Thank you, Barney Frank!
POSTED BY: Kwicko
UPDATED: Tuesday, August 25, 2009 22:08
VIEWED: 18943
PAGE 5 of 20
Ha! Reading the responses to the article, I came across this:
Quote:
Here is the latest report of obesity and diabetes:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/122405/Obesity-Diabetes-Across-States-Clear
-Relationship.aspx
Hmm...9 out 10 of the highest obesity states are red states. 8 out of 10 least obesity states are blue states. One could make the leap that majority of obese people are conservatives.
So being a conservative is now correlated to unhealthiness! That's awesome!
It's also funny that - I believe it was Rue who linked the study some time back - "red" states get far more federal money paid to them than they take in in taxes, while "blue" states pay far more to the federal government than they get back.
So not only is conservatism unhealthy - it's also SOCIALIST! You're redistributing our wealth! You're spreading the liberals' wealth to cover conservatives' own poor lifestyle choices!
Mike
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Wulf
I KNOW you don't read my posts, you only go by what you assume. But, do you even read ---- AT ALL ?
Your OWN article:
""I go to the hospital in Windsor and two hours later, I'm done having angioplasty in Detroit," he said. His $38,000 bill was covered by the Ontario health ministry."
To me, that sure looks like a system that is making sure everyone gets the care they need.
***************************************************************
Silence is consent.
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Quote:
Some people who dislike Obama's policies aren't racists .
In fact most are not racists .
I'm sure some of them really aren't racists. But the people they let do their talking for them sure come across that way, and those "non-racists" aren't doing a whole helluva lot to distance themselves from them, are they?
How many times have I heard one Republican senator or representative after another asked whether Obama is an American, and they mumble and dissemble, and their answers are something along the lines of, "Well, AS FAR AS *I* KNOW..." which is a way of pandering to the basest racism of their constituents, who are utterly convinced that a black man with a name like "Obama" can't POSSIBLY be a "real" American. I mean, hey, AS FAR AS *I* KNOW, you're not really a child molester, no matter what others may say.
Now, what's the association your mind makes when you hear something like that? If you're like most people, you're probably pissed because you think I just called you a child molester. I didn't - I said that as far as I know, you're NOT. It's a way of saying it without actually saying it, and it's dirty pool.
You know how you combat racism and prove you aren't a racist? By denouncing it, in no uncertain terms. By confronting it, by getting in people's faces and asking them "Why do you think that?" "Why are black people automatically assumed to be inferior by you?" You DON'T combat racism by listening to someone like Wulf say "Black people just can't give gifts,", and then react to that kind of crap by laughing it off and going, "Heh - good one."
You want me to believe that conservatives aren't racist? Stop hanging out with racists; stop supporting them, stop defending them, and get the hell away from them. Tell them they aren't helping you, and that you don't want their support for your cause, because they hurt more than they could ever possibly help, and the besmirch you and other non-racists and blur the issue.
You don't fight racism by enabling it or encouraging it. You fight it by confronting it and fighting against it. You have a right to believe that some people are just automatically inferior to others for no other reason than the color of their skin, and I have an absolute right to mock you incessantly if you believe that.
Ain't America grand?
Mike
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Indeed.
Funny thing, despite the IMHO overblown reputations of Univ of MD Shock Trauma, Johns Hopkins and the "big name" places - you know where hands down the BEST ortho surgeon I've ever had the fortune to meet works out of?
Harbor Hospital, the podunk little slapdash outfit on the northern border of AA county and Baltimore city, on the edge of the ghetto collectively known as the forgotten lands (Brooklyn/Curtis Bay) - and the hospital itself is nowhere you'd wanna spend an hour, much less recovery if you can help it...
But the guy is hands down awesome, if he wanted to the crazy old coot could probably build his own frankensteins monster - and he gets along REAL well with me and my lunatic ideas about bed rest and physical therapy, to the point of helping rig up a sling between my handlebars so I could prop the much abused leg in between em and still ride my trike - and when it become undeniable it was beyond saving, he managed to work around the tremendous damage and take it off below the knee, which every other doc said was impossible.
Course, thankfully he didn't have much respect for them anyways, cause apparently if one doctor works on you, even if he dumps you, any doctor that works on the same condition after that can get in some kinda legal hassle with him over it, and that was another stumbling block to treatment which he smashed flat by simply not giving a shit what they thought about it.
Anyhows, when it comes to medical care and procedures, sometimes the guys REALLY in the know work out of some damn strange places, so I wouldn't put too much credence into the story, especially as it's run by one of two papers here with a downright pyschotic level of bias.
The Freep and DetNews have about the credibility of the Weekly World News, or PirateNews when it comes to the crunch, because they get their marching orders from Corporate America and the GOP, in that order, facts notwithstanding.
I'd no more take their unsupported word for something than I would a Fox News "expose" on how MSG is good for you.
-Frem
It cannot be said enough, those who do not learn from history, are doomed to endlessly repeat it
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Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
Wulf
I KNOW you don't read my posts, you only go by what you assume. But, do you even read ---- AT ALL ?
Your OWN article:
""I go to the hospital in Windsor and two hours later, I'm done having angioplasty in Detroit," he said. His $38,000 bill was covered by the Ontario health ministry."
To me, that sure looks like a system that is making sure everyone gets the care they need.
***************************************************************
Silence is consent.
Yup, being that that hospital is most likely a for-profit enterprise, it only makes sense that they'd court patients they KNEW they were going to get paid for treating. They have to treat people who show up in the emergency room, so the poor and uninsured will go that route.
The insured are a real problem for hospitals - hospitals want to get paid for their services, and insurance companies are for-profit enterprises, too, and have entire departments aimed at denying payments and claims - they'll try to hit you up for it, as the premium-paying patient, but they'll also try to hit up the hospital to drop the price or negotiate it down. So while your treatment might cost $25,000.00, the insurance company may try to bill you for as much of that as they can, AND they may try to negotiate with the hospital to pay less than that amount - but they won't tell either of you that they're doing that. So say they hit you for $20,000 of that bill, and agree to pay the hospital only $10,000 for the treatment. Of the $25,000 the hospital told YOU it would cost, the insurance company took $20k from you and gave $10k to the hospital, and pocketed an extra $10k *in addition to your premiums that you've been paying all this time*!
As an added bonus, you'll probably also be dropped by that insurance company, and your illness will now be a "pre-existing condition" that no insurance company will cover for the next few years...
Awesome system, right? Why would anybody want to do it any other way?
Mike
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"They have to treat people who show up in the emergency room, so the poor and uninsured will go that route."
Side note:
If you come under your own steam - they cannot turn you away. (Of course you may WAIT 12 hours to be seen for your sore throat.)
If you come by ambulance they CAN turn you away. B/c you are being stabilized they can claim to not be neglecting you. People have gone round and round and round getting bounced from one ER to another - and insurance status is one of the things they DID look at while they decided who got stuck with the hot potato. Which could be you. Some people spent 8 hours en-route --- when the nearest ER was 10 minutes away. Some people have died as a result.
Generating that absurdity - THAT'S how fucked-up our for-profit medical system is.
***************************************************************
Silence is consent.
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This goes waaaay back, but man, you guys MOVE, and I've been gone since yesterday.
Mike:
Quote:
Not all who mistrust the government are ignorant, Niki. I don't trust the government, but I trust for-profit healthcare even less. They've already proven that they're completely willing to throw people to the wolves completely in the interests of upping their profits. Why would I ever believe they'll STOP doing that or do it for less profit?
So while I don't trust the government, I have a bit more trust that they're not going to sell me off to the best bidder.
You got me wrong. I certainly never said all who mistrust the government are ignorant, nor would I. I agree with everything you said; I suppose what I was trying to say was those are THE ignorant people who mistrust the government fanatically, to the point where they'll do things others who mistrust the government wouldn't...perhaps it's a matter of personal responsiblity and mentality, or something, but those preyed upon to become pawns in this gou se with town halls, etc., are ignorant and not willing to be otherwise, so they are ripe to be used as pawns against the government.
I mistrust the government a lot--the fact that I mistrust big corporations even more is relative; big business left to its own devices will happily screw humans for profit (another thread went into this so well I didn't even respond, about farming and such). Government is influenced too much these days by same, but there are those who will at least TRY to limit their influence. It's relative.
Just wanted to clarify that; mostly I don't NEED to post, as the points I would make are made for me...takes the fun out of venting and putting forth my ideas, but equally THRILLS me to see reasoned arguments put out there reasonably, on both sides, and actual DEBATES taking place. Again: relative!
Quote:
You shouldn't be kicked in the ass for that. You should embrace it. I knew Bush was lying the second he said we were going to wage war on "terror", because you can't declare war on an emotion. If he had said we were going to bomb the living fuck out of Afghanistan, or the Taliban, or just Al Qaeda, in direct retaliation for 9/11, I'd have said, "Go get 'em!" In fact, I did say that. But he decided he wanted to kill the idea of terrorism, and I think rather than kill the idea, he propagated it and made it more popular. Bush became the best recruiting tool Al Qaeda has ever had, and then Iraq only added to that.
Us, too. "Bomb Afghanistan back to the stone ages" upset me, as Afghanistan was barely OUT of the stone age as it was, but going after Al Qeda and the Taliban was obviously necessary.
I would say that quite possibly besides being the best recruiting tool (which wasn't their aim), accumulating and consolidating POWER was behind all the scare tactics and the war on Iraq as much as anything for that administration. Worked good, too. Got people who don't think deeply to come on board, people who didn't trust them but their fear was greater, people who knew bucking them would be bad for them. Cheney knew what he was doing (and yes, I do lay it at HIS feet for the most part).
________________________
Together we are more than the sum of our parts
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Quote:If she supports LaRouche, then Frank's question as to planet of residence was doubly apt. As was his assertion that trying to have a conversation with her would be something less than productive. Those people are out of their fricken gourds. Just read ANY of their literature.
Originally posted by RIPWash:
Well, I don't know for certain how reputable this site is, but this seems to indicate that this woman was a supporter of Lyndon LaRouche - a supposed communist who has tried to associate himself as a Democrat.
And, no freakin' way do these folks side with the Democrats--they think the whole system is controlled by Nazis and Obama is a plant who will fail disasterously in order to destroy people's faith in government so the Nazis can further their agenda. It's kinda funny because every time Obama succeeds at anything, they have to change their story. First he was supposed to divide the Dem vote, then we was supposed to pave the way for Hillary, then he was supposed to lose to McCain/Palin, then he was supposed to...you get the idea.
HKCavalier
Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.
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Quote:
First he was supposed to divide the Dem vote, then we was supposed to pave the way for Hillary, then he was supposed to lose to McCain/Palin, then he was supposed to...
...show us his birth certificate?
Of course, after that, it would just be something else, wouldn't it?
Mike
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Quote:
Originally posted by Wulfenstar:
http://freep.com/article/20090820/BUSINESS06/908200420/1319/
You KNOW socialized health care is bad, when they are going to DETROIT to get treatment....
And I just have to ask, Wulf, since I forgot to mention it earlier...
WHY is it, exactly, that you think the hospitals in Detroit are so horrible? You say "they are going to DETROIT" with obvious distaste, and I'm wondering why.
Mike
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