Here’s what we get in American government: a room full of morons, eyes squeezed shut, bobbing their heads back and forth as they beg an invisible man in the sky to smite health care reform. Witness this and realize that religion is a pathology, an evil mind-rot that makes the stupid even more stupid.
(via the prayercast on RIght Wing Watch, which is full of examples of this kind of lunacy)
Isn’t it great that we have ‘leaders’ who would rather serve some non-existent sky-daddy than, oh I don’t know, the people who elected them?
WOW
WHAT THE FUCK?
It’s all that Wesson oil they douse each other with. Makes ’em slippery. Don’t their joints seem well-lubricated?
God, doing what he’s told by republicans… Or not. So they will no doubt continue to get involved on his behalf.
Don’t these nutjobs know how the US health care system compares with Canada & European countries in terms of costs & benefits?
And why didn’t that god-fellah do something about those other countries when they brought in their health care systems?
Well, i guess if you can believe that a god-fellah is meddling in human affairs, when there’s not a shred of evidence for it, then you can’t be expected to be rational about anything.
I’m glad Europe isn’t as infested with this kind of idiots as the US seems to be.
Is the one leading the prayer the anti-abortionist from the end of “Jesus Camp?”
You Americans frighten the crap out of us.
It’s hard to separate the liars from the fools who have bought into the lies.
We could argue all day about the terrible things that aren’t in the bill.
Three major issues I have with the current bill (that’s not in the bill) right now are:
1) Mandatory sex changes for women in the military.
2) Free lobotomies for all South Carolinians who aren’t currently registered Republican
3) A government funded harem for President Obama and his wife (who is now required to perform lesbian acts–as are all women–at her husbands request because of this bill).
It’s appalling that no one has yet to argue these issues which I find far more egregious than the current fake reasons for voting/praying against this bill.
I can only hope that the evangelical American electorate does the right thing next year and stays home to pray for their choice in leadership.
Surely their God is more powerful than the secular idol that is the voting booth.
I wonder if that head bobbing thing is part of whatever makes one religious. That video of the rabbis on the plane has all kinds of head bobbing in it. Is listening to hip hop a form of prayer?
So truly religious immorality exposed as practised by the self dubbed moral majority.
Conspiring with a fucking insidious figment of a juvenile and immature rancid imagination to deny healthcare to the most needy in the name of jeebus…as they say…WTF
They have no shame and even less humanity…retarded fuckwits!
This is absolutely disgusting.
I’m glad that the presentor was normal, otherwise i would have turned it off.
Do amiricans still wonder why so many europeans and other people in teh world see them as crazy and backwards?
I feel for the people who are fighting to keep the usa in the 21st century instead of letting it slip down into the dark ages.
If prayer is their best response I hope they keep it up so the adults can talk.
Just when you think the Crazy can’t get any worse!
Isn’t it really anthropologically significant that this resembles some old film of ‘primitive’ tribespeople praying to their volcano god.
I almost expected someone to walk in, flick on a cigarette lighter & watch all of the Republicans fall to the floor in fear of the heap big magic.
If these same people saw another group behaving exactly the same way, but praying to a heathen, imaginary god, instead, they would all shake their heads in condenscending bewilderment that such superstion exists in the world. Very probably, they would and start praying for them to find Jesus, too.
Big, Damn, Insane asylum.
If these are the morons that want to keep American healthcare in the sorry state that it is, then, given that prayer amounts to doing nothing at all, AFAIC they can just keep doing what they’re doing.
There are plenty of sane Americans and these nutjobs frighten the crap out of us, as well. Comments that lump every inhabitant of a diverse country into one category are not very helpful.
I’m going to end my life now.
I don’t want to live in a world with Michele Bachmann.
Goodbye stupid world.
HOLY SHIT!
USA is truly the most retarded country in the world of all the non-muslim countries.
This is mental illness, is it not? They think the invisible guy in the sky is interested in a health care reform bill. We seem to be able to call the guy that thinks he’s Napoleon crazy, but the people talking to their magical friend need to be respected?
But SERIOUSLY, not any other country can elect so many idiotic politicians to office.
USA really has a critical mass of stupidity that doesn’t exist in any other non-muslim country.
The GOP are masters at conflating things that have nothing to do with each other. Since their minions have genetically engineered themselves out of critical thinking, they just follow along.
BTW, any preacher that uses emotion like this is immediately suspect. Every single one of them who uses tears publicly have been exposed as pedophiles, adulterers, rapists, etc. EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM. Just wait. This one will be exposed soon.
I love how “funding abortion” means “government control” to Republicans, when they want government to control your ability to get an abortion. >.< And now we see where the incredibly obtuse Michelle Bachmann gets her support from. She can pray to sky daddy pretty well on camera, begging for mercy etc. I'll speculate that right-wingers actually enjoy that sort of patriarchal reverence in a woman.
Hey, hey, hey…I would just like to point out that the pope lives in Europe. Plenty of stupid shit happens worldwide. No-one is immune; all will pay the piper. The “Most Retarded” award is still in contention, so don’t give up, North Korea.
Can’t seem to watch the video at the moment, but I can imagine. I wonder what the religious anti public health nutters will think if they lose? Rational thinkers may realise that either a) God supports the health care reform, b) God is impotent, or c) God doesn’t exist.
What’s the bets they dream up a (d).
I wonder, if there god is so powerful it can prevent this “tragedy” of health care reform, why they don’t just pray for people not to get sick in the first place. Then we wouldn’t need it.
Or would that not be the Christian thing to do?
Bah. s/there/their
I blame it on Monday.
Back to the head bobbing; has anyone studied this phenomena, which does seen to be common to many religions when people are trying to enter some kind of trance state. Hypothesis: simulates nursing behavior, which triggers release of oxytocin. Any other ideas out there?
@Tronzu
Your comments aren’t exactly a bright light of reason in the dark.
From Brazil to Uganda, there are plenty of countries where religious ignorance is much more dangerous and powerful than it is in US. It also isn’t a given that all so-called Muslim countries are automatically the worst, numerous problems in many of them notwithstanding.
Finally, the equation of religiosity with stupidity or mental retardation is a fallacy you shouldn’t subscribe to unless you want to make a very crude joke, one that is also insensitive to those with real handicaps, since we know that religion’s primal pulls subvert the best of minds.
There is your “Death Panel” that we’ve heard so much about.
Of course all of those in the video have gold-plated healthcare plans, or bank accounts that could easliy absorb any sort of medical catastrophe.
Jim DeMint, is unquestionably one of the 10 stupidest senators of all time.
I am ashamed to be living in South Cackalackee.
It’s the same reason a judge bangs a gavel instead of just saying “next.” It’s all for show.
Everyone knows God is a registered Republican and hates it when people have health care.
“I pray as a stand-in for myself…”
?
Slugsie (@26):
No bet. I think we already know what (d) will be: God hates the U.S., because of our support for teh gayz and our rampant baby-eating abortionism and our incipient communism, and he’s afflicted us with the evils of affordable, accessible health care to punish us for our intransigent apostasy. No doubt it’ll be phrased with more nuance than Fred Phelps can muster, but it’ll essentially be right out of the Westboro Baptist Church God Hates Fags playbook.
I’m pretty sure that the guy leading the prayer is the one guy from “Jesus Camp” who shows up mid-way through and leads the little children in anti-abortion demonstrations in the capital by putting tape over their mouths. His voice and lunacy stuck out in my mind.
Can anyone confirm?
What makes me sad is that seeing this broadcast will enhance their standing in the eyes of many.
“What’s the bets they dream up a (d).”
Satan is trying to take over the US and God won’t stop him because we’re not supposed to stray from His word.
Come on, people, that wasn’t that hard.
No, wait, how do we know that nothing might not lead them better than their brains would?
They could be on to something.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p
#18 this is true, but the fact is that Americans put these types of people in power. Even a nominally blue state like Minnesota still has people like Bachmann making decisions on its behalf, and even in blue states the right can still wield and mobilize much power. Take my home state of Ohio, which is nominally blue with a Democratic governor and a House that swung to a Democratic majority on Strickland and Obama’s coattails. The senate is still dominantly Republican, and the religious right still had the clout to enact a defense of marriage act. Even in a college town around here, campaigning for a Democrat can be an uphill battle, as I know from experience.
#26 Gotcha covered: (d) The health care bill is a test of our faith and resolve placed by the godless heathen brutes to challenge the trust and comfort we place in blessed Jesus’ name.
If there was a God we wouldn’t need health care.
Idiot Americans deserve who they vote for.
http://darwin-killed-god.blogspot.com/
“we have failed and we haven’t done as we should.”
“JESUS!”
——————
You know, I was thinking the exact same thing. o_O
Yes, that’s the same guy. Terry…something-or-other. Yet another reason to keep “the godly” the hell away from your kids…
What a nutjob.
From Brazil to Uganda, there are plenty of countries where religious ignorance is much more dangerous and powerful than it is in US.
Yeah, true. But they don’t typically have 3,000 nuclear warheads on a hair trigger.
This scares the crap out of me too. There isn’t a single country in EU where these people would be elected after a video like that. Not one. Not even Belgium.
That the worlds largest military and 2nd largest economy would elect such throwbacks into positions of significant power… it boggles the rational mind.
Vomitrocious.
Absolutely sickening that these people are in charge, and can decide to kill all of us when the desert-sky god commands them to.
First, this is just scary!
Second, who voted for these idiots!
Can anyone say Christian Clerics?
Silly Christians, myths are for kids!
Yep, it’s Monday… Ahem…
If the health care bill passes anyway it means
(pick one):
1) The other side was praying better.
2) Satan is very strong right now.
3) God is testing our faith.
Any others? :P
An amusing aside on the subject of health care. It might explain this praying business …
PZ, some of us here are regular viewers of The Rachel Maddow Show. If you want, we can e-mail you about segments that we think you might be interested in. This way, you are not three and a half weeks behind the show.
As I’ve mentioned before, all organized religions come down to matters of power and money. Period.
Many European countries have had religiously-driven civil wars already. Those that haven’t have generally fought someone else for god.
We’ve got over it, on the whole. The US hasn’t.
I don’t know what to think of the Latins & Africans, though. The whole colonial thing leaves a lot of marks.
@15: I’m thinking the same. I’m sure the christians think they’re different because they wear clothes and their religious leaders don’t perform rituals involving blood or animal sacrifice or tell the believers to kill non-believers (except those things are all in the bible). And their holy book tells them their god is the only god, which no other religions does. And their sky-god theology is so much more sophisticated than a volcano-god, just ask the theologians!
You would think that a supposedly loving God would want his people to be healthy. You would also think the supposedly loving God would have better things to do like ending war and poverty than to help wealthy Republicans. So the morals from this is either: God is impotent because he can only perform miracles for the few and not everyone, or God is omnipotent but is a wicked being who prefers that the majority his people suffer.
@ 30 & 45
From Brazil to Uganda, there are plenty of countries where religious ignorance is much more dangerous and powerful than it is in US.
Oh, for fuck’s sake. You can’t seriously be putting Brazil in the same bag as Uganda. And religious fundamentalism is not even one tenth as dangerous and powerful in Brazil as it is in the US.
And I’m not saying the US is the scariest place in the world or has the highest rate of religious ignorance in the history of ever. But if you’re going to make comparisons, the least you can do is put some thought into it.
@55
Oh, for fuck’s sake. You can’t seriously be putting Brazil in the same bag as Uganda. And religious fundamentalism is not even one tenth as dangerous and powerful in Brazil as it is in the US.
Hey! I was just using the original post as a foil for my perceptive, witty commentary. Innocent bystander alert!
Wow! This is the real deal, they pray like this in fundamentalist cults. I never expected to see it again, brings back horrible memories. Next is the laying on of hands and speaking in tounges.
Dear Deity of Uncertain Provenance, as a stand-in for myself, I would like to bring it to your attention that Senator Dementia is now the name of all these senators.
@56
Ok, sorry, then. I just saw the quote in your post, my mistake.
I realize it’s not the point of these discussions, but, you know, gay civil unions were just legalized in Argentina, while in Uganda they want to sentence gay people to death, so it drives me crazy when I read these offhanded comments about South American countries. /rant
When did Super Dave Osborne get a career as a fundagelical pastor?
#10:
I used to have a parrot who did that, so when I see a religious person doing it I find myself wanting to give them a peanut.
Wow!
Smart, smart Americans!
You keep your nut-jobs busy at prayer so you can properly develop your country!
We Europeans should keep *our* wackos in the churches too!
Hmmm…for the last 25-30 years we’ve allowed our politics to become more intertwined with religion. When J.F.Kennedy ran for president he had to publicly disavow that his catholic faith would impact his descision making and policies. Today politicians fall all over themselves to shout out thier religiousity. When things start to go badly or not to thier liking they just pray and become more religous, a downward spiral that can lead us to places we a democracy can not afford to go. We’ve lost our way as set out by the founders of this country, who fully understood the dangers of mixing religion and government. We as a nation have chosen that course and it does not seem to be a healthy choice given the last decade we’ve endured. One can only hope sanity will return, if not we’ll continue our slide to becoming a second rate nation.
Holy Shit!
That was two parts WWE-style melodramtics, one part zombie movie, and three parts human sacrifice scene from Temple of Doom.
Wasn’t anyone else half-expecting Harry Reid to get dragged in and have his heart pulled out?
#48
“Any others? :P”
Yep!…the oldie but goldie!
When all irrationality and pompous ingratiation with a ridiculous figment of a bronze age myth fails abysmally…
They will simply shoot a few Doctors and nurses that has the ‘devil inspired’ commitment to follow the law!
At the very the very least offer a generous dosage of xian ‘lurve’…
Bitter, childish, viscous and nasty intimidation against them… or their families!
The kind of ‘lovin’ that only xians seem capable of!
Anyone who is xian should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves and these muppets whom boast of representing their ideological ambitions.
Retarded bronze age goat-herders had more worthy principles and probity and we all saw where that led!
These clowns are more dangerous though…they actually believe in their ignorance the goat-herders and their purloined fucking fairy story.
Their mental abilities are an insult to children with challenges.
tsg (@27):
Indeed. I’ve long believed that irrational beliefs are often accompanied by a suppressed, unacknowledged awareness of their own irrationality.
For example, my otherwise wonderful, smart, rational wife has an irrational fear of everyday RF sources (wi-fi, wireless home gadgets, etc.) causing adverse health effects (to be fair to her, I think this is a perfectly understandable post-traumatic reaction to our daughter’s brush with brain cancer). Once when we were arguing over whether I could install a wireless weather station, I threw the offending cancer machine in the trash… to which she instantly said, “Wait, don’t throw that away! Don’t you want to give it away to someone… a friend?” Now, my wife has the tenderest heart on the planet, and would never wish a cancer risk on her worst enemy, nevermind a friend or family member: I interpret her suggestion to give the thing away that she wouldn’t allow me to install in our home as evidence that, at some subconscious level, she knows her fears are baseless.
In a similar way, I think religious folk pray for subtle, human-enabled divine interventions (e.g., “God guide our Senators to defeat this bill”) rather than direct interventions (e.g., “God grant all your people good health and well-being, to spare us from needing evil socialism to keep them well”) because at some unspoken level they know that only human actions actually function in the real world, and divine intervention is fictional.
Toward the end of his life, my father suffered from hallucinations (a consequence, we were told, of decades of Parkinson’s meds). He saw shadowy and threatening people outside — and sometimes inside — his home, and he absolutely believed they were real… and yet, he didn’t take any of the steps a husband and father would take to protect his family from dangerous lurkers (e.g., he invited my adult sister to stay in the guest room, apologizing for the people he knew were staring at her through the window, but not calling the cops or offering her a place to sleep that didn’t have outside exposure). Consciously, his belief in the reality of his hallucinations was total; subconsciously, some part of him clearly new his beliefs were illusory. I think that’s a perfect metaphor for sincere religious belief.
@55 & 59
Hold your horses. Where did I imply similarity between Uganda and Brazil? I gave Brazil as an example of a country with more religious influence than US because of the abortion case last year, where its Catholic church barbarically wanted the 11 year old to die rather than have an abortion, which the people opposed, true, but which highlighted the fact that abortion is otherwise illegal in Brazil. And gay rights, I am willing to bet, from my familiarity with Brazilian immigrants at the very least, are nowhere near those afforded in many US states.
I am otherwise unfamiliar with Brazilian politics, so correct me if I am wrong, but it seems that Catholics are better organized there than the Religious Right is in US.
Obrigado ;-)
As a non-native speaker of English, I am confused by the phrase “as a stand-in for myself”. Does it mean the same as “on behalf of myself”? Or does it just go with the rest of the crazy talk?
Could someone please stop the globe for a moment, I’d really like to get off now…
BTW, as a native Brazilian / US citizen I have to say that Xian fundamentalism has to go against lot’s of competing superstitions not to mention, if the Samba calls Brazilian will always heed the call.
Even by their own standards, Michelle Bachmann’s ‘prayer’ is nuts. At one point, I’m sure, she says “I appeal to your god” To who’s god? To a christian god’s god? Isn’t that heresy?
It’s hard not to conclude that these people are either mentally retarded or mentally ill.
On the point about America/Europe comparisons – yes in the UK we have nutters – take the Robinsons – please take the Robinsons – but if any politician prayed like this to have a bill overturned, the men in white coats would soon be wheeling them away to some nice comfy accommodation.
Having said that, in the last few years the nutter quotient has been rising rapidly in Europe. This is a global problem and it requires global action.
This was posted in detail on Littlegreenfootballs.com a few weeks ago. And yes, it’s shocking.
He posted several clips of this including a few of the congressmen saying how “God’s law” should override the Constitution, etc..
“as a stand-in for myself” == in place of me.
Caddisfly @63:
I’m would guess that’s mostly because most protestants (mainstream, at least) have come to see catholicism as less of a threat these days. Members of other U.S. minority religions are probably still held in the same distrust. Witness the brouhaha when Keith Ellison was elected as the first Muslim congressman in U.S. history.
Ok, sorry, then. I just saw the quote in your post, my mistake.
Oh I was only joshing, not seriously put out:-)
Good to know about South America. So basically it’s the US, Iran and Uganda all on the same page again. They should form a political union.
Lets call it the Union of Global Areas for Yeshua, UGAY. Catchy.
The head-bobbing serves to advertise to anybody who might be secretly (tee-hee!) peeking that one is really into the communing w/ God thing and not just napping or thinking about interns.
And that still doesn’t make any sense, which is what we’ve come to expect from Bachman.
…
speechless…
You guys are fucked, but unfortunately for us guys, this is exactly what the conservatives here in Canada want too, Stephen Haper’s wet dream,
the rise of atheism needs to happen more quickly, rise up oh godless ones and lets save ourselves from these guys,
what a bunch of fucking IDiots…
as I watched this I think some of my brains may have leaked out of my ears…
head hurts, lost 10% of brain hahaha
why me laugh?
OAD @ 7, Lifer @ 36: Yes, that is Lou Engle, uncredited in Jesus Camp, organizer of “The Call” series of events over the past decade or so, and all-around dysfunctional leech. He was one of the major players working against Proposition 8 in California, against gay marriage in Maine, and is right now organizing anti-abortion demonstrations against Planned Parenthood in Houston.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_Camp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lou_Engle
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/porter-and-engle-joining-forces-beseech-god-save-america
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/pro-life_leaders_criticize_abortion_super_center_in_texas/
make that “… for Proposition 8 in California” at 78.
I’m assuming that it’s fundiespeak.
As a native English speaker it’s nonsense.
representative democracy ftw
#66
“I think that’s a perfect metaphor for sincere religious belief.”
Yeah I would go along with that analysis.
The thing is with religious disease, that as long as they can get away with such insulting behaviour the more they will do it.
Half the time it is only trying to be more righteous then their peers…to be known as a god fearing upstanding ‘pillock’ of society.
The other half is playing to the gallery of the like deluded who have issues with deep thinking…i.e the voters who put them there in the first place.
Religion is a perfect cover for pretending one upmanship over all others.
It also allows chronic bigotry and intolerance to flourish unabated.
They can hate freely…cos jeebus says so…cowardly asswipes the lot of ’em!
So these people are praying for their invisible friend, who they claim loves us all, to strike down a bill designed to provide health care for all, or at least those in dire need of it? The hypocrisy burns nearly as much as the stupid.
Things like this should scare church members who are there for the fellowship but don’t really care about religion.
Traditionally in Christianity, Jesus is the stand-in for the person praying.
Idiots yes. But if their only last chance at stopping this bill is the almighty himself, I’d say the Democrats are playing a stronger hand. Let’s just hope these people stay in the political minority…
Witness, moreover, how the Religious Wrong did not vote for the Mormon Mitt Romney in the Reptilian primaries of 2008. He told them all they wanted to hear, but that was not enough.
@ 67
Abortions are restricted in Brazil, yes. You need a doctor to attest that an abortion is necessary, in accordance with these restrictions. However, the restrictions are slowly being lifted. There’s been some progress in recent years. And the case of the little girl was, in the end, a case of the RCC putting its foot in its mouth. The bishop got told off by several authorities as well as the president, who basically told him to mind his own business. And the press tore the RCC a new one. It was a bad PR move on their part.
There’s also been some progress regarding gay rights. And Rio is one of the most gay-friendly cities in the world. I always attend the gay pride parade with my daughter, and there’s never any protesting or picketing.
As for Catholics being better organized here than the religious right in the US, absolutely not. They had quite a lot of political pull at one point, but even then, they had to turn a blind eye to syncretism with African religions, and the general population has never been inclined towards extreme points of view. To make a long story short, Brazilian Catholicism is dwindling, and here in the Southeast (where the money and power are), the vast majority of the population is only nominally Catholic (the plague in these parts is new age woo, in fact). Even in our dark ages, we never had anything like creationism and organized racism or hatred towards other religions. In fact, the one thing we’re not is organized – not even the RCC. ;)
Do those of you hoping the current ‘health care reform’ proposal before congress passes believe it will accomplish anything? Do you really believe it will actually do what President Obama says it will?
If you think the proposed reform is going to be good for the average Joe, a really big clue should be who precisely (besides Democrats who appear to be willing to accept ANYTHING in the name of reform) is lobbying FOR it…
@Darreth (#23)
“That uses emotion like this” is a bit superfluous, but I see what you were saying.
In the sidebar right now:
If you pray hard enough, you can make water run uphill. How hard? Why, hard enough to make water run uphill, of course!
– Robert A. Heinlein
This is what happens in a democracy when the populace is uneducated. Start financing the public schools, and watch the USA drift to
the leftnormalcy.I can’t stand the religious conservatives. I honestly don’t think most of them are even human.
I wrote a blog about this the other day. The summary: these clowns aren’t even bothering to follow their own scriptures anymore.
There’s plenty to hate about Christianity, from the misogyny to the homophobia to the whole celebration of ignorance thing, but there are a couple of good points: general pacifism, and care for the poor being among them.
But these people pound the drum of war, and pray to their god that they be spared the horror of providing life saving care for people who couldn’t afford it themselves. But they’re the “righteous” ones, the “godly” ones.
Iraq? All for it. Health care? Hell no! I just don’t get it.
Here’s a Rachel Maddow show that provides an overview of The Family, The Fellowship, C-Streeters, or whatever they call themselves. She covers all the sex scandals, their backing for the Uganda kill-the-gays bill, and Doug Coe’s [one of the founders, and a head cheese] strange flavor of religion. Rachel interviews Bob Hunter, a member of The Fellowship.
OK. So the health care bill fails due to its defects (or a failure to horse trade enough), right?
But God gets the glory.
We cry out to you oh god
Release a spirit
We deserve your wrath
Hey diddle diddle
For such a time is this
Father?
We stand before you
The cow jumped over the moon
Oh god please kill health care
In jesus name
While the dish ran away with the spoon
Father??
Father???
Praying to defeat the health care bill. Right, because we all know the only people Jesus healed were those that were current on their INRI insurance premiums.
Sorry. @ comment 94, I forgot to include the link:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#34717740
@Slugsie (#26)
It’s pretty simple: god hates health care reform, and he’s using it to punish us for not persecuting the gays enough.
That video has some truly surreal moments. Listening to the woo addled idiots complain about things that give believers ‘heartburn’ was entertaining. I think the gentleman will find that if you will insist on eating certain foods too fast, then heartburn is a risk you must take. I did not realise that healthcare reform could cause it on its own. Perhaps the medical profession should look into it. Or maybe the chap just meant ‘heartache’.
A far more strange moment was to be had when lisening to the lead fundie implore dog to ‘break into the hearts’ of senators and ‘rule over them’. It is always gratifying to know that rightwing Xians see their god as a magic mind-control machine in the sky, able and willing to hijack the consciousness of other human beings at will to further the Christian cause. Obviously, the whole ‘free will’ counter to the Problem of Evil will have to be a tad re-evaluated in the light of this particular revelation.
I was also under the impression that Christians were supposed to frown upon ‘unclean majiks’, and yet this sounded a whole lot like a dominion hex invoked through prayer. Fortunately, anyone who is not a fundie moron apparently has high resistence (a plus 5 modifyer at least) to Charm spells. Dagon, Mithras, Baal or Yahweh – all do cut price deals on mind control as part of the New Year sales*.
Whenever I see little things like this it immediately makes me feel better about the UK’s political system. Our politicians may be inveterate crooks who you would not trust in the same room as an unguarded £10 note, and horrifically incompetent and hypocritical with it, but at least ‘prayer-casts’ are not overly popular within the British polity.
* Limited 3 pico-second warrenty only. Terms and conditions apply. See back of priest/shaman/witch doctor for details.
Ten years and counting and zip, nada, zilch on the ‘Rapture’ front.
These sad monsters are getting desperate for an Armageddon.
So, now we have in 2010, a sanctioned and funded Republican Right Christian Party that is praying; no, BESEECHING that Millions of human beings are denied Health Care because they are poor.
Onward Christian Soldiers…
natasie @88,
Well, Paulistas are, Cariocas, aren’t.
The rest of the country varies by district ;-)
I managed to put up with 2 minutes of the video before the stupid burned too much.
Prayers that amount to ‘god, do what I think is right’ is a bit different from ‘thy will be done’, and even more silly.
And hey, whatever happened to ‘ 5And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.
6But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.
7But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.’
Damn fools either don’t know their own holy book or put themselves above what they claim is the word of god.
Beneath contempt!
David B
mwsletten (@89):
Here’s what I know it will accomplish, at a minimum: It will allow my daughter (who, as I mentioned in an earlier comment in this thread, is a brain cancer survivor) to actually have health insurance for more than the 4 remaining years she can be covered as my dependent: It will extend “dependent” eligibility from 23 to 26 (vital for young people who intend to pursue advanced degrees immediately after completing their undergraduate educations), and it will ban insurers from denying or overpricing coverage based on preexisting conditions. These two provisions alone will certainly improve my daughter’s quality of life, probably extend the length of her life, and might well save her life (i.e., even if her original cancer never recurs, the treatment that saved her life when she was 10 means an increased risk that she might become a cancer patient again at any time).
Cynics who are predisposed to allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good in this matter conveniently forget that there are fucking lives at stake… and not just those of the allegedly “lazy and undeserving” poor, either. My daughter comes from a solidly middle-class background — a smart, responsible, hardworking student with smart, responsible, hardworking parents — and yet without this bill, she’s less than 4 years away from facing life utterly without ready access to affordable, timely medical care.
So whinge all you want about the woulda’-coulda’-shoulda’; I, for one, will be thankful for any improvement in our currently fucked up healthcare “system.” And I’ll be grateful to the representatives who have helped move the changes along. (Aside to Sven re “representative democracy ftw” [@81]: Plenty of our representatives are dedicated, rational, honest, and hardworking, as I’ve had opportunity to learn in working on my rep’s last two campaigns, and many of those who are loony-tunes arguably accurately represent their constituency nevertheless. Regardless of its individual failures, I persist in believing that representative government is, on balance, A Very Good Thing™.)
Mostly a registration test after days of #&%@*#, but is anyone really surprised at the two-faced cretins?
I don’t care much for the anti-US sentiment here. Those idiot leaders are just what their idiot constituents want. Hooray for US democracy! Those constituents are made stupid by their churches, the most effective in the world at numbing brains and pedaling bullshit. Hooray for free market religion! /s
“Omniscient God, we pray to you,
In case you hadn’t heard;
To smite the folks who want to do
What they think is your word.
To heal the sick, to help the poor,
And other hateful stuff,
When faith-based healing, I am sure,
Is medicine enough.
Oh, Lord, we need your guiding hand,
So we beseech, in prayer:
Please, Jesus, look throughout our land,
And smite the ones who care.”
http://digitalcuttlefish.blogspot.com/2010/01/blessed-are-republicans-for-they-shall.html
It may make you stupid but it certainly makes you electable.
That was because he was the wrong religion, not because he was religious.
“…and realize that religion is a pathology, an evil mind-rot that makes the stupid even more stupid…”
Using religious fanatics as the defining epicenter of religion is as accurate as saying one DNA helix defines all life, which it may to some, but in a very limited way.
When the anti-religious think about religion as carefully as scientists think about their specialty, they come to see there is religion–a personal meaning system which may carry a label–and Religion–a concretization of a particular religions construct.
A catalog of Religions includes many, including secular humanism, as defined in the first humanist manifesto; however, the second manifesto was more vague on the point.
We are in an interesting time, one where anti-theists use religion synonymously with theism and many evolving theists are aligning themselves with a non-theistic view, although they refuse to call themselves atheists which has come to mean anti-theism.
Many have been telling us for decades that our worldview is changing, some suggesting that the varieties of religions will diminish being replaces by one meaning system seen by many as the way to live an appropriate life.
It will be interesting to see how this unfolds.
Rachel Maddow’s story about The Family and The Fellowship’s involvement (nuanced or not?) with the Uganda kill-the-gays bill.
More of the interview with Bob Hunter.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#34718032
Francesco at #62:
Oh that the nutjobs could be restricted to merely praying! But after finishing their prayers, they turn around with their faith-addled, prayer-soaked, rationality-challenged, rotten minds, and meddle sanctimoniously at will with the lives and livelihoods of millions of people.
AAAAAAaaaa….. The stupidity!!! It BURNS!!!!
I think they should go ahead and continue doing just that to prevent health reform. They shouldn’t vote against it, just pray. And god’s will shall be done.
Aus Rotten lyrics:
Right wing theocracy maintaining inequality
Have oragnized politically to uphold traditional hierarchies
Between rich and poor, black and white
Wanting homosexuals out of sight
And conventional marriage between woman and man
Increasing political pressure until abortion is banned
Because killing is bad but guns are good
For slaying docters just like Jesus would
Or arming Christian soliders for the next crusade
Killing all of the heathens that won’t be saved
Protecting us from immigrants and perverted sexual deviants
A world of mindless Christians is what they want
Carrying out their modern day witch-hunt
Falwell, Robertson and Kennedy are defining immortality
They’re bashing sexuality and cashing in on bigotry
Modern day witch-hunt
The Christian Reconstructionists are acting as the catalysts
Grooming young activists to become Christian fundamentalists
Convincing eith every medium that can lend a hand
That the youth should serve god’s divine plan
So that biblical law can be set in place
And their bigoted morals must be embraced
That’s the Christian coalition’s resolution
To transform every home into god’s institution
With a kitchen for women and a closet for gays
And a man in charge to make sure that’s where they stay
And if they don’t comply there’s always domestic violence
To keep women subordinate, scared and silent
Making everything the way that god would want
Contributing to this modern day witch-hunt
Falwell, Robertson and Kennedy are defining immortality
They’re bashing sexuality and cashing in on bigotry
Modern day witch-hunt
Demonizing feminism
Indoctrinated sexism
National chauvinism promotes authoritarianism
Empowered women threaten the Christian’s plan
Of being an obedient dog and serving man
Like the gays, lesbaisn and transgendered
Roles that don’t reflect Christian principal
Living your life by what the bible says
But your god is a myth and Christ is dead
Letting the bible do your thinking is so absurd
Because your malfunctioned god never wrote a word
Those who actually wrote the bible on your shelves
Were straight, bigoted men just like yourselves
Your word of god is just a front
That justifies this modern day witch-hunt
Your bigoted religion is what you trust
But your sick god doesn’t govern us
I can agree 100% with all of this.
Problem is, of course, that some of these guys are elected to represent a bunch of idiots. Most districts of Oklahoma, e.g.
Cuttlefish (@107):
Yah, Dog forbid that the Almighty should tolerate people who actually intend to realize some of the corporal acts of mercy in public policy. Dogdam communists!
@34
ditto
Bill Dauphin@104 said: ‘I, for one, will be thankful for any improvement in our currently fucked up healthcare system.’
Right, no matter whether it is economically sustainable or not…
You said: ‘Cynics who are predisposed to allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good in this matter conveniently forget that there are fucking lives at stake…’
It has nothing to do with asking for perfection, it has to do with asking for the bill to do what it’s proponents say it will. It has to do with balancing the needs of today with the realities of tomorrow.
You said: ‘…and not just those of the allegedly “lazy and undeserving” poor, either.’
Ah, the first you-are-selfish shot across the bow. Isn’t that argument getting a little stale yet?
You said: ‘I persist in believing that representative government is, on balance, A Very Good Thing.’
Except who is being represented? Will a lobbyist representing your interests be seated at Coakley’s $10 thousand-per-plate fund raising dinner?
This is slightly OT, but not by much. A story by Margaret Talbot in the January 18, 2010 issue of The New Yorker is available online. Excerpt:
Source
After hearing that prayer, I suddenly feel the urge to snap into a Slim Jim…. OOoooHhh Yeeeeaaahhh!
Someone once said half of Americans are rational and the rest are guns and jesus.
I have serious doubts about that ratio (and not in the good direction).
As a one-time native speaker of this kind of prayer language, I think I can shed a bit of light onto the head bobbing and “as a stand-in for myself” stuff.
The first goal of this type of prayer is to just keep going. I suppose that they could cite Paul’s command to “pray at all times without ceasing,” but the truth of it is it’s much easier to get caught up in the moment – and experience all of the tickly religious feelings – if you keep the words flowing.
The head bobbing helps with this, because it sets a rhythm. You’ll often see people pacing, too, or gesturing in the air to emphasize their words.
Another artifact of this “just keep going” mentality is that the words themselves aren’t particularly important, as long as the rhythm isn’t broken. “As a stand-in for myself” isn’t some fundi-secret-speak, it just means “I ran out of real words just them, gimme a second.”
This type of prayer tends to be emotional, too, so the pray-er will often get things mixed up in the heat of the moment. “I pray to your God” is just an example of that. She wasn’t making a theological statement, she was being careless.
Another interesting thing about this style of prayer: it’s meant to be more of a sermon than a petition. God already knows (theoretically) how many abortions have been performed, etc, but the pray-er still feels the need to talk about it, because God isn’t the intended audience, the guy bobbing next to him is.
After watching this video, i want to throw up!
This is scary stuff.
Question is, how is this all going to end ?
It seems to me that US politics is becoming more and more polarized between a relatively sane part and a completely religiously deluded part.
After having seen the disaster that were the 8 years of Bush & Co, what will happen the next time those deluded morons assume power ?
On the positive side you have polls that show evidence that the country is slowly becoming saner and that the importance of religion is declining. But it doesn’t seem to translate in the republican strategy. It seems as if they are becoming even worse than before.
Methinks this is all not going to end well. Whether it’s in 4 years, 8 years, or 12, we’re going to find ourselves with a group of even bigger nutcases than Bush & Co assuming the command of the nation with about half of the entire military arsenal of the planet.
Us Europeans might assume that we are safer here because we don’t get much of this religious quackery in our politics, but one should not underestimate the influence that American politics have on our lives.
The head rocking reminds me of those kids in the Romanian orphanages who were deprived of any real love all their lives.
Maybe that’s it – nobody except their imaginary friend loves them any more. Maybe even their mothers dislike them.
I seriously think, that if this had happened in the UK, the public would be asking for their resignations. They’d certainly be laughing stocks.
#124 Sounds a lot like self-hypnosis.
Ross Douthat has a new op-ed piece out in the The New York Times. Excerpt:
This sounds to me too much like an excuse to champion “good” religion over “bad” religion, with a thin covering of “equal debate opportunities for everyone.” I like the emphasis on the fact that freewheeling debate should not raise so many hackles and cries of oppression, but I think the author is ignoring the basic arguments against religion of any kind, and ignoring the consequences of even supposedly “good” religion. Here’s his closing paragraph:
mwsletten (@119):
And you believe it’s not economically sustainable because… why, exactly? The CBO scores say the bills under consideration will reduce the deficit. The notion that healthcare reform will “explode” the deficit is the refuge of rightwing nutbags (and Joe Lieberman, who may think he’s in solid with the RWNBs, but will find out differently when he tries to run as a Republican for the seat he now holds), who offer that assertion without even pretending to support it with evidence or logic.
In a larger sense, though, the economic sustainability of any conceivable government reform in this area is a matter of will: The current financial crisis notwithstanding, we remain a fundamentally very wealthy nation, and we can afford nearly anything if we want it badly enough (i.e., if we decide we’re willing to pay for it). Anyone who tells you we “can’t afford” to reform healthcare, or improve our schools, or rebuild our infrastructure, is really just saying they value their own low tax bills more than they do the wellbeing of their larger community.
Well, if the shoe fits…. But I actually didn’t mean to be accusing you of selfishness. Rather, I was referring to a recurring theme in the rightwing arguments against reform: I have, in reading the comments (e.g., on Facebook) of people I personally know to be essentially goodhearted and charitable individuals, regularly encountered the assertion that the only people who really need any help are those who can’t be bothered to get a job and take care of themselves… and thus don’t really deserve help. IMHO, this is the convenient fiction that allows people to reconcile their personal impulses to charity and compassion with the essentially selfish anti-reform position their ideological heroes demand of them. Christianity — which for all its irrationality is by nature charitable and communitarian — and ideological conservatism — which is essentially individualistic and selfish — are intrinsically strange bedfellows; it requires strategems like the moral marginalization of the less fortunate to keep these disparate mindsets from flying apart.
I am. I know my representative on a first-name basis, and he knows me, and listens to me. That’s not because I’m anyone special, but just because I’ve taken the time to be involved in the process. You may be skeptical of this assertion, but in my experience, a few hours of doorknocking or phonebanking, and showing up at a couple small-dollar house party fundraisers will get you every bit as much attention as being a lobbyist or big donor will.
Of course, maybe that’s only true for me because Joe Courtney (D, CT-02) is an exceptionally good man… but I tend to think more of his colleagues are like him than otherwise, and it will take a nontrivial amount of actual evidence (as opposed to cynical and baseless assertions of what “everybody knows”) to persuade me to the contrary.
@119
Right, no matter whether it is economically sustainable or not…
Apropos stale arguments!!!
The entire rest of the developed – and a not insignificant chunk of the developing – world can afford health care for their citizens.
What is wrong with the US? Maybe if you spent less on blowing stuff up, you’d be able to make even your own absurdly over priced “care” more generally available.
The US “debate” on universal health care leaves most of the rest of the world appalled, bewildered and occasionally amused.
At least this was one of the funnier interludes.
There is NO WAY I am the same species as these useless bags of flesh. Can we just build the Matrix and use these guys as batteries already, sheesh.
I lash out only because I am frightened :/
When I was a teenager I remember coming across a Hustler magazine and seeing a full page illustration of a faith healer with his hands up this girls dress, and his other hand was held up in the air as he prayed. The caption underneath the comic said.
“Oh Lord, please heal thine yeast infection!”
I am suprised that the christians we’re not praying to have prayer healing included and paid for by the tax payers in the bill.
Kinda makes me wonder what they think of Jesus who’d healed and fed all those poor people. I guess that makes him a baby killer too. /facepalm
I hope I live long enough to see “belief in God” listed in the DSM.
@ any of those who said they could only make it through a portion of the video: I made it through only because I wanted to see if Demint and Brownback would start speaking in tongues like many of the others. Sadly, it looked like they were asleep most of the way through and only awoke at the end.
@103 that bit’s open to interpretation doncha know.
I have, in fact, heard this assertion from several people who are themselves beneficiaries of government assistance. But it’s ok for them, because they’re just temporarily on hard times unlike all those other moochers out there. *eyeroll*
@Abdul Alhazred (#128)
I’m not really sure what I think about hypnosis in general, but in the sense of “they really want to believe this, and have techniques to make that belief seem real,” sure. That holds true for most religious manifestations, especially, e.g., the pentecostal variety.
We exported most of it to the rest of the world in the last few centuries. We are not blameless.
The last I heard, Ireland was part of Europe too.
I expect Europe has more fashionably modish idiots. :)
Okay, if I were creating a caricature of a crazy christian pastor, and he appeared as nuts as Lou Engle, I would be accused of demeaning christians, being a bigot and going for cruel, cheap shots at religion’s expense.
Without Maddow’s wry, sardonic, sane delivery, I don’t think I could have taken such a dose of concentrated stupidity and hypocrisy in one shot. Too many, too soon is a false concern regarding childhood vaccination, but a very valid concern when exposing oneself to the far right-wingnuttery infecting our government. I need to lie down.
OT:
Meanwhile, in the N. Ireland “Mrs. Robinson” affair via the BBC:
Her husband steps down “for six weeks”.
Wow, you’d think they’d want to “love they neighbor” and all that.
Makes you wonder.
How have these people not been removed from office via impeachment for mental incapability?
everettattebury in #60:
Could have been Super Dave, but I thought Lou Engle sounded suspiciously like this guy, only much uglier and infinitely stupider:
Everyone knows God is a registered Republican and hates it when people have health care.
Clearly, health care is a Satanic plot to keep you out of heaven longer. Thank the lord for these dedicated head-bobbers and their magic joo-joo.
This video seems appropriate:
@ 122:
Your ratio might be off, and a significant portion of those of us on the rational side ALSO have guns. Its a preventative measure against the Jeebus/Guns crowd. :-P
@ 145:
I’d love to have Randy Savage as my preacher.
#124
Yes good definition of the utter bilious insanity.
These jerks are just trying to pacify themselves and their peers, by a public display of such fucking imbecility that it is cringe worthy to the rest of the rational world.
They are just performing seals trying to fool, or pacify, their voters, or indeed each other.
Without the integrity to argue against a position using logic and cogent reasons that make sense.
They are beyond any doubt retards.
Beseeching a figment in their twisted imaginations proves the point better then any other that they are more out of touch with reality then they have any right to.
Like spoiled little snot nosed brats they go running to jeebus to sort out their squalid little squabbles and pet hates, simply because they have not the wit or the intelligence to argue against it with honourable and valid points in proper debate.
That is why all the lies and rancid rhetoric are the weapons of insipid scared and bitterly ignorant fools.
And of course no way can it be that they are the knowing, even the unknowing, lackeys of the health insurance companies?
One can guess though that lobbying will be somewhat intense from those quarters.
Praying to invisible friends is a desperation above and beyond, when their other hysteria fails to move the obstacle, what stirring heroes of public service they are.
They have all but lost the debate, all they can do is filibuster and go awkward, oh and prey to figments when all else obviously fails.
Wonder who they will prey to when the measures are introduced?…will they not conclude, against the evidence, that it just might be their dog’s will?
Well no!, cos we all know this is fuck all to do with any will of any fictitious deity, it is in fact the will of republican blowhards with a pathological hatred of democracy and the poor in particular and having to pay a few cents extra in taxable income, tis all there is to it!
This is the main problem with the whole ‘jeebus is my sunbeam’ movement.
They are shit scared of humanity.
Tis why they hate in varying degrees Women…teh gheys…foreigners…and the issue of descendants from a time that their wholly babble said was a right and just trade to dabble in.
Is their plan for healthcare to pray to their sky daddy instead of using doctors?
Perseverating head bobbing/banging is often associated with profound mental retardation and/or heavy metal music.
However, I do not think that either of these is the reason for christian head bobbing.
I think it is enacting a kind of wish fulfillment. Their wish, of course, is to be fellating Jesus.
Sorry about that, I know that fellatio is nothing to be ashamed of. Girls do it, Guys do it, everybody’s doing it! (thanks George.)
Killer Bud @ 133 Actually there has been a push to have the coverage include Christian Science practitioners who are nothing more than paid prayers for their ‘patients’.
wooooooo!
SaintStephen @ #145:
As you are over at RDF, full of win. :)
This is terrifying. I could barely get past the first 30 seconds of it. Why would shouting at “god” make him want to listen to you anymore? The whole act of prayer is utterly insane.
Bill Dauphin@130 said: ‘And you believe [the proposed health care reforms are] not economically sustainable because… why, exactly? The CBO scores say the bills under consideration will reduce the deficit.’
The CBO estimates (let’s not forget they’re only estimates) are based on data given them by a congress trying to pass a massive spending bill. It must work with the data it is given, including a number of questionable assumptions not the least of which is that congress will have the balls to stay the course and follow through with cuts to medicare which will ultimately end up reducing payments to physicians — a formidable lobbying group.
Further, the Senate bill is so far backloaded its full impact isn’t even considered in the 10-year window the CBO works with.
In the past, when congress has passed laws requiring it to make cuts to future entitlement spending to squeak a bill thru today, it almost never follows through. Consequently, CBO estimates almost never reflect future reality, because congress almost always changes the laws.
Even the CBO knows this, which is why it included the warning in its report on the health care proposals that its estimates “…assume that the proposals are enacted and remain unchanged throughout the next two decades, which is often not the case for major legislation. For example, the … mechanism governing Medicare’s payments to physicians has frequently been modified … to avoid reductions in those payments.”
In the grand scheme of things, when was the last time you heard of an entitlement program actually cutting spending? Hell, when was the last time you heard of Congress giving back money it didn’t really need? When it had excess TARP funds did it elect to put them back into the general fund? Nope. Congress doesn’t give back money it doesn’t spend.
Bill Dauphin@130 said: ‘The current financial crisis notwithstanding, we remain a fundamentally very wealthy nation, and we can afford nearly anything if we want it badly enough…’
What country are you living in? We are currently holding the bag on a nearly $13 trillion debt. Since you seem to like CBO estimates so much, how about this one? CBO director Elmendorf says the US budget is unsustainable — and that’s under current law, without adding more spending.
Bill Dauphin@130 said: ‘Well, if the shoe fits…. But I actually didn’t mean to be accusing you [of being selfish].’
Then why bring it up?
Bill Dauphin@130 said: ‘You may be skeptical of this assertion, but in my experience, a few hours of doorknocking or phonebanking, and showing up at a couple small-dollar house party fundraisers will get you every bit as much attention as being a lobbyist or big donor will.’
I’m happy you believe you have such a close relationship with your congressman, perhaps Mr. Courtney isn’t as concerned about reelection as most of congress seems to be. I must admit to more than a small amount of skepticism, however, that you have as much influence with him as one of the lobbyists sitting at a $10,000 per plate fund raiser.
Strangest brew@150 said: ‘That is why all the lies and rancid rhetoric are the weapons of insipid scared and bitterly ignorant fools. And of course no way can it be that they are the knowing, even the unknowing, lackeys of the health insurance companies?’
To whom are you referring? Health insurance companies are lobbying in favor of the current health care proposals with the exception of a public option. They would love to have the business of young, healthy people forced by the government to purchase health insurance.
Strangest brew@150 said: ‘They have all but lost the debate, all they can do is filibuster and go awkward, oh and prey (sp) to figments when all else obviously fails.’
Actually, they are winning the debate, they are losing the vote. Most recent polls suggest the majority of Americans do not favor the current health care proposals.
You couldn’t be more wrong. The CBO are the folks who give data to Congress, not the other way around.
I expect Europe has more fashionably modish idiots. :) – Abdul Alhazred
Well, we’re certainly not short of those (nor of loons resembling the US religious right), but I judge that the overall woo level of the EU is markedly lower than that of the US. Certainly the level of formal religious belief and observance is, and I recall seeing a report of a recent study showing that belief in other forms of woo is (contrary to xian claims), positively correlated with religious belief. In turn, my hunch is that high levels of woo result from and reinforce high levels of economic inequality and hence insecurity.
So, if the Obama reforms genuinely do broaden health access (and Bill Dauphin, let me say I think mwsletten has a point about the HMO and Big Pharma support – do you have a response?), they should go some way to reducing US levels of woo.
Tis Himself@158 said: ‘The CBO are the folks who give data to Congress, not the other way around.’
If I’ve used the term ‘data’ in way in which you disapprove, then I apologize. How about the CBO prepares its data within the framework of rules set by congress?
Either way, it doesn’t change the fact that there isn’t a better example of GIGO than CBO estimates. The Congress can and frequently does write a law to get whatever outcome it desires from the CBO, it’s just not usually so egregious, which is why in this case the CBO director felt the need to include the warning he did in the latest report on the current health care proposals.
From the CBO website:
Q. How accurate are CBO’s budget projections?
A. By statute, CBO’s baseline projections must estimate the future paths of federal spending and revenues under current law and policies. The baseline is therefore not intended to be a prediction of future budgetary outcomes; instead, it is meant to serve as a neutral benchmark that lawmakers can use to measure the effects of proposed changes to spending and taxes. So for that reason and others, actual budgetary outcomes are almost certain to differ from CBO’s baseline projections.
mwsletten (@156):
Of course the CBO scores are estimates — all budget projections, including the gloomy ones you seem to prefer, are “just estimates” — but the CBO scores are the best estimates we have, and they project a positive impact from healthcare reform on the deficit you’re so concerned about.
If those projections turn out to be wrong, we’ll just have to make adjustments; ’twas ever thus. The thing is, politics being what it is, it will be practically impossible for those adjustments to involve taking away coverage once it’s been provided, meaning that the required adjustments will have to be on the revenue side. Which is precisely as it should be: Ensuring universal access to reasonable health care is a moral imperative, and so is funding it.
The one in which we’ve had nearly three full decades of mostly successful rightwing propaganda aimed specifically at convincing people the nation “can’t afford” the basic things a nation owes its people, so that those who are already the wealthiest among us can justify staying that way at the cost of (in the case of health care) the lives of 45,000 of their neighbors each year.
To the extent that our budget truly is unsustainable, it’s because of the unremitting drumbeat of anti-tax “leadership” that has made reasonable tax policy politically untenable. That’s what you’re defending? Really?
Did you not read the rest of the paragraph, in which I explained precisely why I made that reference? However, by spouting talking points of the clearly selfish right wing, you’re not doing much to convinced me that the shoe doesn’t fit you, personally.
Your argument seems to be that [a] we’re broke now, [b] doing the right thing by our fellow citizens cannot help but make us even more broke, and [c] even the best among our leaders are so hopelessly bought that we can’t hope for anything good from them.
I don’t buy any of that fecal matter… but even if I suspected you might be correct, I would have no choice but to behave as if you weren’t: Your formulation is so hopeless that it leaves no room for anything but impotent despair, and I just can’t waste my life on that.
But thanks for playing.
PS: Re…
At least when it comes to the House, politics really is retail, and footsoldiers like me have a lot more to do with getting reelected than $10,000 checks do (note that you pulled that number from a Senate race, and a special election, at that; the dynamics of such a contest are very different). And while I might not, as a single individual, have more influence that anyone else (including large donors), people like me, collectively, certainly do. There are a lot more of us, and we’re the people who actually vote.
One of the things I find striking about this is the God-on-Demand view they seem to hold. There’s no ASKING their god if he thinks that killing the health care bill is a bad idea. There’s just, “God, you got to do this. Look, I put the quarter in the slot, where’s your holy smiting?”
I also love the references to “heartburn” and being at the end of themselves. Because of the health care bill approaching. There’s no perspective here, and no sense of due proportion. They feel entitled to have their way all the time, even if that means other people’s privacy is invaded and other peoples bodies are subject to the demands of the God-on-Demand crowd.
Also am loving the irony of them calling out big government intervention and then following it with a list of things they want the government to interfere with, abortion being their mantra du jour.
Le sigh.
#157
“To whom are you referring? Health insurance companies are lobbying in favor of the current health care proposals with the exception of a public option.”
Of course they are, as long as their cake does not get any meagre.
No skin off their combined snozzles.
“They would love to have the business of young, healthy people forced by the government to purchase health insurance”
And who in their right mind, as opposed to their right politics, would refuse to insure themselves and family if it was not a financial barrier any more.
Argument by crying wolf does not impress.
“Actually, they are winning the debate, they are losing the vote.”
About the only silver lining in the whole sorry affair.
Getting dragged into being a caring society hurts some more then others apparently.
“Most recent polls suggest the majority of Americans do not favor the current health care proposals.”
Maybe because the lies and vacuous nonsense spouted by right wing media and the republican spin machine and their co-pilots the xian retarded wing, bit like batman and robin without the humour, refuse to debate reality without appeal to some dubious straw-man arguments like communism by the back door and the oft vaunted government intervention in civil liberties.
And folks tend to believe their betters in society!
And now they are beseeching a mythological fairy to intervene.
Be happy!
And leave the British National Health Service out the debate please, that was a piece of gutter rhetoric that was highly offensive and damned rude, as well as being complete bollocks!
mwsletten #160
It’s not your use of the the word data that I objected to, it was your claim that Congress gave data to the CBO when in real life it’s the other way around.
The “rules” are very loose. It may come as a surprise to you but Congress actually wants the data given to them to be accurate. The CBO is specifically designed to be non-partisan and over the years its reputation as being an accurate, unbiased source of economic data is extremely good.
Please give an example of such a law. Be specific.
Was I the only one who heard Pastor Lou ask Gawd to “overthrow” the government? Can Gawd be tried for treason?
Bill Dauphin@161 said: ‘Ensuring universal access to reasonable health care is a moral imperative, and so is funding it. …by spouting talking points of the clearly selfish right wing, you’re not doing much to convinced me that the shoe doesn’t fit you, personally.’
I don’t believe I’ve ever said I was against providing health care for those who can’t afford it. In fact, we already do that in America. No one in need of medical attention can be turned away from a hospital based on an inability to pay for care or medication.
Our opinions don’t differ much regarding the need for health care reform, Bill, we just have differing priorities. We both believe quality health care should be more readily available; I just happen to believe the best way to do that is to get costs under control, not to mandate the purchase of insurance that already costs too much. We Americans pay something on the order of twice as much for the same health care services and medications — with similar outcomes — as the rest of the developed world. Why?
I believe one of the reasons we pay so much is because the costs are hidden from us by comprehensive, expensive insurance coverage programs with state- and federally-mandated minimum coverages. Some states require that hair transplants be included in basic health care plans. How much does an MRI cost? Who cares, I’ve got insurance. It seems to me we should find out why health care costs so much more here than everywhere else and fix THAT before we mandate everyone purchase insurance. Once everyone is required by law to purchase insurance (some might call that a tax increase) where is the incentive for companies to cut costs?
As I said, I find it instructive to determine who exactly is backing a bill. President Obama and the Democrats have been demonizing the major players in the US health care industry — including doctors, drug companies and insurance companies — for the past year trying to convince the public they are fighting these greedy, selfish companies on our behalf. Turns out these are the very companies now supporting the current health care reform proposals. Shouldn’t you be asking yourself why?
Regarding the label ‘selfish,’ one might use the same to describe you Bill. You want taxpayer-subsidized health care coverage at the tremendously inflated prices we pay now, leaving future generations to ultimately foot the bill.
It’s a matter of perspective isn’t it?
@Steve Labonne 18-I agree.I’m British and there are two things that get my back up.
1 While i’m aware the NHS has problems i get very defensive when it gets unwarrented critisism-we are very lucky here.
2 The trend for labelling all Americans as nuts-yes this video was scary but the fact that there are people like Rachel Maddows reporting it and there are sites like this one prove not everyones the same.
The Daily Show had a guest on who had an interesting comment about the current health care reform. An unintended side effect of being unable to be chucked off due to pre-existing conditions (Or other BS) is that the health lobby would get out of bed with the Food lobby. The Food lobby, at least, is well aware of this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVsgXPt564Q&feature=related
Those senators would get a lot further by simply exposing how much paperwork adds to the cost of treatment.
I asked my pharmacist just recently (refilling my prozac) if medicines would be cheaper if it wasn’t for the paperwork. Said he, “Substantially cheaper.”
You pay for a convenience, and not everybody can afford it. You can have affordable medicine, or you can have a third party pay for it, you can’t have both.
Speaking of idiot leaders… NPR is reporting that Sarah Palin is joining Fox News, as a contributer.
http://digitalcuttlefish.blogspot.com/2010/01/foxy-sarah-finds-perfect-job.html
mwsletten #166
The insurance companies were dead set against the bill until single payer insurance was taken out. When profits were no longer threatened and the opportunity for increased profits became apparent, then the insurance companies were in favor of the bill. When CEOs knew that their multi-million dollar incomes weren’t in danger, then they supported the bill. You can thank the Democrats’ infighting and the Republicans kowtowing to their corporate masters for this.
Tis Himself@164 said: ‘Please give an example of such a law. Be specific.’
I meant congress rewrites a bill to get the desired CBO estimates (it’s a bill before it becomes law).
For an example, how about the current health care reform bills? Before the fall break CBO estimates showed the proposals would add to the deficit. After the break, the Congress changed a few particulars — the Senate backloaded theirs shifting the costs to beyond the 10-year time window the CBO looks at, while the House wrote into theirs rules requiring future reductions in payments to physicians, etc — and voila’, deficit neutrality.
I realize this is what the CBO is supposed to do, provide projections so lawmakers can make decisions about future spending. But if the congress doesn’t intend to, or knows it probably won’t, follow the restrictions it places on itself, or uses accounting tricks like shifting the costs outside of the projected time frame, then the CBO data is pretty useless, isn’t it?
Galvin @124:
Is this something like:
Aah… aah… oh, yeah… jay-zusss… yeah… Ooh… holy mother of god… aah…
and later on –
Thank the lord! Nobody saw me…
Going by the past few years, a lot of them have been praying like that. A lot.
The CBO is reasonably neutral (as far as I can determine) but the questions asked of it are often not at all netural, and the uses made of its reports can be anything from simple citation through energetic quote-mining to outright misrepresentation. As always, caveat lector applies.
The best thing for the American system would be to turf out all the insurance companies and administer it directly but that isn’t likely to happen anytime soon.
There is a reason healthcare in America is substantially more expensive than anywhere else in the Western world, you have too many profit taking hands in the pie.
Kausik Datta @173
That could literally be a direct quote, sometimes.
Most people also have their own favorite title for god. So some people will say
While others will be more like
I, of course, prefer
mwsletten #172
So you were tossing out political propaganda because you don’t like the health care reform bill.
In other words, because the CBO showed a deficit then the bill was changed to decrease or eliminate the deficit. What a dirty trick, rewriting the bill to deal with a problem. How dare those congresscritter do such a thing! They should be horsewhipped!!1!
That’s not what you were saying previously.
This is the only part of your argument where you’re not playing games. I agree with you but it’s been a general problem with all governments. During the Thirty Years War the Swedish King Gustavus Adolphus debased his currency so much that the Danish Kroner became the preferred currency in Sweden. What to do about this problem, both in this specific occurrence with the health reform bill and in general, is difficult.
This is why the US is headed for third world status.
What else can you expect when your politicians utter this mumbo-jumbo.
Never mind Sarah can fix all that for you with her special brand of mumbo-jumbo.
I find it quite distressing sitting on the outside watching a one great nation implode.
Head bobbing definitely helps…
“Prayer is just hope with a beat to it.”
-Moist Lipwig
#107
Best Cuttlefish poem. Ever.
NotExcessive #8
“You Americans frighten the crap out of us.”
Agree totally. If it were not for the clothing being worn it could easily mistaken for a video of a meeting of the Taliban. Fair dinkum the language and rhetoric is almost identical and the disdain for the truth is outstanding, but then that does go hand in hand with the God and the fire and the brimstone.
mwsletten:
I was mentally composing a point-by-point reply to yours @166, ’til I got to this…
…which finally convinced me that you’re not arguing in good faith, as this doesn’t strike me as an even vaguely fair characterization of what we’ve seen.
However, I will respond to this:
Meh. I already have excellent health insurance, the cost of which I share with my employer, and I won’t qualify for any subsidies under any version of the pending reforms. The only thing I’m looking for for myself or my family is the ability to continue paying to cover my daughter through her remaining school years, and the ability for her to buy insurance when she’s no longer my dependent (by which time I’m confident she won’t qualify for any subsidies, either). Under the current rules, she would not be able to buy insurance at any price, and would, as a consequence, be at a significantly increased risk of early death. (As an aside, I’m quite sure she would be dead already had I been uninsured when her cancer first appeared. Oh, it’s true that she wouldn’t have been denied treatment once diagnosed… but without ready access to doctors, it would’ve taken much — probably too long — to figure out what was wrong: Childhood cancer is a zebra, and doctors quite correctly look for horses first when they hear hoofbeats.)
So yeah, if wanting my daughter to live makes me selfish, call me selfish. But as for subsidies, I only want them for my less fortunate neighbors, not for myself, and I’ve always said I was willing to pay my share of any additional cost to make that happen (if necessary, that is, but I actually believe this plan will save taxpayers money rather than costing them more)… specifically, I’m willing to pay higher taxes now (as opposed to passing on debt to the future) to live in a society that meets its minimal obligations to its least fortunate members.
If you’re content to let your uninsured friends and family wait ’til they’re so desperately ill that the emergency room can’t legally turn them away, fine; I have a more humane approach to the people I care about… and even to the people I don’t know.
Knockgoats (@159):
Since I know from experience that you do argue in good faith, I’ll respond to you rather than mwsletten on this point:
It’s not my week to psychoanalyze them, but I strongly suspect their “support” is only skin deep. Most likely, they would prefer no change at all to the status quo, but think that if this is going to happen anyway, then [a] it’s better for them than single-payer or some other universal, not-for-profit scheme would be and [b] it’s better PR to be for it than against it.
Personally, I’d strongly prefer one of the options that the for-profit healthcare industry would hate (if I had kinglike powers, we’d have a national health service)… but the choice is not between the current bill(s) and something much better; it’s between the current bill(s) and nothing at all. And if nothing at all wins at this moment in history, I think it will be at least a decade before anyone tries again… meaning that, if the 45,000 excess deaths per year attributed to lack of coverage under the status quo is even vaguely correct, the failure of this bill would arguably kill somewhere in the vicinity of a half million Americans. One of whom might well be my own daughter.
Unlike that heartless bastard Joe LIEberman1, I refuse to oppose something that has the potential to do that much good just because other people whose motives I suspect pretend to like it.
1 Note that even though he’s nominally my senator, you can’t blame me: I invested nontrivial time, treasure, and my vote in trying to replace him, and will do so again at the earliest opportunity.
Let me guess: foreign correspondent or national media review?
Jayzus effing christ.
I had a game of ‘Spot the Fucking Tard’ – and hit the jackpot.
That is sad & embarrassing.
Well put. That is what bothers me to no end about the discussions I’ve had with people about this. They believe that we cannot implement anything that is less than perfect, or that we shouldn’t touch health care until we’ve fixed the problems with Medicare. I think it’s a red herring and that if Medicare were perfect they’d find something else to use as a distraction. Something is better than nothing, and some improvement, even if it’s not perfection, is still worth striving for.
Finally watched the video. And giggled all the way through.
You know the story about Elijah and the 450 Baal priests? That’s what all this shouting reminds me of.
Except there won’t be a bloodbath (or a thermonookyilar war for that matter).
I hope.
Cuttlefish for the win as always.
It is better to keep one’s mouth shut and be thought a textbook example of the Dunning-Kruger effect than to open it and remove all doubt.
<facepalm>
Just… wow.
Will there be a next time?
Will there even be a Reptilian Party after 2012?
The former. Occasionally she’ll go out on the porch and have a look at what’s goin’ on over there in that Russia.
Whilst watching that I was shocked so match that I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry…
In the end laughter won the battle of the emotions.
What a bunch of lunatics!
“Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions.”
-Thomas Jefferson
Don’t forget she’s also a bibliophile with a deep appreciation for magazines and newspapers, specifically “all of ‘em, any of ‘em that, um, have been in front of [her] over all these years.”
I suspect the days of the liberal media being able to print whatever they want without cogent and incisive challenge are over.
What the hell is with the bobbing and nodding?
Bunch of bobble-heads in the fail-car, speeding joyfully off the cliff of reason.
@166
You said,
You don’t sound stupid or ignorant, so how could you have said the above. You think we should lower our current health care costs. Okay. Makes sense. Try this:
You know, or you should bloody well know, that the only medical attention available to those without an ability to pay is in emergency rooms. There are no “you can’t afford this” medical clinics, are there. Do you have any idea how much a trip to the emergency room costs the hospital? Look it up. Then compare it to the cost of a trip to a doctor’s office for the same non-emergency problem.
Hospitals are required by law to give you medical care, but only when you come to emergency room. All the things the insured make appointments and go see their doctors for, the uninsured have to wait until it gets really bad and then go the emergency room for. The result is that those who can pay (by insurance) and who do have a medical emergency can expect an 8 hour wait in an emergency room unless they are actively dying. Try passing a kidney stone sitting in an emergency room waiting room (that is deliberately kept so cold that hypothermia is a potential problem to weed out all but the really really sick) because all the people who can’t afford health care come to the emergency room to get seen by a doctor when if they had health insurance they would have been seen by their own doctor, leaving the emergency room for emergencies. A major reason that health care in the US is so expensive is just such insane inefficiencies.
Then we can talk about the lack of preventative care and the lack of care for long term illnesses like diabetes that, when you don’t have insurance, mean that you spend time in the hospital and may die because of something that, if you had access to a doctor somewhere other than an emergency room, could have been dealt with without hospitalization or death.
Note. I have great health insurance. I want everyone to have great health insurance. If that means that my taxes go up, then in the name of all that is (or is not) holy RAISE MY DAMNED TAXES.
The current health reform bill is a disaster. But it is a START. It’s not what we need, but it is better, significantly better, than what we have. And I don’t care if it means I have to pay more taxes.
“This bill isn’t perfect, but it’s a start” is the message we need to be trumpeting right now. I have huge problems with the current bill, but I have even bigger problems with 45,000 needless deaths every year.
We should have single-payer, and/or a public option, and I don’t agree with the individual mandate. But those things can be fixed, over time. Like Bill Dauphin has been saying, the protection against unreasonable discrimination against people with “pre-existing conditions” is enough to make this bill terribly important. “Sorry, but you had cancer as a kid, so you get to die young” should be a crime, not a business strategy.
And like Howard Dean (I think) said, the fact that Republicans are so against this is a pretty good sign that there’s some merit to it, as well.
Tune down the volume a tad bit and it sounds exactly like my church on Sunday. Yeah.
David Marjanović @186
Well, Fox just hired Palin as a… something, effectively taking her out of the 2012 election, which means the Republican’s odds just increased exponentially.
Bill Dauphin@182:
I don’t know what you mean by ‘bad faith.’ Are you suggesting I’m exaggerating? Lying? What?
About insurance companies President Obama has said:
“…a lack of competition…makes it easier for insurance companies to treat their customers badly — by cherry-picking the healthiest individuals and trying to drop the sickest, by overcharging small businesses who have no leverage, and by jacking up rates.”
“The fact is, the insurance industry is making this last-ditch effort to stop reform even as costs continue to rise and our health care dollars continue to be poured into their profits, bonuses, and administrative costs that do nothing to make us healthy – that often actually go toward figuring out how to avoid covering people.”
About pharma companies he’s said:
“[By]…explicitly paying generic drug makers not to enter the market…they can preserve their monopolies and keep charging Americans exorbitant prices for brand name products.”
About doctors he’s said:
“So if they’re looking and you come in and you’ve got a bad sore throat or your child has a bad sore throat or has repeated sore throats, the doctor may look at the reimbursement system and say to himself, ‘You know what? I make a lot more money if I take this kid’s tonsils out.’”
At his town hall meeting in Aug last year President Obama implied doctors may decide to amputate the feet of a diabetic patient instead of working on a diet routine with them because of the money they would be reimbursed.
It took me all of 5 minutes to find these various quotes using google. Note this doesn’t even take into account comments made by illustrious members of the House and Senate, or by media flaks sympathetic to Democrats’ reform efforts.
Are you suggesting President Obama and the Democrats have NOT broadsided the various health care industry players during this debate?
What I continue to find interesting is that about the time all the industry players got on board with reform (i.e. made their individual sweetheart deals), President Obama quit naming specific ‘enemies,’ sticking instead to vague specters like ‘opponents of health insurance reform,’ ‘well-financed forces’ and ‘those who are profiting from the status quo.’
Your only comment on that issue is the speculation that major industry players are now on line with President Obama’s plan because ‘…[a] it’s better for them than single-payer or some other universal, not-for-profit scheme would be and [b] it’s better PR to be for it than against it.’
You make this argument despite the fact that doctors, pharma and the insurance industry all threw support behind reform even before the Senate confirmed its bill — which if you remember was in serious doubt right up until it actually passed the vote.
What fit’s better with the fact is that industry players got behind reform because except for minor changes, the current proposal won’t really change the way they do business, and (bonus!) they get to continue making tremendous profits from the bloated status quo costs. Some even stand to increase those profits? You want to spend tax dollars to further boost an industry that already enjoys profit margins better than just about any other in the world?
Who is arguing in bad faith?
You said: ‘However, I will respond to this…’
Ahhh, so you don’t like assumption-based labels either. Maybe we should just stick to what we know then, eh?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venice_Family_Clinic
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haight_Ashbury_Free_Clinics
but OK, these are unusual.
Yeah, so? Are you objecting to Obama actually telling the truth about insurance companies? Does an accurate portrayal of insurance strategies strike you as somehow underhanded and deceitful? What the fuck is your problem? You claim that you want affordable insurance available to everyone but it sure looks like you don’t really mean it. Are you a looneytarian?
Not surprised even a little bit my fuckhead of a senator Jim DeMint is in this.
Holy mother of… reason? That’s just… I don’t know… I don’t think I can ever call anything a poe, ever, ever again.
Ha, when the prayer guy said “ARISE! …” I immediately thought of this:
otrame@191, I don’t suggest emergency room care is optimal, only that it is available. No one in need of medical care in the country goes without.
As to the costs of emergency room care, estimates suggest costs for un-reimbursed ER visits amount to some 2% of our current overall expenditures on health care in the US.
It seems to me there is a point of diminishing returns. Arguing reform for an industry that comprises nearly one-fifth of our economy to save 2% would seem to fit that category.
The Harvard study mentioned by a few here that suggested 45,000 people die each year due to lack of insurance is more compelling, but a closer examination of the study reveals some issues.
First, it wasn’t really a Harvard study, it was produced by members of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) who happened to work at Harvard at the time they did their research. A quote from the home page of that organization boasts, ‘PNHP is at the forefront of research and action for a single-payer national health program.’
Of course being involved with such an organization doesn’t necessarily prove bias, but a disclaimer would have been nice.
In looking at the actual study, I can’t find where researchers determined cause of death for participants, or whether the participant was insured or not at the time of death. It appears to my admittedly untrained eye that study subjects were interviewed only once, and that if a subject who reported they were uninsured died within the time frame of the study, researchers made an unverified assumption those participants were still uninsured.
David@186 said: ‘It is better to keep one’s mouth shut and be thought a textbook example of the Dunning-Kruger effect than to open it and remove all doubt.’
Please enlighten me oh erudite one. Rather than name call, how about you show where my logic fails.
mwsletten @201
45,000 people a year go without.
@200, your post is made of equal parts win and awesome :D
‘Tis Himself@197, no I object to President Obama badmouthing insurance companies until he makes a deal with them that doesn’t actually fix the problem he badmouthed them for.
I object to his fear-mongering by referring to shadowy health care reform opponents as ‘those who profit from the status quo’ without telling us who ‘they’ are.
What’s the fuck is your problem, can’t you read?
He does his own stunts?
mwsletten:
The former, at a minimum; more likely, the latter. You tell me Obama is “demonizing” all of the stakeholders in the system, and use terms like “badmouthing” and “fearmongering” in comments to others… yet the quotes you provide to “prove” your point hardly bear that characterization out. Instead, they sound to me like rational analysis of structural problems in the status quo, and problems the pending legislation is designed to at least begin addressing. There’s a notable lack of gratuitous fingerpointing in those quotes: The insurance companies are, to be sure, accused of some bad behavior, but not in inflammatory or hyperbolic terms, and WRT pharma and the docs, he’s talking about perverse structural incentives, not about bad behavior.
So yes, I find your characterization disingenuous. Only you can tell me how willful that is. Add to that the fact that you’re ostensibly arguing that the reforms don’t go far enough while simultaneously parroting the talking points of those whose real desire is to kill any reform (e.g., budgetary alarm and a desire to put “cost control” ahead of expanding access), and I’m left with no confidence as to what your actual agenda is. That is, regardless of whether I agree with your position, I don’t believe you’re presenting it in an honest, transparent fashion.
By contrast, I don’t think there’s any way you can doubt what my agenda is, whether you think I’m right or wrong. And in case you’re not clear, I’ll borrow otrame’s eloquent locution, which echoes my own earlier comment:
Clear?
Living as I do, on the southern end of the planet (And holding on with my toes for dear life) I regard the current fuck-arseing about with respect to your health reform with, I must admit, complete and utter bafflement.
[b]Everyone[/b] whether poor, rich, black, white, orange, or any combination of physical and social characteristics you care to name should be entitled to all [i] necessary[/i] healthcare.
Here we have ‘Medicare’ by no means a perfect system, and plauged with it’s own problems. What it does do, however, is work. If you are sick, the system, (and by extension the gubbmint) provides the required care, be it emergency, long-term, surgery or what have you. Granted there are limits, and holes, hut hey, no system will ever be perfect. It also exists alongside a reasonably healthy (ha!) Health Insurance industry, which is not mandatory, but if you wish for a more timely provision of care, or are more likely to require certain kinds of care, is honestly a bit of a no brainer. I personally pay ~30% income tax, and you know what? I don’t mind. Those taxes helped pay for the surgeons that saved my sister-in-law and her baby. Those taxes ensure that should I ever be sick, and unable to afford my own care, or insurance that I shall not go un-helped.
Seeing as this has degenerated into a rant, I shall close with.
I cannot understand why there is such massive citizen based opposition to US Health Care reform when the majority of them appear to be protesting against their better interests. Everyone gets sick, everyone needs help, why not make it as accessible as possible?
“No one in need of medical care in the country goes without.”
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/la-me-kaiser4may04,0,2672286.story
Idiot.
Blah, tag fail.
mwsletten,
Your logic fails because the medical system fails.
Emergency rooms are not timely health care for anything but an unforseen emergency.
An insurers’ profit motive is not aligned with timely health care – it takes government regulation (or constraints) to align motives and outcomes – which your increasingly right-wing society/government/industry seems loathe to do.
If there is one thing I would change in the US health system, I would remove tax-deductability for employers regarding employee health-care. Insurance is priced according to what the market will bear, and the market will bear higher tax-deductable costs than non-tax-deductable costs. This makes it very difficult (if not impossible) for individuals to purchase health insurance – only businesses get the tax-deduction.
In the US, if someone loses their job, they also lose their health insurance – which is clearly a problem if you get a long-term illness such as cancer. In most of the civilised world, if you get sick, you have the choice to stop working, and take care of yourself in the best way you can without losing your health insurance. In the US, many dare not stop working, because if they even let their employer know they are ill, they are screwed because their health insurance evaporates. They no-longer get the tax-deduction, and so the insurance costs become very high for the time where Cobra is available, and then insurance becomes nigh impossible to get because health insurers are able to deny access to health insurance based on pre-existing conditions (something else to change).
The next thing I would change is the ability of health insurers to negotiate discount prices with hospitals for medical care. The cost of an operation that I saw the bill for had a discount price of $12,000 for the insurance company. Without the discount, the price was $33,000. That’s right, an uninsured person would pay nearly three times the price for the same operation as the insurance company paid.
What kind of system is it where the uninsured people cross-subsidize the insurance companies? What right do the health-insurance companies have to drive up the costs of medical treatment for the uninsured?
The US system is detrimental to the health of the people and to the health of the nation.
shorter mwsletten- a diabetic getting their foot cut off because they could not get preventative care still means ‘no one is denied care’. These people are denied the kind of healthcare that MATTERS, the kind that keeps them from being permanently disabled or homeless or DEAD.
You have no idea, do ya? Try working in a friggin hospital sometime. I do, and I know that having to do something drastic and lifesaving is TRAGIC when it can be prevented. The hospitals always need volunteers, for wheeling patients around and such. See what ‘care’ constitutes when preventative care isn’t available, what they should really call it is damage control.
As far as the healthcare bill being ‘a start’, I don’t think it is at all. Every step of the way this has been an effort to please all the corporate interests involved. Some companies (including walmart) want national healthcare because they don’t want to pay the cost. And the healthcare insurance companies don’t want to stop raising their prices and making maximum profit. So until the former interests outweigh the latter we are going to be stuck with whatever we are getting now. Which seems to be giving insurance companies more business. I am pretty sure that what constitutes ‘insurance’ will become pretty flexible so that broke people can afford to avoid the tax penalty. There is insurance now that only covers catastrophic injury, and in that case it wouldn’t do much good for the problems most people face.
All the ‘blue dog’ democrats seem to have some monetary connection to the insurance companies, so its not a secret that voting works that way. These companies invest in their representatives so that what they want gets done in legislation, and here we are. The kind of legislation going through right now seems to help out businesses a lot more than actual people, and if anything will delay a single payer/national care system where doctors actually decide what kind of care patients get. Nothing is going to happen until costs are unbearable for a lot of big companies. Representative democracy is a crock when it is in a capitalist system like this. The balance of power is extremely unequal and it shows all the time.
Fred the Hun @69 . . . nothing like a little carnaval to take the nasty taste out of our mouths! Go look, everyone, and note the enormous orange octopus at 0:15!
And for you, Fred, here’s a little soft bossa nova from Antônio Carlos Jobim, singing with a lesser-known American named Frank Sinatra:
They don’t believe that they are. They’ve been convinced that healthcare reform is not in their best interests and they’ve swallowed it hook, line, and sinker.
Those who uncritically accept that they can live forever if they telepathically accept a magic Levantine zombie as their master are pretty easy fodder for manipulation by charlatans who have some standing in that community and know what buttons to push. They’ve been trained by decades of religious brainwashing to accept pathos and ethos, and reject logos.
If you want to influence public opinion in the far right, you must get a respected figure to push compassion and WWJD buttons — logic and reason will be to no avail. You’ll get much further with “Jesus wants me to have compassion for my neighbor” than with any guff about percentage of GDP spent vs. health outcomes and WHO or OECD statistics.
Part of the problem is that rural religious communities have been entirely ceded to the right. Is it any surprise that sheep are fed by the same shepherds who would shear them?
@taipanleader
I cannot understand why there is such massive citizen based opposition to US Health Care reform when the majority of them appear to be protesting against their better interests. Everyone gets sick, everyone needs help, why not make it as accessible as possible?
I am similarly bemused be this. It seems that those whose interests are at stake are in thrall to those most interested in denying them those interests, it’s an amazing sleight of hand.
I recalled the Unitarian Church shootings, remember those? A classic case of acting against your own self interest. So wierd. Details below.
This almost made my head explode. Fucking nitwits!
@Cuttlefish: best poem so far
#166
“As I said, I find it instructive to determine who exactly is backing a bill. President Obama and the Democrats have been demonizing the major players in the US health care industry — including doctors, drug companies and insurance companies — for the past year trying to convince the public they are fighting these greedy, selfish companies on our behalf. Turns out these are the very companies now supporting the current health care reform proposals. Shouldn’t you be asking yourself why?”
Are you possibly suggesting that doctors, drug companies and insurance companies did not oppose and lobby and kick up a stink about the health reforms proposed, and that they are innocent and blameless in this fiasco?
Or are you suggesting that when they stamped their footsies just enough with the concentrated effort of the republican and xian cavalry that the backbone of the proposals was ripped out to accommodate their bruised sensibilities.
And now that income is satisfied, one could mention guaranteed, they are now quiescent in the proposals.
So how come a bunch of old farts still invoke and beseech a sky fairy to do their bidding in scuppering the reforms?
Is that playing to the gallery for the shape of their politics, or is it that they prefer the first option with all that means…a US National Health service funded and regulated by government?
And they are displeased by the surgery performed on the reform?
#201
“Rather than name call, how about you show where my logic fails.”
Oh I don’t know!…maybe from beginning to end!
Incoherency seems a malady associated with the anti reformers.
Anything that is not Obama is righteous, anything that is suffers demonic possession, corruption, and calumny in government, seems to be the message!
Thing is, I thought PZ’s description of the video might have been exaggerated somewhat… then I watched the clip. Nope, he’s right on the money.
I get embarrassed when I try to imagine what future Americans might think of us, not to mention what everybody else does currently.
I raised those leaders to punish your sins. Locusts, hail, boils and the death of all firstborns will come next.
I’m probably in the minority when I say that people dying off is a good thing for health care. The burden upon us is due to the amount of people we have in this country and the limited resources at our disposal. A few more dead people that don’t contribute to society except to suck it dry is a good thing, on the whole, as far as benefits are concerned.
I’m not immoral, my morals are just focused on the distant future and my only interest is in humanity’s survival at all costs. More health care is more people living is more people breeding. 100 years from now when our world population is at about 15-20 billion I wonder how many people will be turned away not because they can’t afford it but just due to the fact that the resources for survival as a modern species won’t be there. We’re simply delaying the inevitable population crunch and exploiting the planet while doing so.
I believe my position is as moral as the position that everyone needs health care. The only difference is how soon the tragedies start occurring.
#219
“my only interest is in humanity’s survival at all costs.”
Even at the cost of humanity itself seemingly?
Let us have quotas and invoke National euthanasia at the age of 65 then, for all regardless of health just in case they might become a burden and become so careless as to contract cancer or heart disease or kidney failure, that sort of carelessness should not be tolerated by a society that apparently appeals to you!
Let all research and investigations into stem cell research cease to be priority, not because the religious get all prissy and prefer praying for relief but because financially it means you pay less tax!
Let us not cure just dispatch, true Darwinian Evolution, real survival of the fittest, and only the fittest.
Will you determine in your infinite wisdom who or why someone is condemned including going into the neo-natal wards and pointing your ‘moral ‘finger at a child in intensive care with a hole in the heart through a genetic anomaly co-authored by the child’s parents or their parents, because the money is required for maybe a few more weapons of mass destruction?
You seem happy to suggest that…will you be the arbiter of life and death and leave the Doctors and Nurses to do cosmetic surgery?
Sounds like Utopia, a religious answer to prayer and bright and wonderful new Eden.
You may count me out by the way!…enjoy it as they cart off your elderly family members, or pull the plug on your child’s life…but at least the money can be spent elsewhere!
Shorter ChrisD:
I’ve got mine, and the rest can drop dead for all I care. It’s a good thing if they do, really….
Yeah, right. You are either a Poe, or a heartless bastard.
Psychopath @ 219,
I hope you are.
So far so disgusting.
Your interest is not in humanity’s survival my fascist friend, because you are human, and your interest is in your own survival.
What that means is that you are spouting fascist nonsense either because you are stupid, or because you are a Poe.
Let’s just hope that the vile ChrisD@219 isn’t a doctor or nurse, or worse still, a microbiologist with access to dangerous pathogens.
What that means is that you are spouting fascist nonsense either because you are stupid, or because you are a Poe.
This looks a case of unadulterated dumb.
A timely reminder – should any be required – that human beings are always just a Führer away from genocidal stupidity.
What that means is that you are spouting fascist nonsense either because you are stupid, or because you are a Poe.
This looks like a case of unadulterated dumb.
A timely reminder – should any be required – that human beings are always just one Führer away from genocidal stupidity.
More health care is more people living is more people breeding. 100 years from now when our world population is at about 15-20 billion/i>
Err no countries with national health services generally have stable or declining populations.
Its because we murder all the sick muhahahahahahahaha
Its because we murder all the sick muhahahahahahahaha
No it’s the babies isn’t it? They eat the babies.
There is almost nothing as nutritious as a juicy newborn; It’s why the life expectancy in these communist run, socialist plauged hell holes is higher than in Freedom land, and it also explains the stable birth rates!
Oh the hu-man-i-ty!
No it’s the babies isn’t it? They eat the babies.
Thats silly we only eat christian babies,we would be pretty stupid to eat all babies as there wouldnt be any toddlers to eat later, their meat is so tender
ChrisD, a word of caution: you probably shouldn’t advocate for a particular societal system if you’re not willing to be affected by it. I would guess you and your lifestyle take up an awful lot of resources that would otherwise be around for the next generation.
Carlie,
To judge by ChrisD’s silence since #219, maybe he’s now realised that his “morality” demands that he top himself, and has done just that? We can hope, anyway.
Shorter ChrisD: if they would rather die, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population. Somebody needs a Christmas visit from three ghosts.
It would be not beyond believability to assume that a few of the ‘caring fundies’ that would vote against health care reforms to actually agree partly with that sentiment expressed in #219.
No treatment for immigrants.
None for women
Certainly not for ter gheys!
Muslims barred cos they pray to Allah after all!
No poor
No Democrats & Liberals
No Scientists
Definatly no Atheists
Just had a disturbing mental image of Sarah Palin when she is 269 years young, hooked up to every device known to medicine, in an electric wheelchair looking and sounding like a homicidal Dalek with a voice box and tubes of bubbling greenish sludge like liquid being pumped into every orifice and a few new ones specially created.
Face a black and wrinkled prune, arms and legs replaced with prosthetic plastic fantastic!
Still babbling inanity and worshipped on a pedestal on a stage in front of Republican conventions for the rest of eternity…come what may!
All funded by xian ministries…
“Yep!…you betcha!”
… there wouldnt be any toddlers to eat later, their meat is so tender
I have always wondered about this curious business of babies continuing to free range despite decree 47 of the Central Atheist Directorate (CAD for short): “Regulations Regarding pre and post natal consumption”.
I’m an absolute CAD, have been for years, and no one has ever mentioned this business about toddlers.
Tender you say?
ChrisD, the future inventor of Soylent Green.
ChrisD @ 219;
…there wouldnt be any toddlers to eat later, their meat is so tender
Of course the flavour of a toddler depends largely on what they have been eating. Don’t feed them on proprietary weaning foods whatever you do – you get a bland, mealy result. Plenty of raw fruit and vegetables, and the occasional braised baby, are recommended.
Blockquotes, I hate you so.
This is nuts
These people are nuts
It is sickening, embarrassing for me as Citizen, and dangerous to the max.
And this canard that abortion is not health-care is so infuriating. The terminations called for in later terms are the ones that need insurance and they statistically speaking are 100% for justifiable medical reasons – no less good reasons than a decision to get heart surgery of just take pills or do nothing medical and just exercise. It is all a choice – so what if it a “choice”.
Dangerous insane idiots they are
chrisD’s plan is stupid and short-sighted even from the most heartless, elitist point of view, because it rests on the assumption that those “that don’t contribute to society except to suck it dry” will die quietly. People denied basic needs become dangerous. Do you think that this imaginary demographc (because it is largely imaginary) would go along with your plan–or do you think that they (and those that love them) would do what it takes to hedge their bets? Like stab your sorry ass, chrisD and take your money?
I wouldn’t be so quick to draw a line in the sand between the haves and the have-nots. The have-nots don’t like it, and may develop a need for some revenge therapy.
From a humanist (rather than heartless, elitist) POV, chrisD’s idea is a half-gallon of puke in a quart-sized ziplock.
ChrisD is either an insane misanthrope or a perniciously unfunny prankster (as an aside, I still can’t figure out whether the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement is intended to be serious, or is an elaborate prank), but his BS does raise an interesting question, which I’ve grappled with before, and which really relates more to medical research than the efficacy of our healthcare system: How would the world handle an innovation that dramatically increased (i.e., by a factor of two or three) life expectancy within a single generation.
Here’s why I wonder: Years ago, a distant cousin of mine and his wife (he a physicist, she a virologist, both weird as snakes’ shoes) were developing a drug that they thought might be effective against various degenerative neurological conditions. My family had a keen interest because my father suffered from Parkinson’s, so we followed their progress closely. Ultimately the drug was a bust, but at one point in their early laboratory trials, they noticed that the rats taking their experimental drug were living roughly twice as long as normal!
This got me to wondering what would happen to the world if people learned, effectively overnight, that they could live twice as long as they expected (i.e., average life expectancies approaching 150 years). It wouldn’t be an unmixed blessing: Think of all the social institutions, business arrangements, etc., that would be shaken to their core by such a fundamental change to what “generation” means. Nevermind what it would do to global population eventually; what would it do to life right away?
If people continued to retire in their 60s, pension plans, annuities, and government support mechanisms like Social Security (and its equivalents around the world) would face collapse in the face of the sudden overturning of all their actuarial assumptions. If, OTOH, people continued to work for an additional 40 or 50 years, where would we find jobs for young people entering the workforce? What would happen to our current notions of the inheritance of material wealth when generations overlap in time so much more than they do now? Would the notion of lifetime monogamous partnerships survive the realization that the value of lifetime had so radically changed, or would we need to completely revamp our notions of social and sexual relationships? Would people adjust their production of children in the face of the long lives of the existing population? Would they be forced to adjust it? Or would we just get steadily more overcrowded?
The list of questions goes on and on. It’s hard to predict which parts of our current society would survive such a demographic earthquake, and which would collapse. Since many of the consequences would be potentially negative, and in any case, any extension of human lifespans would further stress our limited natural resources, cranks like ChrisD (or cranks like ChrisD is pretending to be, as the case may be) would clearly say such an innovation should be suppressed, for the sake of “the future.”
I say BS. I say in a hypothetical situation like this, we would have to take the challenges head on as challenges. No doubt the world would be fundamentally changed, and no doubt many would suffer in the transition… but IMHO arbitrarily preempting a chance at a better, more abundant, life because you’re afraid of the future (per the ChrisD mindset) is never the correct moral option.
Bill Dauphin@206: Accusing a highly-educated, humane person who has taken an oath to ‘first, do no harm’ of using a ‘structural incentive’ to profit at a patient’s expense is not badmouthing? Hmmmmm. And you say I’m being disingenuous? I guess it takes on to know one…
You said: ‘…you’re ostensibly arguing that the reforms don’t go far enough while simultaneously parroting the talking points of those whose real desire is to kill any reform (e.g., budgetary alarm and a desire to put “cost control” ahead of expanding access), and I’m left with no confidence as to what your actual agenda is.’
That’s because you make the mistake of conflating my championing a single Republican idea with my adherence to the entire Republican agenda. You seem to believe no idea that emanates from the opposite side of the political isle can possibly have merit.
Indeed, from your postings it appears if a Democrat speaks, the words are reasonable and factual, but when a Republican speaks, the words are willfully disingenuous, politically motivated and ignorant.
Thomas Jefferson and John Adams were world worlds apart politically, yet the political accomplishments of the pair working together are staggering. Can a Republican offer no idea worthy of your consideration?
You also make the assumption that because I oppose the current reform proposal, I must oppose ANY reform effort. In fact, I believe the Republicans have made a mistake in not disguising the fact they are blocking Democratic reform efforts to suit political ends — namely that of making President Obama and the Democrats look bad. If they stuck to principle and attacked the reform proposal simply on its merits they could bank a great deal of political capital. But they won’t, because to do so they would have to confront the very corporate interests our kow-towing President will not. President Obama allowed corporate interests to influence him during the financial bailouts, and he’s doing it again with health care reform.
I don’t oppose the current reform proposal based on a political ideology, I oppose it because President Obama’s administration has promoted it in large part on the basis of controlling skyrocketing costs while making backroom deals which ultimately will increase the profits of the very corporations who drive the current costs. I oppose it because using tax dollars to further enrich an already fabulously wealthy industry seems like bad policy to me.
Does it not bother you?
The truth is exactly as I’ve stated: I DO believe we as a nation have an obligation to make every reasonable effort to ensure quality health care is available to as many citizens as possible. I also find a great deal of merit in the suggestion that high costs do more to limit health care availability in this country than does lack of insurance. If health care costs in America weren’t so staggeringly high there would be no need for debate. Simply put, make health care more affordable and more people will be able to afford it; make it affordable enough, no one will object to the burden of providing it for the less fortunate.
If you think that’s a lie you can go fuck yourself.
mwsletten:
What bothers me is the notion of killing tens of thousands of my neighbors because I prefer to punish the evil corporations. I refuse to not do the right thing merely because some of the wrong people might benefit.
If that’s so, it’s beyond my capability to understand why you oppose the best available step in that direction, and why you continue to repeat the very arguments (including transparently specious ones such as the claim that nobody is denied care under the status quo) advanced by those who unapologetically oppose the very thing you claim to believe.
Likewise, I’m sure.
Bill Dauphin@242 said: ‘What bothers me is the notion of killing tens of thousands of my neighbors because I prefer to punish the evil corporations.’
It’s not about punishing them, it’s about not rewarding them.
Bill Dauphin@242 said: ‘…it’s beyond my capability to understand why you oppose the best available step in that direction…’
Obviously, because I’ve made it clear why I oppose it.
Bill Dauphin@242 said: ‘[I don’t understand] why you continue to repeat the very arguments (including transparently specious ones such as the claim that nobody is denied care under the status quo) advanced by those who unapologetically oppose the very thing you claim to believe.’
Is it not a fact that anyone who seeks medical care at an ER will receive the care regardless of their ability to pay for it? Did I not acknowledge that
@Bill Dauphin.
The idea of dramatically extended lifespans is something I’ve thought about a lot, perhaps it’s my entry to middle age?
I agree with you for the most part, we’d simply have to tackle these issues head on; trying to deny hundreds of years of life to billions will guarantee social upheaval on an unprecedented scale. In fact it often surprises me that we don’t see more of that already, in effect a significant proportion of the US population is going to live 20 to 30 years less than the most wealthy. That seems grounds for a peasants revolt right there!
One point I do take issue with, is when you say :
Wouldn’t economic theory suggest that these productive people and their economic activity would generate more jobs?
The real nightmare – it seems to me – is really facing the insurance and pension companies. They may be in for some sharp shocks in the future.
Is it not a fact that anyone who seeks medical care at an ER will receive the care regardless of their ability to pay for it?
Yeah. It is a fact, and probably a major reason why US health care costs are double those of the rest of the developed world.
If you wait until something that could be readily treated by a cheap antibiotic has become life threatening, your costs do tend to drift up. It’s actually amazingly obvious.
Getting treated for free at the ER because bits have begun to fall off is not a rational way to run a health care system, in fact it’s not even really health care. That’s why no one else in the sane world runs theirs that way. Not even Ireland, and they have a pretty sucky HCS when compared to the rest of the EU.
mwsletten:
I wasn’t planning to respond to you further, but I find I can’t let something this outrageous pass:
Seriously? You honestly believe that “not rewarding” is a better justification for allowing tens of thousands to die unnecessarily?
<headscratch>
Others have explained better (and more patiently) than I why the treatment-of-last-resort available to the poor and uninsured at emergency rooms does not constitute “access to health care” by any reasonable definition, yet you keep flogging that horse.
More generally, you keep insisting that you support universal care and oppose the for-profit villains of the healthcare industry… but you keep repeating the very arguments of those who, by their own declaration, oppose the former and support the latter.
That’s why I think you’re being disingenuous here, and that’s why, regardless of any further temptation or provocation, I’m really most sincerely done responding to you now.
Bill@242 said: ‘What bothers me is the notion of killing tens of thousands of my neighbors because I prefer to punish the evil corporations. I refuse to not do the right thing merely because some of the wrong people might benefit.’
It’s not about punishing corporations, its about not rewarding them. It’s not about preventing the wrong people from benefiting, it’s about eliminating the root cause of the problem instead of applying an expensive, temporary patch that ends up causing more problems that it solves.
What do you think is going to happen? That the government will mandate ALL in the country have a minimum-coverage health insurance policy and subsidize with tax dollars those who cannot afford it, and hospitals, drug companies and insurance companies will be SO HAPPY they’ll LOWER costs to reward everyone for being such good citizens?
Bill@242 said: ‘…you continue to repeat the very arguments (including transparently specious ones such as the claim that nobody is denied care under the status quo) advanced by those who unapologetically oppose the very thing you claim to believe.’
Cherry pick my statements all you like, you know that’s not what I meant. You’ve completely ignored the premise of my last post — that I can value a single idea without cleaving to an agenda. If you are convinced that everything I say is a lie then further debate is pointless.
Bill@246, yeah, that pesky post button got me. The reply I actually meant to send followed @247.
@mwsletten
Whatever your position or disingenuity, you argue as if the entire rest of the world simply doesn’t exist. Frankly, you are expending a lot of valuable energy pointlessly.
The systems are out there, and those that get the best bang for their buck – by orders of magnitude – cover everyone.
If your concern is genuinely for affordable universal health care, just pick one of the ones that work and lobby for it. I’d recommend you start by having a look at the Swedish one.
ChrisD,
That’s a very strange, collectivist view of morality. I don’t really understand how the desire to perpetuate “humanity”, and your concerns about the survival of the species a century down the line, can outweigh the interests of actual, living individuals in the here-and-now. For me, it is individual human beings who matter, not the greater glory of “the species”. That kind of thinking, where individuals become subordinated to the collective, is the essence of tyranny: it leads to people being treated like ants, and being “sacrificed” for the “greater good”.
I’m not weighing in on the healthcare debate here. I just find your ideas particularly odd.
coughlanbrianm (@244):
I dunno: I’m entirely unschooled in economics, and meant that as a true question, not a statement disguised as one. I don’t really know whether people staying in the workforce twice as long would necessarily mean that much more growth, or just that much less turnover. If the former, wouldn’t that just put more stress on resources and lebensraum? I don’t pretend to have answers, or even really to know what the right questions are, but I’m pretty sure that any such dramatic and sudden extension of human lifespan would lead to Interesting Times™ (in the Chinese proverb sense, that is).
It occurs to me that such an event might make a good establishing event for a “future history” in which a series of SF stories could be set. I fully expect Knockgoats to snort at me for this suggestion, but I suspect much longer lives might change the equation WRT extending the domain of humanity throughout the solar system, and perhaps might even enable human interstellar travel (i.e., the sublight “generation ships” of SF lore might suddenly become single-generation ships).
Fun stuff to muse on, eh?
#201 otrame@191
Uh, huh. Grady Hospital (Atlanta) shut down its dialysis clinic last year, promising to find spots for the 100 patients in other facilities . Grady is essentially the hospital where the uninsured & indigent get treatment, and is always running in the red. Article in todays AJC says that many patients have gone without treatment for weeks and 3 have died.
A year ago, my 81 yr old mother, who lives in Ontario, went on dialysis. The Canadian “Death Panel” that kills off senior citizens must have misread her age as 18.
Last year (I live in the US), I had 8 stitches in a finger at my local ER. They take my insurance but I got a bill for $750 from the ER doctor! Seems, the ER doctors had opted out of accepting insurance the previous year. Now, my insurance was supposed to pay the bill in full (as it was an emergency procedure), but due to a paperwork mix-up, they only paid half. The bill went into collection before it got sorted out.
WTF!!?? You go to an ER in a hospital the accepts your insurance and find you are not covered for the ER doctor that treats you?? It is like getting a bill from the ER cleaning staff, nurse or secretary. Madness!!
coughlanbrianm@249, I don’t get your point. Health care costs in America are higher than elsewhere, that’s the problem. If our costs in America equaled that of Sweden we wouldn’t have a problem. If you know how other countries keep cost under control than share — that’s how I propose we fix the problem.
You said: ‘The systems are out there, and those that get the best bang for their buck – by orders of magnitude – cover everyone.’
Such systems get the best bang for their buck because they provides products and services which are affordable, not because they covers everyone. In other words, they cover everyone the majority have determined the costs are bearable.
At the current cost level in the US I honestly don’t think we can afford to cover everyone. You can define ‘afford’ however you like — financial, political, national will… whatever. There are too many forces arrayed against paying for everyone at the current costs.
If we get costs down to a level equal with the rest of the world, however, you eliminate a large part of the argument against universal coverage.
Fun stuff to muse on, eh?
It certainly is, I’d love to read a book on suddenly available immortality that deals with the societal upheaval that follows.
Could actually be a handy metaphor for the health care debate; principle is the same, just the scale is different.
Walton (@250):
It surely won’t surprise you that I take a more “collectivist view of morality” than you do, but I’m somewhat similarly puzzled by ChrisD’s (alleged) position.
Unlike (I think) both you and ChrisD, I don’t see individual’s interests and the collective interest as distinct and seperable. While collective goods may require temporal sacrifices on the part of particular individuals, I believe that what’s good for the whole is, broadly speaking, also ulimately good for the individuals that make up the whole, and vice versa. Even when individuals are called on to make the ultimate sacrifice in service of the common good (e.g., soldiers, fire fighters, cops, etc., who die in the line of duty), the broad effect of making things better for the collective is to make things better for all its members as well.
Also unlike ChrisD (but, I suspect, like you), I put no stock in sacrificing the present (either collectively or individually) on behalf of the future. Note that I do believe we owe something to our children and grandchildren, both collectively and individually… but what we owe them is the sustainability and advancement of present goods. The notion of “buying” future goodness through current suffering and denial is, IMHO, perverse.
Similarly perverse is the bizarre notion, promoted by Voluntary Human Extinction Movement (to which I linked earlier, and of which ChrisD’s brand of insanity reminded me), that we owe something to nature even at the cost of our own survival as a species.
I think the moral course is to make the best world we can, for each of us and for all of us, in the most sustainable way possible, now. Anything else strikes me as either self-loathing or selfishness.
If you know how other countries keep cost under control than share — that’s how I propose we fix the problem. – mwsletten
Do you really not know? It’s no big secret. Either they have a largely state-run system, like the UK; or they have compulsory insurance which is very strictly regulated by the state, like the Netherlands. No crap about “free markets” in healthcare.
Clarifying #256: in either case, universal coverage is provided. In the insurance-based systems, the state pays for the insurance of those who cannot afford it.
I had a similar mixup from an ER visit – both the ER itself and the doctors were covered by my health insurance, but get paid from separate subsections of said insurance, and the doctor’s bill had been incorrectly submitted to the wrong subsection. Now keep in mind: this was something that was entirely covered by my plan, and the insurance company itself had all of the necessary data from the very beginning, although incorrectly filed. It took two and a half years to get it sorted out, during which time there were at least a dozen calls back and forth, a few conference calls with me, both insurance subsections and the hospital billing department, and a couple of collection agency notices. And I’m still not entirely sure it’s worked out – I wouldn’t be surprised to get another overdue notice in a couple of months that sparks the whole thing over again. And this is a functioning healthcare system?
@Carlie.
Incredible. In a single payer system THAT CANNOT HAPPEN.
And people wonder where the savings come from ….
coughlanbrianm – and the other thing is, I’m fairly literate. I’m not easily intimidated by bureaucracy. I have a job that allows for time during normal business hours to spend a half hour arguing on the phone. How many people would just give up and pay a few hundred dollars that they shouldn’t (and probably can’t), just because they don’t have the privileges needed to work their way through the system?
Hypatia’s Daughter (@252) and Carlie (@258):
Yah, the byzantine paperwork involved in medical billing is almost impossible to follow, even when they don’t screw it up. By the time the provider iterates a couple times with the insurance company and then finally bills you for the copay and/or coinsurance, it can be months after the original date of service… meaning you may not even remember what you’re paying for, and the cryptic codes and describtions on your statement certainly won’t help (unless you’re a healthcare provider yourself). Then, too, you might get bills from multiple entities — clinic/hospital, doctor, radiologist/pathologist, lab, etc. — for what seems to you like a single instance of care, and if you’re close to meeting your deductible, the multiple billings might make things complicated.
All this is yet another reason — as if the fact that people who need healthcare are often in crisis weren’t reason enough — that the notion of a true healthcare free market, in which consumers shop around and make rational, well-informed decisions, is ridiculous: When you’re sick or injured, you’re in no position to shop for care, and even when you’re not, the actual information about what you’re actually paying is so thoroughly hidden by complexity that rational decisions are impossible.
Now, if insurance covered all costs, without copays, coinsurance, or deductibles, and all you had to compare was premiums, you really could shop, and the insurer, acting as your agent, could bargain with the providers based on information you don’t have (and don’t have the time or expertise to reasonably get). And if those insurers were carefully regulated by the government, and their premiums subsidized for those who couldn’t afford them, then hey, presto, you’d have a universal care system similar to that of the Netherlands or (IIRC) Germany. And, of course, if the insurers were the government, you’d have a single-payer public system similar to (if I understand it correctly) Canada’s.
Ahh, if only, eh?
I worked in hospital patient accounts for a few years, a while back. Tens or hundreds of thousands of claims a year (and this is not counting the physician charges – another department), and about 3% would get messed up and have to be manually corrected and resubmitted. It cost an average of $18 to resubmit a claim, in terms of staff productivity. It adds up fast.
I’ve lived in Sweden for about 9 years now; I’ve been to the doctor about 4 times in that period, and each visit cost me about €9 ($13). Three of those were routine checkups with blood and urine samples. These were taken on the premises, and processed within 3 days. I was sent a letter with the results.
The fourth time I had a tickbite which was treated with an antibiotic. Untreated, it could have been lethal. The prescribed antibiotic was waiting for me at the state run chemist (networked with the clinic of course … well DUH!) when I arrived; a generic of course, and the Swedish government drives a pretty hard bargain on behalf of it’s 10 million consituents so you get very good value for money. If I couldn’t afford either the absurdly low consulting fee or the cheap generic antibiotic, there is of course an additional scheme.
In the US, someone without insurance could very well take their chances and a doctor would see them for the first time delirious and shitting blood in the ER. Hypothetically. Compare the cost of that to a 10 day broad spectrum antibiotic and 15 minutes with a doctor. You could afford 50 similar sessions for the cost of the these absurd “treatment of last resort” that occur in the US; and these are touted as some kind of solution!?
Universal health care prevents all of that. It is utterly nonsensical to have balkanised archipelagos of insurance companies, desperate to make a profit, running your health care system. Incredibly stupid.
On the topic …. an autotune the news on US healthcare. It even has Keith Olbermann singing, something of a must see. Enjoy:-)
coughlanbrianm:
What, you mean the availability of all that socialism-subsidized, non-free-market health care hasn’t motivated you to go to the doctor ever couple of days, just for the fun of it? I’m confused: Everybody here assures me that if we make it too easy/cheap to get care, then wasting medical resources will become everybody’s favorite hobby. You mean that’s not true? Whyever would people mislead me like that?
</snark>
Bill Dauphin
What, you mean the availability of all that socialism-subsidized, non-free-market health care hasn’t motivated you to go to the doctor ever couple of days, just for the fun of it?
No. Now that I’m over 40, those bastards always want to “check my prostate”. “Lets just have a quick peep they say”, slipping on a pair of rubber gloves and firing up a 1000 watt arc lamp.
When you hit 50, it becomes mandatory. They come to your home, strap you to the table and strip you naked. Then …. well you know the rest. Perverted communists!
@ 252 Hypatia’s daughter
$750 for a ring block and a few knots thrown in? Absofuckinglutely incredible. I’m an UK RN with 20 years experience but never seem to be able to get over the absurdities, injustices and outrages of US health care.
I lived in South Fla for a couple of years but didn’t work as nurse there (tho it would have been easy to arrange and certainly more renumerative that the freelance ESL I did) because I knew I wouldn’t last an hour in a healthcare setting without getting arrested (or sectioned).
It would have been cheaper for you to get a flight over to me here in the UK – I’d have sorted it out for you there and then in the airport lounge for no more than petrol (and a pint) money :)
Bill’s #261 and coughlanbrianm’s #263 make it plain why the so-called “free market” will never be able to fix our ludicrous health-care system.
It is absolutely impossible as a consumer to make evidence-based, rational choices in our current system. The policies themselves are so byzantine that, even if you were able to find a doctor and a hospital who were willing to give you an upfront cost for their services, there would be no way to figure out how much the policy would pay (remember, hospitals bill by line; how much will that Tylenol cost? and the sponges for the surgery?) for the three pages of itemized bills, how much the doctors/hospital would write off, and then how much cash you’ll be out.
Met your deductible already? No help. Remember, you had to sign a contract before the doctor even looked at you, promising to pay whatever the insurance policy wouldn’t.
I had a double knee replacement in December of 2007 (early onset, catastrophic arthritis). I had met my deductible getting the diagnosis. Bills from anesthesiologists, other doctors whose names I didn’t even know, pathology labs, and the hospital itself kept straggling in SEVEN MONTHS after the surgery. I was out of pocket about $2500 more by the time all was said and done.
And I’m a “sophisticated” consumer. What chance does the regular Joe have to contend with this situation?
It is absolutely impossible as a consumer to make evidence-based, rational choices in our current system.
The terror that americans have of single payer health insurance, or universal coverage is clearly driven by irrational ideology.
It reminds of the Nazi’s – GODWIN ALERT! No, hang on I’m not going to talk about the holocaust.
It reminds of the Nazi’s suppressing jewish science, and crippling any hope of cracking nuclear power, or the Soviet Union shipping all the Darwinists off to the Gulag in the 1940’s.
The obsession with the market is an irrational ideology that may yet destroy the US as a force for anything, good or bad, in the world.
And don’t expect to come strolling in to join the EU when you chaps have become some sort of 21st century France, but without the benefit of the cuisine. You can wait in line like all the other accession candidates.
I’m sure the Ukraine will save you a spot:-)
Leigh Williams (@268):
What you said!
In addition…
Not only is it impossible, due to the complexity of the pricing system, sometimes it’s not even desirable: When I first met my then 10-year-old daughters oncologist, what I needed most desperately in all the world (perhaps the single thing I’ve needed most desperately in my whole life to date) was to trust this man. What I theoretically should have done as a “rational consumer” — critically and unemotionally evaluate the value of his services versus their cost — was cosmically at odds with what I had to do as the parent of a child whose life was at risk.
It’s one thing to rationally “shop” for medical care you know in advance you’ll need: a family doctor, an OB/GYN, a pediatrician, perhaps an orthopedist or sports medicine specialist, depending on lifestyle. It’s another thing entirely to pretend that you can, or even wish to, make rational choices when the life or wellbeing of someone you love (not excluding yourself) is at immediate risk.
Wouldn’t be a problem with my policy, which forbids doctors from billing me for more than the copay and/or coinsurance that’s based on their negotiated payment, once the deductible’s been met (and up to an annual out-of-pocket limit).
But the fact that the basics of insurance coverage vary from insurer to insurer (and, for that matter, from policy to policy) is a Bug, Not a Feature™. Any step toward making the system more uniform would be welcome; obviously, the best possible step would be some sort of single-payer system.
But since that’s not in the cards here in the U.S. anytime soon, I’ll grudgingly settle for universal (or nearly so) access to what we do have, without restriction due to medical history or ability to pay. Better, after all, to light one candle than to curse the darkness.
Every time I hear something like “No one in need of medical care in the country goes without”, because emergency rooms don’t turn anyone away, I want to ask what would happen if you showed up at the emergency room and said, “I’m feeling just fine, but I want you to give me a colonoscopy, a pap smear, and check my cholesterol.”
I’ve never tried it, but my guess is that you’d be shown the door.
mwsletten:
This information is readily available on the Internet.
The largest single delta appears to me to be administrative overhead, which some estimates place at 21% of the total cost burden.
Here are some overviews of other countries:
Sweden
the Netherlands
France
Canada
Germany
Japan
Compare these systems to ours, in which it is literally impossible to call up a doctor’s office and get the price for an office visit. I know this for sure; when we were without insurance several years ago, I tried to budget for health care. Of three different practices I tried, NONE would give me a price. Two wouldn’t take patients without insurance at all, and the third was very reluctant — they told me that an office visit wouldn’t do much good, since we wouldn’t be able to afford lab work (for which they wouldn’t give me a price either, although their lab was in-house).
Or show up in the emergency room with a headache that turns out to be a brain tumor.
Well, you probably won’t find that out, because that would take an MRI, and they’re probably just going to give you a couple of aspirin and send you home.
But if they do diagnose a brain tumor, guess what? They don’t treat cancer in the ER. Maybe they’ll give you some better pain meds before they send you home.
I wanted to reply to mwsletten:
but forgot that more than one link sends you to moderation purgatory. So here’s my post broken into chunks:
The largest single delta appears to me to be administrative overhead, which some estimates place at 21% of the total cost burden.
[more]
Here are some overviews of other countries:
Sweden
the Netherlands
France
Canada
this thread is truly headache inducing. MWSletten first whines about how government always overshoots their budget, never returns any money, blah blah, and is generally horrible; and then he suggests that the U.S. should fix their healthcare problems the way Sweden does. I nearly choked on my breakfast reading that one.
Germany
[meta]
Leigh, you can typically embed 3 links without triggering moderation.
Thanks, John, I really couldn’t remember! I’ve only got one more, however.
Japan
and speaking of choking… I was *this* close to strangling that fuckface Conrad for claiming that Germany, France, and a couple other European countries didn’t have state-funded healthcare. In moments like that I feel like getting citizenship just so that I can start complaining officially, and not just whine on the internet.
The thing about each of these other countries is that, generally speaking, the government sets the reimbursement rates, and plans are not allowed to reject applicants for preexisting conditions. Some countries allow a higher reimbursement rate for these patients, however.
The Wikipedia overview covers a lot of this stuff. There is really no excuse for not knowing about how other countries manage health care and ensure lower costs and better outcomes than we do.
Both the Washington Post and the New York Times have plenty of coverage, too.
From Bill Dauphin, well worth repeating for emphasis:
#278
“MWSletten first whines about how government always overshoots their budget, never returns any money, blah blah, and is generally horrible”
To be sorta fair, the poster is just re-echoing the memé that floods the anti rhetoric.
Mostly hysterical insubstantial and petty ‘wolf cryin’ motivated seemingly more by political, and for some unfathomable reason, Religious allegiance and vested interests then the real facts of the reform suggested.
The actual objections are vague, loose and multifariousness apparently.
Just that they have not really decided on which is the worst result.
For some it is a slide into a state control that orders Euthanasia or allows Communism/Socialism(gasp) to enter the USA via a back door.
For others national bankruptcy, neatly and conveniently forgetting about other European models that have operated quite successfully for many years, the Brit NHS since 1948 for example.
No one is claiming that any one is better then any other, they all have problems somewhere in the system, but the poisonous, scaremongering and outright lies perpetuated by the antis is, if not pathetic then, certainly misinformed.
Almost appears that the antis are copying ‘cretinist’ tactics.
Cast doubt on a facet of science, and claim all sorts of ridiculous crap before breakfast, and hope that some crud sticks in the minds of the hard of thinking before lunch!
Just as much evidence, or lack of, just as much hysterical lying and just as much bigotry and political grand standing.
Seems right wing bozos hate anything that improves the lot of the poorer section of society.
Claiming ‘not out of my pocket’ and other such selfish and self pompous centre of the world type pontifications.
The Conservatives in Blighty hate the NHS, always have done for exactly the same reasons, but grudgingly realise that it is there to stay, they do not like it, means less money for private practice, the section of medical service where they have more political support, but they will endeavour to twist the administrative structure to suit , as they always do, in their next stint at the trough.
It was after all their ‘improvements’ last time around that introduced more executive staff then front line Doctors and Nurses.
Seemingly preferring cash management to result.
A situation that the Labour government were not able reverse easily.
All very well but that does leave the front line care sometimes a little less then caring then desirable.
But that is still a rare and sensational headline.
And that said the principle for the consumer front shall, and will remain, largely intact, a few services in the NHS will be privatised, but the central tenet of…”Free at the point of need” will remain.
That is the point, the structures and way the money flows will change, it does every few years, but the principal will remain, even the Conservatives know they do not fuck with the National pride without being frog marched to the Dogger Bank at high tide.
I hope the USA will finally manage to reform their health care system…it will never be regretted and would indicate to the world that they actually care for their society.
The main point is it is possible and will not end in Armageddon…either literally or figuratively!
Just as a coda to our discussion of the supposed evils and economic unsustainability of European-style social justice policies, I’m with Paul on this one.
#286
Amen!
Isn’t that the weirdo from Jesus Camp who rocks back and forth as he talks about abortion?