Politics: Onward from New Hampshire

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by Not Me
http://www.timesleader.com/mld/times...printstory.jsp

I know of a case in which the defendant drove a pencil completely through the hand of his PD while the lawyer was arguing to the judge (hand resting on the defense table). No jury around -- just didn't like what the guy was saying, so used the pencil and began choking the lawyer.

But that man was probably honestly "crazy" -- in addition to being a rapist and murderer.

S_A_M

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
What would happen if Republicans treated Richard Clarke like a distinguished public servant with serious disagreements about important matters of public policy, and engaged with the substance of what he's said? What would they say?

One might be doing that. Remember the Republican Senator from ND that the WH doesn't much like? [Blanking on name.]

I saw him on TV briefly this a.m., commenting that Clark was a serious professional who had made statements that the WH will have to address.

S_A_M

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by bilmore
Only to someone who wanted it to be so.

OK. It would have been more accurate for me to say that the response was a little disproportionate.

S_A_M

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Tomorrow, i will change outfits.
as to her boyfriends name, I doubt his name is brain damage, unless he was rasied traditional american Indian. I really can't tell much about the people who post here, and how they are in real life.

Hmmm. You can tell he's a bit stung when he resorts to insulting the other guy's intelligence. The pattern emerges, but I have descended from "dull normal" to "brain damage". Well played, sir!

Sometimes its tough to get past those high school reflexes.

S_A_M

693-22

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
Cute, but wrong. The left's proposition that certain policy goals are more effectively obtained by government programs than incentivized private sectors does not constitute a wholesale adoption of communist philosophy, except on these boards (a.k.a. www.birchsociety.com/chat).

While your second statement is correct, it bears no relation to the first. You insist that, to avoid nonsequitariness, proposition B must follow both quality and intensity of proposition A. Too rigid. Yes, B had to do with mission creep - you're objection is merely that it overstates. That's not an NS.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Not Me
Do you really think that about health care? The rest of the world by and large gets to free ride off the medical innovations that are developed in the US because the companies are willing to invest R&D because of the return on their investments that they can get in a capitalist system. Take capitalism out of the US healthcare system and significantly reduce the profits that can be earned and medical innovation will come to a screeching halt.

This is the beauty of the "Buy Canadian" movement in drugs. What will eventually happen isn't a meaningful reduction in our prices, but a boost in Canadian prices. Our prices will go down somewhat, eventually, simply because of the resultant price boost elsewhere, but they will make those profits somewhere.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Not Me
The biggest flaw of our current system is that the ultimate consumer (the patient) is by and large insulated from the cost of care at the point of service by the third party payer (assuming that they have health insurance) and that there is an informaiton imbalance between those seliing the service and those receiving the service.

Actually, the biggest flaw is that scientific advancement has made it possible to fix damn near anything, if we spare no expense.

It's that "spare no expense" part that hangs us up. We are eventually going to have to confront the problem behind it, but it's a sticky one.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Secret_Agent_Man
OK. It would have been more accurate for me to say that the response was a little disproportionate.

S_A_M

Thank you. That's all I meant.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by bilmore
This is the beauty of the "Buy Canadian" movement in drugs. What will eventually happen isn't a meaningful reduction in our prices, but a boost in Canadian prices. Our prices will go down somewhat, eventually, simply because of the resultant price boost elsewhere, but they will make those profits somewhere.

I don't think the companies have the ability to raise prices in Canada. For pharmceuticals, these drugs are dirt cheap to manufacture. And if you don't have a patent to protect your market, someone can make your drug for very little cost. The Canadians have a Patented Medicines Prices Review Board that sets the prices of patented medicines. The patentee's choice is to either sell at the price that it is told to sell at, or refuse to sell, in which case a compulsory license can be issued to a generic manufacturer.

Canada used to routinely issue the compulsory licenses, but that changed a bit in 1993. Now they set the price and won't issue the compulsory license unless the pharma company rejects the price and refuses to sell.

So the companies cannot raise the prices in Canada. At least not without permission of the PMPRB.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by bilmore
Actually, the biggest flaw is that scientific advancement has made it possible to fix damn near anything, if we spare no expense.

It's that "spare no expense" part that hangs us up. We are eventually going to have to confront the problem behind it, but it's a sticky one.

Good point. And combine that with an aging population and it spells disaster. We need to means test Medicare.

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
On your computer did "try" show up in my post?

I asked what I was supposed to be trying and you said go now (or something to that effect). Your post prior to that had told me I should (a) try and (b) be funny occasionally. I can be funny occasionally, no problem, but you never said what I should try to do.

I am divorcing my brain-damaged husband. He wears weird head coverings to hide the scars.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Not Me
Quick primer. The biggest flaw of our current system is....

The whole health-care system is like a massive catalog of the different sorts of market failure. And then the government's involvement distorts the market (and others -- e.g., through the tax benefits for employers to provide health insurance).

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Secret_Agent_Man
One might be doing that. Remember the Republican Senator from ND that the WH doesn't much like? [Blanking on name.]

Chuck Hagel of Nebraska?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Mark Kleiman posts:

Just checked in with one of my pro-war, pro-Bush national security expert friends. Here's what I learned:

1. Clarke is the real deal.

2. What he says is convincing.

3. What he says makes the Bush team look very bad.

4. What Cheney says about Clarke is a pack of lies.

My friend's parting comment: "Do I really still have to be for these guys?"

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
Mark Kleiman posts:

Just checked in with one of my pro-war, pro-Bush national security expert friends. Here's what I learned:

1. Clarke is the real deal.

2. What he says is convincing.

3. What he says makes the Bush team look very bad.

4. What Cheney says about Clarke is a pack of lies.

My friend's parting comment: "Do I really still have to be for these guys?"

I admit that I haven't yet had time to read up on this as much as I would like, and I have no reason to doubt Clarke (I did doubt O'neil because I thought he was a boob), but I hesitate to believe him whole heartedly due to the fact that that the guy has an incentive to spruce up the truth in order to sell books.