providing health care. Hank says -- "Yeah, the poor get screwed, but fuck all of the poor people because I have mine. " I thought you guys were supposed to be the party of Jeezus? WWJD?

S_A_M

P.S. I am a little bored, and a little tired of hearing definitive, absolutist opinions from Spanky even on things he obviously knows very little about.

Primary June 6th........
 

Nope. I would, however, be willing to pay much more in taxes to provide basic coverage and better medical care for others, while I keep my lovely but expensive private insurance coverage. It is not a binary system, Hank.

(a) I do.

(b) We bought more presents for kids not in my family than for those in my family. (OK, it helps that one of them is a baby.)

Your turn.

S_A_M

Primary June 6th........
 

Isn't controlling the cost of parts A-C a serious problem (and I don't know what each part does)? I do know that every time someone tries to introduce sanity into a system that requires payment for heroic procedures on someone almost dead, such as some sort of limit on expenditures, it gets shot down.

Feel free to correct my misimpressions.

Primary June 6th........
 

Well, duh. Of course. You are stating the obvious, but Spanky is missing it. He loudly proclaims "our system works better" when he really means "our system works better for me."

This is a values-based decision. It's not inherently wrong or bad, but he seems not to recognize, or at least acknolwedge, what it is.

Primary June 6th........
 

Now, now. He's gotta be me. I mean him. Whatever.

Besides, his willingness to believe, with conviction, that whatever he has is the best thing possible is really a positive trait. At least when you're playing poker with him.

Primary June 6th........
 

From what I understand it is pretty close. My friends in the Army does nothing but gripe about the bueacratic mess the Army is. And you can't tell me that the army has very good cost controls.

The Military is a necessary evil. Having the government run it makes it very inefficient but as far as I know there is no better way to do it.

Primary June 6th........
 

Yes - I have. I went four years without medical insurance.

Primary June 6th........
 

Why does it always seem that the most ignorant and dimwitted are the first to resort to personal attacks. The stupid are always the first to call other people stupid.

I don't need to know the intricacies of Medicare to be involved in a discussion of whether socialized medicine is a good thing - or a discussion of how much government involvement we should have in our medical system.

I think the fact that I have lived in seven countries and been able to compare and contrast different approaches to medical care gives me a practical view of government involvement in medicine that most people don't have. And probably a much better perspective on the subject than just knowing the different bureaucratic processes involved with A, B and D Medicare plans. You don’t see me telling RT that she can’t have an opinion until she has studied that medical system in Botswana. Or telling her that she can’t have an opinion on the subject until she has done a complete study of four different medical systems in four different countries.

And what is this obsession with Medicare? Both my parents are on it. It is not that complicated of a system. RT and you talk like if you interview people on Medicare or study the Medicare system the clouds will part, some light will shine down from heaven, and you will get a whole new revelation on how great government interference in the medical field can be. I don't even have to review the program to know that is Bull Shit. I know plenty of people on Medicare, and I have never heard one good thing about it.

I have read way too much about fraud waste and abuse in Medicare to not understand that it is really inefficiently run and a huge drain on taxpayers dollars.

Primary June 6th........
 

From age 30 to 34 I had no medical insurance.

Why Liberal?
 

"We Can't Make it Here"
Lyrics


Vietnam Vet with a cardboard sign
Sitting there by the left turn line
Flag on the wheelchair flapping in the breeze
One leg missing, both hands free
No one's paying much mind to him
The V.A. budget's stretched so thin
And there's more comin' home from the Mideast war
We can't make it here anymore

That big ol' building was the textile mill
It fed our kids and it paid our bills
But they turned us out and they closed the doors
We can't make it here anymore

See all those pallets piled up on the loading dock
They're just gonna set there till they rot
'Cause there's nothing to ship, nothing to pack
Just busted concrete and rusted tracks
Empty storefronts around the square
There's a needle in the gutter and glass everywhere
You don't come down here 'less you're looking to score
We can't make it here anymore

The bar's still open but man it's slow
The tip jar's light and the register's low
The bartender don't have much to say
The regular crowd gets thinner each day

Some have maxed out all their credit cards
Some are working two jobs and living in cars
Minimum wage won't pay for a roof, won't pay for a drink
If you gotta have proof just try it yourself Mr. CEO
See how far 5.15 an hour will go
Take a part time job at one of your stores
Bet you can't make it here anymore

High school girl with a bourgeois dream
Just like the pictures in the magazine
She found on the floor of the laundromat
A woman with kids can forget all that
If she comes up pregnant what'll she do
Forget the career, forget about school
Can she live on faith? live on hope?
High on Jesus or hooked on dope
When it's way too late to just say no
You can't make it here anymore

Now I'm stocking shirts in the Wal-Mart store
Just like the ones we made before
'Cept this one came from Singapore
I guess we can't make it here anymore

Should I hate a people for the shade of their skin
Or the shape of their eyes or the shape I'm in
Should I hate 'em for having our jobs today
No I hate the men sent the jobs away
I can see them all now, they haunt my dreams
All lily white and squeaky clean
They've never known want, they'll never know need
Their sh@# don't stink and their kids won't bleed
Their kids won't bleed in the da$% little war
And we can't make it here anymore

Will work for food
Will die for oil
Will kill for power and to us the spoils
The billionaires get to pay less tax
The working poor get to fall through the cracks
Let 'em eat jellybeans let 'em eat cake
Let 'em eat sh$%, whatever it takes
They can join the Air Force, or join the Corps
If they can't make it here anymore

And that's how it is
That's what we got
If the president wants to admit it or not
You can read it in the paper
Read it on the wall
Hear it on the wind
If you're listening at all
Get out of that limo
Look us in the eye
Call us on the cell phone
Tell us all why

In Dayton, Ohio
Or Portland, Maine
Or a cotton gin out on the great high plains
That's done closed down along with the school
And the hospital and the swimming pool
Dust devils dance in the noonday heat
There's rats in the alley
And trash in the street
Gang graffiti on a boxcar door
We can't make it here anymore

Primary June 6th........
 

How did you ever get through law school with such poor reading comprehension. I never said this, and I never said anything remotely close to this.

How can you know anything about what I read, if you can't understand anything you read.

Primary June 6th........
 

Above is what you said I said. And this is the actual post that I made that led to this conversation.

"I have lived in four countries that had socialized medicine. And in every single country it sucked. I prefer our health system any day.

However, the private market does not provide health care for everyone so the government has to step in. I believe that the government should step in to make sure everyone has healthcare, but this step should involve as little government involvement as possible."


Now upon review do you think how you and SAM characterized my comments had any relationship to reality?

Primary June 6th........
 

Did you find that preferable to living in a country where the government insured you?

Did you actually ever need medical help during that time?

(College doesn't count, by the way, if you could just walk into the campus med. center.)

Primary June 6th........
 

Infinetely. In most of the countries that had socialized medicine I eventually went to private doctors because the public hospitals were so dirty and poorly run.

Yes. And it cost about the same as private medicine in both Japan and England.

In college, because my income was so low, I was able to go to the San Diego County hospital and get free care. The free care provided at the San Diego County hospital (which is free) was infinitely better than the care I got in both England and Japan.

Primary June 6th........
 

Well, when you put it like that... blush...

But it's pretty hard to understand your point. "We need government, just as little as possible" is meaningless. The places where you try to give it meaning amount to saying "government is bad, and we should have less of it." Do you believe, then, that government has done enough to make sure that everyone has adequate healthcare? Do the government efforts to provide such healthcare work better when more private enterprise is involved? Somehow, I doubt that -- gov't-private partnerships can bring out the worst of both sectors, rather than the best. (i.e, combining the efficiency of a government bureaucracy with the caring, non-profit-driven motivation of an HCA corp.)

Primary June 6th........
 

No, YOU read MY post, Mister!!

My post was divided into my actual response, and an alternative response, and I expressly said that the passage you quote was the alternative -- what I would say "if I posted like Hank."

So you're right, it has very little connection to reality, but I telegraphed that up front!

SO THERE! BURN! I AM RUBBER YOU ARE GLUE.

S_A_M :butt:

Primary June 6th........
 

No. I think everyone in the US should have health insurance.

They can. But if done right they don't. The later part of my original comment said that we need to figure out a way so everyone in the US gets somekind of medical insurance but find a way to have as little government involvement as possible. Personally I think that we should require employers to provide health insurance. Right now I employ four people and they all get health insurance.

I also proposed earlier that we should require health insurance if you want a drivers license. No health insurance, no license. If you can show that you are poor you get free health insurance, but if you have the money, no insurance, no license. If you are middle class, and don't drive, you get covered by the government. That encourages people not to drive and saves reduces our dependency on oil. If you make over seventy thousand a year, you have to pay for your own medical insurance even if you don't have a license.

The problem with the Democrats is that when they come up with a solution it always involves too much government involvement. When the government completely controls a program it sucks.

Primary June 6th........
 

The discussion wasn't about socialized medicine. It was about Medicare. The discussion cannot contune unless you understand, at a very basic level, how Medicare works. Since I do not have the time or inclination to discuss at length the implementation in 1965 of parts A (hospital charges) and B (inpatient and outpatient physician charges) with the inclusion of co-insurance and fiscal intermediaries, as well as the subsequent switchover to the Prospective Payment System in 1982, so you're up to speed on how the Medicare Modernization Act's drug benefit program in Part D differs GREATLY with the rest of the system, I have to bow out of the discussion.

I will say, though that we live in a country where the majority of healthcare costs are picked up by the Federal Government. We also live in a country where the population is aging at a rapid, rapid rate and the Medicare trust fund is going to take a major strain. It's important that you understand that not a single serious proposal for universal coverage that I've ever heard, including the Clinton plan, was ever modelled after socialized medicine as seen in any other country in the world.

Primary June 6th........
 

No it wasn't. Medicare was a side subject. It was a discussion about the private and public involvement in Medicine. After I made the statement that I quoted to Sidd, you told me to review Medicare.

The main point of that statement was that we should reduce government involvement as much as possible.


[/QUOTE] The discussion cannot contune unless you understand, at a very basic level, how Medicare works. Since I do not have the time or inclination to discuss at length the implementation in 1965 of parts A (hospital charges) and B (inpatient and outpatient physician charges) with the inclusion of co-insurance and fiscal intermediaries, as well as the subsequent switchover to the Prospective Payment System in 1982, so you're up to speed on how the Medicare Modernization Act's drug benefit program in Part D differs GREATLY with the rest of the system, I have to bow out of the discussion.
[/QUOTE]

That is more than I want to know, or think I will ever need to know about medicare.

No but it still had too much government involvement. The Clinton health plan was written by people that had no concept of how the market helps improve service and reduces costs. One example of how the plan would screw up markets, was the plan tried to put limits on drug company profits. The only way that companys will risk spending vast sums of dollars on drug research is if they know that they will get big profits. If there isn't a big reward there will be no risk. When she was faced with this question her response was "we will have to incentivize the drug companys another way". Of course she never explained what that other way was.

Primary June 6th........
 

And Medicare Part D was written by people who have no comprehension of how private industry's primary goal of maximizing profits is incompatible with it providing maximum services for minimal cost when the costs are being borne by the government.

Actually, that's not true. I think that they know exactly how much is true, and intended exactly what happened.

You guys fucked this one up, plain and simple. It's a massive teat to the insurance and pharmaceutical industries disguised as a social program. Way to go.

Primary June 6th........
 

If that's so, what does it say for the second?

Primary June 6th........
 

What makes you think I had anything to do with this program? I have never even defended it.

Primary June 6th........
 

If you take a pistol and shoot at me, shame on you. If I have a pistol, and don't use it to defend myself, shame on me.

If I am attacked I always respond in kind. Do you have a problem with that?

The President's prescient SoTU
 

Today's warning level: "Furries."

http://jesseberney.com/images/200602...ridwarning.jpg

The Long War
 

It's seemed intuitively true for some time now, but this is the first time I recall seeing this thinking institutionalized.

• The Pentagon, readying for what it calls a "long war," yesterday laid out a new 20-year defense strategy that envisions U.S. troops deployed, often clandestinely, in dozens of countries at once to fight terrorism and other nontraditional threats.
  
  Major initiatives include a 15 percent boost in the number of elite U.S. troops known as Special Operations Forces, a near-doubling of the capacity of unmanned aerial drones to gather intelligence, a $1.5 billion investment to counter a biological attack, and the creation of special teams to find, track and defuse nuclear bombs and other catastrophic weapons.
  
  China is singled out as having "the greatest potential to compete militarily with the United States," and the strategy in response calls for accelerating the fielding of a new Air Force long-range strike force, as well as for building undersea warfare capabilities.
  
  The latest top-level reassessment of strategy, or Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), is the first to fully take stock of the starkly expanded missions of the U.S. military -- both in fighting wars abroad and defending the homeland -- since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
  
  The review, the third since Congress required the exercise in the 1990s, has been widely anticipated because Donald H. Rumsfeld is the first defense secretary to conduct one with the benefit of four years' experience in office. Rumsfeld issued the previous QDR in a hastily redrafted form days after the 2001 strikes.
  
  The new strategy, summarized in a 92-page report, is a road map for allocating defense resources. It draws heavily on the lessons learned by the U.S. military since 2001 in Iraq, Afghanistan and counterterrorism operations. The strategy significantly refines the formula -- known as the "force planning construct" -- for the types of major contingencies the U.S. military must be ready to handle.

Primary June 6th........
 

I've always enjoyed the board more when people are pleasant to each other and respect the views of the people with whom they disagree. I can't say I've always lived up to this standard.

nicer!
 

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Spanky
Why does it always seem that the most ignorant and dimwitted are the first to resort to personal attacks.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


What did I say?

Assemblyman Gardener
 

Thottam, running for state office in Cali.

Not that his socking activities on the boad (or in Mexico) shoud pose a problem.

http://www.peterthottam.com/PT%20Face%20Blk%20Shirt.JPG

Assemblyman Gardener
 

Oh, shit. I don't live in that district, but it's pretty close.

Assemblyman Gardener
 

I'll bet you he won't represent that district, and it won't be close.

Assemblyman Gardener
 

No bet. I'm having a hard time imagining this guy winning over, say, the young and beautiful in Manhattan Beach.

Primary June 6th........
 

I can't believe that I missed this post, I am speechless.

First, I am astounded that you, of all people, could call me ignorant or dimwitted. My gosh, I had best go reexamine my life.

Second, I am at a bit of a loss as to how calling someone "ignorant" about a certain issue is a vile personal attack -- particularly when you have repeatedly acknowledged that you don't really know much about what everyone else was talking about. You also say that you don't NEED to know anything about it -- which is the most remarkable part.

(In fairness, it is now clear that you and Hank were talking about something that no one else was talking about -- "Socialized Medicine.")

Whoops, there it is!

Why don't you think that some basic knowledge of how our major government health care programs work would be helpful in a discussion of the pros and cons of government-provided health care? And, what IS "socialized medicine" anyway -- do you think that Medicaid and Medicare are "socialized medicine"?

Of course you can have an opinion, Spanky -- but they are like assholes. Everyone has them and most of them stink.

You make the mistake here that you frequently make in your efforts at inductive reasoning. You take a few specific situations and your own personal experiences, and use them as the basis for broad, general pronouncements on policy, philosophy, etc. as applied to vastly dissimilar situations. Doesn't work.

Seriously, you seem like you'd be an interesting guy to hang out with, but come on . . .

Really? I am not "obsessed" with Medicare, and never said it was the answer to anything, but I have two quick questions, Spanky . . .

What is the average percentage of Medicare dollars allocated to overhead expenses?

How does that compare to the industry average overhead costs for the private health insurers?

Wait ... you don't know . . . and you don't need to know, do you?

S_A_M

I Refuse to Believe that I Have Killed Two Boards . . .
 

eom.

Assemblyman Gardener
 

He doesn't seem to live in that district either, if the address included on his resume is accurate. In fact, he seems to be my neighbor. Maybe that's a "work" address?

Assemblyman Gardener
 

2.

nicer!
 

? I was talking to SAM....or did you already know that and I just misunderstood what you were asking?

Assemblyman Gardener
 

From his website:

• . . . and why I resigned from position as an attorney in January 2003, in order to further focus my anti-war organizing efforts in Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York.

I thought his ass got downsized.

Have Fun, RT
 

Primary June 6th........
 

You know what they say about an unexamined life.



You left out the part of talking "out my ass". Do you consider that part of civil discourse? Have I ever acused anyone on this board of "talking out their ass"?

What I find so funny about this is that I started the conversation. I was talking about government involvement in medicine and then was told you can't have an intelligent conversation about government involvement in medicine unless you know the difference between A,B, and D medicare. Since I was talking about the subject in general, and there are at least twenty difference developed countrys with differenct systems, I do not think that intricate knowledge of a specific program that is just a part (although a large part) of the U.S. Medical system was a prerequisite to having such a conversation. You did not see me saying "unless you know about at least five different systems in different countries intrinsically you are ignorant on the subject." I felt that I had sufficient knowledge of the subject to enter into an intelligent conversation about government intervention in medicine. If you didn't think I had the relevent facts, you should have pointed out the facts that I was missing, and why such facts detracted from my argument. That is what I would have done. But saying I should "read" something, or "review" something is a cop out.

It might help, it might not. The best way to find out is if someone with such facts uses them to refute my position. But if no one does, then I didn't need such facts. We all can't know everything about every subject, so following that line of reasoning no one on this board could discuss anything. Saying that you need to know certain facts, or have reviewed certain material, to make an argument is a cop out and a classic "fallacy" like Ad Hominem etc. It is not a valid logical response. You need to point out why such facts are a prerequisite for entering into the conversation, or cite facts that refute my argument, but just saying I cant enter the discussion is not valid.


Couldn't you come up with anything more original than that?

And you are making the mistake of assuming I don't know anything else about the subject. I have read about many different government medical programs in the Economist and elsewhere. But when I enter into conversations about medical policy, people always say that they have read articles that say these programs are great. Not only have I read that the British, French, Italian and Japanese systems suck, but I have experienced it first hand. I have read that the Canadian system is bad, and I have met people that who have used it who say it is bad (hence all the Canadians coming to the US for medical treatment) but since I have no experience first hand I focus on other systems.


If the question is - should the American system be run like, England, Italy or Japan. Then no. If the questions is should the US government completely take over the medical system, then the answer is no. If we are having a more sophisticated coversation about a private public mix then maybe. Depends on the subject matter.

Assemblyman Gardener
 

Should I know who this guy is?