Those on the right that suggested the Democratic health care reform proposals (if by "reform" one means destroying the economy) have taken a lot of heat from their lefty counterparts. We can't be sure those lefties ever read what their heros propose, but we can be sure that they grab the first thing they can to further demonize or mock the right wing. The term "death panel" was not meant as a literal panel where a group of people sit in judgement of who will live or die. It was used to describe the very real and hard to counter consequence of the reform proposal.
Government run health care must concern itself with costs first and foremost. It's not possible for it to worry about people when it has made the promise to cover absolutely everyone. The task is too daunting, especially for a body that fails to efficiently run and fund far smaller programs. Most everything begun ends up costing far more than anyone ever predicted or dared to predict. Money must be found somewhere and since that is limited, short of taxing everyone 100% of their income, cost/benefit juggling must occur. Looking at how costs can be contained then becomes a matter of deciding what services can be trimmed, or who remains eligible to receive those services. In other words, quality goes down for everyone, or service is suspended for some. What then would be the result? In either scenario, people will die who ordinarily would have continued receiving life saving/prolonging care. Someone will be making the decisions regarding these cuts and whether that's a panel of several people or just one person will make little difference to those impacted.
The left would rather mock than really think things out to their logical conclusions. We see it all the time. Support the proposal for what it claims it will do, while ignoring the consequences that are obvious to those who really pay attention. (Read the link to which the title of this thread will take you.)
Saturday, December 5, 2009
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1. A Harvard study estimated that 45,000 people die every year because of lack of health insurance. Those are real people, not extrapolated or inferred results.
ReplyDelete2. Only the very rich in America right now receive unlimited medical care. For most Americans their medical care options are limited by their insurance plan and their personal funds.
The only way health insurance companies make a profit is to take more money from healthy people than what they pay out in medical claims.
Insurance companies have a built in capitalistic incentive to deny claims and coverage for sick people. Does that sound like a beneficial or sustainable system?
3. Medicare is a national health care system for the elderly and you know what? They don't produce annual reports about how many senior citizens will die if they don't get full funding! When they get less funds, they tighten belts, and people who might have lived longer die sooner. But that's never been a conservative priority before.
Conservatives in fact have worked to make sure Medicare can't use it's purchasing power to bring down the cost of health care services. So pharmaceutical companies make more expensive drugs and pitch them to doctors and Medicare has to pay standard costs. That's what conservatives have worked for.
So don't come back now saying crying about how rising health care costs will bring about death panels. Your team were the ones whipping the horses towards the cliff!
If you graph military spending and entitlement spending, the trend lines follow pretty closely. So until you're prepared to talk about common sense cuts to the 2nd biggest federal budget category, you're no more than a wingnut loop tape.
1. According to a CNN report earlier this year, more than DOUBLE your 45,000 die each year IN hospitals because of medical errors. On top of this another 99,000 die each year because of infection caught IN hospitals. Those are real people too... not extrapolated (like the number of uninsured in the U.S.) or inferred results. So what? People die. Rich and poor, and young and old alike, with or without insurance. Establishing a government sponsored and controlled healthcare plan will not reduce those numbers. If anything, it will increase those numbers. But that doesn't really concern you.
ReplyDelete2. It has ever been so... the rich receiving unlimited care... and it will continue to be so under ANY government healthcare plan. What? You tell me men like Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi will have to subject themselves to the same government forces when THEIR healthcare is at issue? What? You tell me that men like Bill Gates or Tiger Woods or Clint Eastwood will have to subject themselves to the same government maintained medical market-forces as the rest of us.
The only truth in this whole debate-- one you seem incapable of grasping --is that the very poor will continue to get poor service, and the rich and famous will continue go to the head of the line. The only difference will be who runs the show... private market forces, which have made the American system of medicine the best in the world? or government, which has never run anything successfully or under budget.
You speak of sustainable systems, but again, government has never operated a sustainable system. Why should anyone believe they will do so now? Furthermore, what about the will of the people? Congress is steadfastly IGNORING the will of the people, who overwhelmingly do not want this bill.
3. "When they get less funds, they tighten belts, and people who might have lived longer die sooner." And you want to extend this kind of healthcare to the ENTIRE nation? You're sick!
As for what has or has not ever been a conservative priority: "Conservatives in fact"... Fact? No, sir. Opinion... unsubstantiated fact. But you want facts? How about these...
1. The Republican (overwhelmingly conservative) party was founded on an antislavery platform.
2. Democrats (overwhelmingly liberal) fought against it tooth and nail.
3. The Southern States which instituted Jim Crow laws were DEMOCRATS.
4. When it came time to enact Civil Rights in America, Democrats in Congress overwhelmingly OPPOSED passage. Opposed.
You want to talk about how horrible Conservatives are? Let's talk about Barney Frank who fallaciously declared Fannie and Freddie were in no danger of collapsing... and a short two months later collapsed. How about all the times Bush tried to get more transparency in the day to day operations of those two august, government sponsored programs but was shot down every time by... DEMOCRATS.
ReplyDelete"So don't come back now saying crying[sic] about how rising health care costs will bring about death panels. Your team were the ones whipping the horses towards the cliff!"
No one's crying, Ben. We're shouting for you to turn around... you're riding your horse backward. Furthermore, it's not your place to tell anyone what they can or cannot do. If you want to ride over that cliff, that's your business. But the entire nation shouldn't be made to ride with you. ESPECIALLY when an overwhelming MAJORITY do not want this healthcare bill.
Yep... you're a fine one to be talking common sense. You're just a mind-numbed robot yourself, parroting the idiocy coming from the fetid lips of dishonesty within the ranks of modern Liberalism, as represented by today's Democrat party. I know you're proud to be of like-mind, but being proud of such a thing, to most Americans, is both a disgrace and a reproach to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness... in short, everything for which our Declaration of Independence and Constitution stand.
THREE CHEERS FOR THE ENEMIES OF AMERICAN LIBERTY!!!!
HIP HIP! ...
HIP HIP! ...
Ben,
ReplyDelete1. Would you let your mother, wife or daughter die from a lack of insurance money? Would you not work longer hours, sell property, pass the hat, go into debt in order to provide coverage? Frankly, I doubt that Harvard could guarantee those numbers, especially considering that those people didn't have "lack of insurance disease". They are indeed real people, but to say the cause of death was lack of insurance is specious at best.
2. The very rich do not "receive" unlimited medical care. They pay for it, or more crudely to the leftist, they buy it.
You are right in how insurance companies make a profit. Are you saying there's something wrong with that? What's the alternative but for you to store up funds for the possibility of catastrophic illness or injury befalling you or a loved one? Do you do that or buy insurance for the right to have such catastrophies occur? Or do you buy it against the possibility, hoping that it never happens and you don't have to put in such a claim.
Insurance companies have an obligation to people like yourself to deny illegitimate claims. Their are up-front limitations for each policy defining the extent of the coverage they provide.
3. When has Medicare gotten less funds? The costs of this program have more than dwarfed it's original estimates and continues to go up. Waste and fraud also rises within the system, and again, people die from poor health choices, not from a lack of coverage. Personal responsibility has always been a conservative priority. But Medicare, a gov't run health care system, has not been run efficiently and now some think covering everyone will somehow work out better. Yeah, makes sense to me.
Conservatives in fact have worked to lower costs by supporting policies that allow the market to work the way its supposed to. Pharmaceutical companies do not make drugs with the goal of making them expensive to buy. They're expensive due to the costs involved in developing them.
In the free market, where the cost of health care coverage would rise and fall based on supply and demand, where that demand would be affected by people having to adjust their habits in order to reduce need (do you go out of your way to get sick or hurt, or do you seek out info in order to learn how to live in a more healthy manner?), fewer, if any, people would have to choose between life and death based on cost. But a gov't controlled system would lead to an entitlement mentality (greater than that which already exists due to what the concept of insurance has already wrought) that would demand either a rise in taxation to maintain quality (if such is even possible in a gov't system, which is doubtful) or cuts in service would be required. It's common sense because whether it's one person paying his own way, or the pooling of monies in either a free market situation OR a gov't run version, the money is limited to what can be provided by income be it personal, premium or taxation.
As regards miltary spending, defense is the constitutionally mandated job of government, NOT patching your boo-boo. I WANT the gov't to insure our military is superior to everyone else's. I DO NOT WANT gov't involved with health care in any way, shape or form. IT AIN'T THEIR JOB!!!
IF you were in a traffic accident, would you have the ambulance pull out a rate sheet before they carry you to the emergency room? Or maybe you'd say "Wait. Let me think it over. Get a second opinion." Or would you possibly even be conscious to make a decision?
ReplyDeleteDo you even know what questions to ask to evaluate health care? Do you know how many times your GP has been sued for malpractice? Which ER in your area has the shortest wait times? Or maybe you have the knowledge of modern pharmaceuticals to evaluate the benefits between the newest statins and the generics? Efectiveness? Costs? Side-Effects?
Doctors, nurses and pharmacists, go to school for decades so they can have knowledge to help heal people. We as laymen trust and rely on their advice and judgment. Your pure capitalist approach is a pipe dream where every health care consumer is as educated as a doctor and able to make equally informed decisions.
Right now standing between 70+ percent of Americans and health care are insurance company bureaucracies. Workers and claims specialists without medical training whose major focus is to determine if requested medical procedures are cost/benefit justified.
We can estimate how many people die because they didn't see a general practitioner about a cough that turned into deadly pneumonia. The headache that was really an embolism. The lump that if caught early would have been diagnosed as cancer.
In 18 and 19th century new york there were multiple competing fire prevention companies. You paid a yearly fee and got a plaque to post on your building. If your house caught fire, then all the companies responded, but only the one you paid premiums too worked to douse your house. And the fire companies sometimes set fires to residences insured with other firms. But hey that was capitalism at its purest. Should we go back to that? There are some aspects of humanity that capitalism does not provide answers for.
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During the Bush administration, Congress passed the largest expansion of Medicare ever-The Part D benefit covering prescription drugs. Language in the bill was specifically structured so that Medicare could not negotiate for volume pricing or discounts from pharmaceutical companies. Also there were zero offsetting tax increases or budget cuts in the bill, but that was old conservatism six years ago.
I'd also like to point out there were zero budget cuts to offset
1. The Bush Tax Cuts
2. The Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
3. The Hurricane Katrina Recovery
4. The 9-11 Recovery
5. The creation of the Homeland Security Dept.
So save your crocodile tears over the state of the country's finances.
1.The Bush Tax Cuts
ReplyDeletetax cuts generated revenue for the government. More people were paying less taxes. Obama thinks that less people paying more taxes will do the same. History disagrees
2. The Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
For the majority of the Iraq and Afghan war the US economy increased. It wasn't until Jan 2007 the economy tanked. Coincidentally that was also just one year after the Democrats took congress. Didn't they promise to make the economy better???
3. The Hurricane Katrina Recovery
The magnitude of this disaster combined with the concentration of government dependent people (AKA democrats). Combined with the lack of leadership from the Mayor of N.O. and the Governor of LA. (Funny how Alabama and Mississippi recovered so fast) It would be impossible to resurrect New Orleans and the rest of Louisiana without going into debt.
4. The 9-11 Recovery
The nations economy grew and tax revenues increased for years after 9-11. One could argue that the tax cuts were a offset for the cost of 9-11 recovery.
5. The creation of the Homeland Security Dept.
This one is up in the air. Do you think DHS has saved the nation money by preventing terrorist attacks. I don't know
You are all missing the point.
ReplyDeletePoint is -- Government has no right to take over any private company. Period.
If I don't want insurance, government has no right to force me to purchase insurance, and especially has no right to fine me or jail me if I refuse to pay or cannot pay.
And government has no right -zero- to force me to pay for anyone elses health care if I don't want to.
That is Socialism. Socialism, contrary to the Liberals belief, is not a good thing.
You Libs continually demand the government allow women to choose to kill their babies, yet you don't think the people have a right to choose what kind of health care they want.
Which is it? Either you are for choice or you're not.
You are hypocrites.
Edwin said "tax cuts generated revenue for the government. More people were paying less taxes. Obama thinks that less people paying more taxes will do the same. History disagrees"
ReplyDeleteIf this was true then we could reduce federal taxes to zero and have infinite money. Reducing taxes does not always return more value. This conservative idea comes from a misunderstanding of the Laffer curve.
It's a mathematical/economic graph that says there is a point at which increasing taxes harms the economy more than the revenues produced. But it is only a theoretical chart. There are no numbers that say what the magic point of decreasing return is.
France may be on the other side of the Laffer curve and could strengthen their economy by reducing taxes. America is not in that space. The Congressional Budget Office projected the Bush tax cuts to cost $340-billion by 2008.
For eight years a Republican President and Congress, completely ignored the nation's financial difficulties. They passed multiple large expenditures, without even a nod to offsetting those costs. Now those same politicians and lawmakers have the gall to say that the problems they ignored and exacerbated should be the sole consideration of the new administration.
No nation in the history of the world has ever taxed itself into prosperity.
ReplyDeletewiki much Ben? The CBO source you got from their page (no doubt, in a frantic attempt to look like you know what you're talking about) was written in 2005 and was a projection.
to prove myself right and you wrong I only need to point to the Budget and Economic Outlook: Fiscal Years 2008 to 2017 (written in January 2007)
page 86 table 4-3 titled Actual and Projected Capital Gains Realizations and Taxes (look at the historical data Ben not projected)
The column "Percentage Change from Previous Year" for years 2004 through 2007 show a massive increase in tax receipts.
Keep in mind when you try to digest this into your tiny little brain the tax cuts were not signed into law until 2003.
By 2001 the Clinton policy of higher taxes was loosing an average of 24% each year in revenue to the government.
source:http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/77xx/doc7731/01-24-BudgetOutlook.pdf
It's a nice little flim-flam Edwin.
ReplyDeletetax cuts take money out of the federal budget. Your contention is that money remains with individuals and that money spurs economic growth that leads to greater federal revenues from capital gains taxes.
Well there's no real good way to calculate exactly how much money the federal gov't is giving up by a tax cut. Neither is there a clear way to calculate what money is invested that would have been paid in taxes.
You suggest that because the federal treasury had a boost in capital gains in 2004-2007 the Bush tax cuts are solely to credit. That's a false equivalency. The increased capital gains taxes could be from the rising oil prices in 2004-2005, the recovering aviation industry, increased military supply activities to support the War in Iraq, etc.
Politifact the fact checking website of the St. Petersburg Times did an article checking a quote from Paul Krugman, comparing the cost of health care reform with Bush's tax cuts.
"Looking back, how much have the Bush tax cuts cost us so far? There's not a CBO report on that puts a dollar figure on that, and different think tanks calculated the lost revenues different ways. Keep in mind, we're talking about estimating something that didn't happen: How much in revenues didn't the government collect? Economic conditions change over time, and changes in tax code can affect that. So it's not a straight-up calculation.
The left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities agrees with Krugman. The center's 2009 report on the Bush tax cuts states:
"The 2001 and 2003 tax cuts added about $1.7 trillion to deficits between 2001 and 2008. Because they (were) financed by borrowing — which increases the national debt — this figure includes the extra interest costs resulting from that additional debt. This figure also includes the cost of 'patching' the Alternative Minimum Tax to keep the tax from hitting millions of upper-middle-class households, a problem the tax cuts helped cause. Over the next decade (2009-2018), making the tax cuts permanent would cost $4.4 trillion, assuming that the tax cuts remain deficit-financed."
We then asked the conservative Heritage Institute about the Bush tax cuts. Brian Riedl analyzes the federal budget for the group.
He said Krugman's $1.8 trillion number only considers the government's lost revenue, and doesn't account for the economic activity that lower taxes generate. He said the number was "defensible, but an overstatement." He estimates there would be a stimulative effect from tax cuts that could shave about 25 percent off that tally. Still, he said, Krugman is in the right ballpark for a static score of uncollected revenues.
"I can't believe I'm actually saying one of Krugman's numbers is defensible," he added."
So that's a pretty consensus view that the U.S. government lost $1.8-trillion because of the Bush Tax Cuts. To defend them you need to show that there has been so much economic activity in 2004-2010 that the Fed will receive more than $1.8-trillion in compensating revenue.
Looking at your rebuttal chart there aren't $1.8-trillion in capital gains tax receipts between 2004-2010. So even if every penny of capgain tax receipts is courtesy the Bush tax cuts, you only get $666-billion back from an investment of $1.8-trillion.
"Doctors, nurses and pharmacists, go to school for decades so they can have knowledge to help heal people. We as laymen trust and rely on their advice and judgment. Your pure capitalist approach is a pipe dream where every health care consumer is as educated as a doctor and able to make equally informed decisions."
ReplyDeleteDoctors, Nurses, & Pharmacists DO NOT go to school for "DECADES". Doctors for as much as 10 additional years after high school, including residency; nurses, depending on the level of degree, two to four years; and pharmacists for six (including required science classes while STILL in high school). And only about 6 hours of that time is ever spent on nutrition. Out of all those years (according to personal conversations with pharmacists AND doctors) is devoted to nutrition. The overwhelming bulk of their training is learning how to manage disease, not cure. They are taught that only 20% of all illnesses have a "known cause" let alone cure. And did you know that a doctor can lose his license if he or she instructs a patient to use herbal remedies? Natural remedies? These people are taught to treat symptoms with pharmaceutical drugs. THEY ARE NOT IN THE BUSINESS OF HEALING PEOPLE. Only MANAGING THEIR ILLNESSES. Cancer is 100% Curable (depending on the body's strength level, and personal determination) without the benefit of pharmaceuticals. Did you know that people who refuse chemotherapy and surgery typically live longer than those who do? Did you know that by merely opening the body and cutting at a tumor will cause the cancer to spread? It's a virtual guarantee that by cutting a person open and cutting away a tumor the disease will spread.
If you, as a layman, choose to believe everything that comes out of your doctors mouth, that's your business. But it's also a shame. It's a shame that your most valuable asset is valued so little by you, seeing that you allow other people to "know" what your body needs to maintain long and good health-- especially since they know virtually NOTHING about what the body needs to maintain optimum health.
None of what I've just said, however, touches the topic at hand. But your next line...
"Your pure capitalist approach..."
Now THIS is the crux of our disagreement. YOU and yours are communists at worst... socialists at best. YOU want government to take care of your every need which, if properly interpreted, means you want everyone but YOU to pay for everything you feel you both need... and deserve.
Well, sorrrr-ry! The Constitution doesn't alow our government the mandate to take care of every little boo-boo you get (h/t Marshall). You want to be coddled; taken care of. You don't want the independence our Constitution offers you because that independence requires you to be strong, self-reliant, and knowledgeable about such things as 'what is best for my personal medical situation'.
Should our government provide measures to assure even the sick have access to treatment? Absolutely. But that doesn't, nor should it mean that government take over the entire medical industry.
Why won't government allow people to buy insurance across state lines? That would drive down the cost. What is it that Democrats are afraid of by letting people have more freedom in determining their own life's course?
Power.
This is what the whole debate is about... 'Power' pure and simple.
Well, as an American you are perfectly free to espouse and cling to the tenets of socialism if you wish. But as an American I have a right to call you a lazy asshole if you try to tell me I also have to follow those tenets. And I also have the right to speak my peace about the whole thing.
You can choose to be ignorant if you wish. As for me, I choose Informed Consent... a tenet BOTH Democrat led houses fear and despise.
AND...
ReplyDeleteFor the most part, Americans are stupid and ignorant about what is best for them. "Informed Consent" is paramount in terms of treatments doctors prescribe, yet many doctors don't even bother to fully inform patients about the risks of vaccinations-- ESPECIALLY about the H1N1 hoax/scare and its very suspect vaccine. More people die of the regular influenza each year than have died thus far from this bogus "pandemic."
To Congress I say, 'Get the hell out of my medical decisions, and my wallet!' To the rest who daily bend and lick Harry Reid's ass and parrot his duplicity? Keep your hoax and change, I'm sticking the Constitution of the United States! And NO WHERE in the Constitution is Congress granted to power to tax me-- or anyone else for that matter --into penury.
It's treasonous what Congress is trying to do.
You quote one statement from the 'fact-checking' arm of an uber-leftist newspaper, then have the audacity to call it a 'consensus'? I reckon that earns you your Typical Leftist bonafides.
ReplyDeleteThe quote from Politifact had opinions from both the Center on Budget and Policy and The Heritage Center. Both accepted the figure of $1.8-trillion as a cost for Bush's Tax Cuts. Left and Right.
ReplyDelete--------------------------------
If you are overweight or have heart problems, and keep going to the emergency room, then those costs are spread across the entire population. If you are diabetic, and need ambulance service, then an inability to pay is a burden for everyone else to shoulder.
You can't opt out of fire protection, or police coverage.
Neither do we allow meat processors to grind whatever they want into sausage.
Even though the Constitution and Bill of Rights guarantees the Freedom of speech, because we live in a lawful society that we accept the Supreme Court's limitation of that freedom to yell fire in a theatre.
When all you "conservatives" deny the lawful decisions of the Supreme Court, the laws of Congress and the powers of the President, you deny your acceptance of the American Society.
Obama has spent more in one year than Bush spent in eight.
ReplyDelete-----
When all you brainwashed communistic "progressives" accept blindly the rule of tyrants, under the misguided belief that they know better than you, you have ceased to be free men and have become slaves. You have ceased to love Liberty, embracing instead, Tyranny. You have ceased to BE American and have become instead... fools.
What liberties will "progressive" fools strip from the American people next?
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"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government"
--Thomas Jefferson, 1 Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334"
Sad to think it could come to this.
"Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficient... The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding."
ReplyDelete-- Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis
There's today's Democrat party 'insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding.' That's Obama to the tee.
When men who have sworn to support and defend our Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, but thereafter have chosen instead to subvert and redefine the very tenets that make all men free, it is the prime duty of all free men to rise up against such a tyrannical government. Such oath breakers, traitors all, are not worthy to represent free men.
BenT judging from how you replied to my post I'm not sure you're capable of reading documents for grown-ups.
ReplyDeleteBen forgets that most conservatives railed against the lack of spending cuts during the Bush years. Tax cuts are always half the equation. As good as they are, and they are indeed good, spending cuts are also necessary to get the economy in order. Indeed, the spending of Republicans lead to the Democratic take-over of '06. If one continues to spend, and then adds more spending on top of it, then tax cuts can hurt, especially in the immediate future. The stimulating effect it has on business (and we did experience growth for something like 52 straight quarters during the Bush years) might not be enough if that spending continues.
ReplyDeleteThere are so many areas where the federal government can cut its spending for the mere fact that they have no business sticking their noses in those areas to begin with. Defense and infrastructure is about the extent of their mandates.