Tea Party

“Rosey, tell us what hospitals you use....

so we can avoid them like the plague.




Strat, That's just an efficient way to keep down per capita healthcare costs.

They probably wheel people out to the barn for post-op recovery in the Slovak Republic.


Gotta increase those per capita efficiencies.”

“Perhaps some of these anti-health care people never stopped to think what it would be like in the U.K. or Canada if a substantial proportion of their health care funds were going into profit instead of actual health care.

They at least are getting more for their money than we in the U.S. are.”

“They probably wheel people out to the barn for post-op recovery in the Slovak Republic.

That is if they had a barn.”

“...anti-health care people...

LMFAO! Sound bites.....talking points....silly rhetoric. Typical.

...a substantial proportion of their health care funds were going into profit...

Profits are bad unless their yours right, lol? Maybe you should ask Daddy-O if you can be his Profit Czar.”

“Talking points>>>>>Profits are bad unless their yours right, lol? Maybe you should ask Daddy-O if you can be his Profit Czar.””

“I must have stung your ass, Nonc.

Here's hoping it gets better.�
MarkO
7:05:42 AM
2/25/10


Please stop thinking about my ass. If by 'stung my ass' you mean 'made my day by proving me right' then , yes, you sure did!”

“salebored post
^
^
^
pile of inane ignored posts”

“Oh hell yes, MarkO. There's nothing like getting your money's worth of "appalling standards," "dysfunctional organization," "cuts in staffing levels," having "The most basic elements of care were neglected," "patients... left lying in soiled sheeting," "Staff fail(ing) to make basic observations," awful standards of hygiene, and "fear of catching infections."

That's efficiency that is, yessir. Pass the bong.

Although, I would like to have more clarification of some of those terms.



XL:

"So far Republicans have mostly focused on tearing apart any reform with a role for the federal government, portraying it as the government dictating how long old people get to live. But an undercurrent of those complaints is the insistence of doctors, hospitals, insurance companies and ideological conservatives that medical malpractice claims are out of control and a leading cause of rising health care costs.

The health economists and independent legal experts who study the issue, however, don’t believe that’s true. They say that malpractice liability costs are a small fraction of the spiraling costs of the U.S. health care system, and that the medical errors that malpractice liability tries to prevent are themselves a huge cost– both to the injured patients and to the health care system as a whole.

“It’s really just a distraction,” said Tom Baker, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School and author of “The Medical Malpractice Myth.” “If you were to eliminate medical malpractice liability, even forgetting the negative consequences that would have for safety, accountability, and responsiveness, maybe we’d be talking about 1.5 percent of health care costs. So we’re not talking about real money. It’s small relative to the out-of-control cost of health care.”
http://washingtonindependent.com/55535/tort-reform-unlikely-to-cut-health-care-costs


I’m not sure that most journalists will be of much use to our education. Obviously it didn’t help those Obama supporters in that video either.

Anyone who mocks “ideological conservatives” as “obstructionists” probably doesn’t have the unbiased outlook we need to make informed decisions. Especially not when they quote “health economists” (is that vague enough for you?), “other health economists” (gee that’s enlightening), “health care experts” (by all means, let’s ask the “experts”), “independent legal experts,” and a lawyer who wrote a book entitled “The Medical Malpractice Myth,” without quoting “experts” of differing opinion. The only differing opinion they present is opinion writer Charles Krauthammer. Something about that article strikes me as not being very fair and balanced.

Nope, there’s nothing biased there. This article just shows true journalistik integrity (got a barf bag?). They do finish with a nice little flourish, however. It’s buried at the end of the story. Hopefully people have the attention span to get that far:

“Trial lawyers don’t embrace proposals that would remove their role in the malpractice system,” she said. And they have a lot of influence with Democrats in Washington.”


We may not be able to isolate the all variables and organize the data into a comprehensive understanding of the role played by tort reform but, even if it’s just a small percent of healthcare costs, it beats the excuses for status-quo that these people advocate. Damn those status quo conservatives!


Here’s another opinion. I’m not saying this is the answer (this is one doctor’s view), but at least it provides a different perspective from most journalists:

"As these numbers show, tort reform can have a substantial impact on economic growth and wealth creation, and a huge impact on the healthcare system in particular. Any serious national healthcare reform must include comprehensive tort reform to reduce the practice of defensive medicine and other perverse incentives."

http://docisinblog.com/index.php/2009/07/27/texas-tort-reform/”

“With a tax code like ours how does anyone know what the word profit means, Accountants for Profit Without Taxation = APWT = All Profits Without Taxation.”

“You two make me feel wanted going to all that bother to write your emotionally charged rants at me.

Well, Nonc-Nonc, mine was a simple point that if there was a profit in those systems then there would be even less money going into the actual health care.
Then you take the liberty to read into that a plethora of ideology and other nonsense that simply was not in what I wrote.
That seems to be your specialty.

It was a simple point and neither of you guys addressed it.

Again, if it is already bad then skimming profits out of those funds would make for delivery of even less care.”

“LOL...so Marko you are opposed to Profit?”

“I am not opposed to profit, Danny Boy.
Please do not make false statements about me.
LOL...so Marko you are opposed to Profit?
Though it was followed by a question mark it was written as a statement.

You too can not or will not see the point, Dan.

Here it is again.....
Again, if it is already bad(the health care) then skimming profits out of those funds would make for delivery of even less care.
This because there would be less money available to pay for actual health care.”

“No, MarkO, yours was a simplistic point.

So instead of profit, we substitute salaries for government bureaucrats to provide oversight...and generous health benefits for those bureaucrats...and generous pension benefits for those bureaucrats...

The implications are endlessly more complicated than your simplistic idea.

MarkO, you have a remarkable ability to say nothing of value. Your imagination resembles the wings of an ostrich.

You only serve the purpose of a play toy, MarkO. Because rational people understand this:

“No rational argument will have a rational effect on a man who does not want to adopt a rational attitude.”

Karl Popper”

“Pass the bong.
You are projecting your own vice.

So instead of profit, we substitute salaries for government bureaucrats to provide oversight...and generous health benefits for those bureaucrats...and generous pension benefits for those bureaucrats..

That is a deflection.
You are assuming that health funds would be eaten up by government extravagances.
The fact is that government run health care like Medicare is more efficient.
Go ahead, belittle me, you excel at it......very telling. Nastiness becomes you.
Some of you guys assume that government can not do anything efficiently or honestly and that is the basis of your "rationality".
That is your flaw.”

“WELLL Arc that makes sense...I mean Government Slugs never make a profit....

Like...Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac?

No Government Employee would take advantage of their position...

See in Marko's slanted view Government IS the equalizer it makes things nice. I couldn't tell you the number of Pony tailed boomers I have seen just disgusted that they didn't get a ZANU solution after the PrezBO got elected.”

“So instead of profit, we substitute salaries for government bureaucrats to provide oversight...and generous health benefits for those bureaucrats...and generous pension benefits for those bureaucrats..

Sure the people who administer health care require salaries, etc. just as they do for private insurance.
And corporate bureaucrats make even more in salaries, etc. and their bosses make even bigger salaries and usually bonuses to boot.
NOW, add to all that a profit margin for the shareholders and with the same amount of funding you get less delivery of health care.

And all you can do is call me stupid, Timmy.
Such a sad SOB.
Life is a banquet and suckers like you are starving.”

“Since when is Freddie Mac in the business of health care, Dan?

Who you callin' "pony tailed boomer", skinhead?”

“WEEELLLLL Marko if Freddie and Fannie had not crashed like everyother government program. We would have a much more robust economy.

Then the whole health care debate might be moot.”

“crashed like everyother government program

YOU LIE!!!!!!

Health Care is inadequate and getting worse whether the Repubs had wrecked the economy or not.”

“Freddie and Fannie were privately held, for profit companies.”

“"The fact is that government run health care like Medicare is more efficient."


“What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof.”

Christopher Hitchens


Like a racket ball, he's fun to smack around isn't he, XL? We keep smacking him with logic, he runs away until he smacks into the wall of rationality. Not being able to penetrate that wall, he comes running back with the same-ol same-ol.




You have got to be kidding me, violin. Freddie and Fannie were under so much government oversight as to make them a government-corporate conglomerate.

The Federal National Mortgage Association (FNMA) (NYSE: FNM), commonly known as Fannie Mae, is a stockholder-owned corporation chartered by Congress in 1968 as a government-sponsored enterprise (GSE), but founded in 1938 during the Great Depression. The corporation's purpose is to purchase and securitize mortgages in order to ensure that funds are consistently available to the institutions that lend money to home buyers

The Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (FHLMC), known as Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE), is a government sponsored enterprise (GSE) of the United States federal government.


That's not true now. Like GM, government has completely taken them over. Nationalized business. Of course there's nothing socialistic or fascistic about that but, how did that happen?

Surely that couldn't happen to healthcare if we just have a little government oversight.”

“I'm too old to be a 'pony tailed boomer' even though I have one, but I can again see that both sides are right again, both GOV and BIGBIZ are pigs systems that need to be trimmed to the bone. The reason this country is failing is both sides are sucking but neither is blowing back anything worth while. You both win again the 'TT Award of Losers'.”

“OH lusho..please tell me one major government program that has not exceeded costs, or has met expectations?”

“The fact is that government run health care like Medicare is more efficient....Some of you guys assume that government can not do anything efficiently or honestly and that is the basis of your "rationality".
That is your flaw.
MarkO
2:26:37 PM
2/25/10



From today's summit.....

Senator Coburn: �When you compare the private sector fraud rates, it's 1 percent, compared to Medicare and Medicaid. There's estimates that there's $15 billion worth of fraud in Medicaid a year in New York City alone.�”

“1%, but 15 billion in Ny? Coburn needs to figure what this apple-orange snow job means to those of us that 'No speaky Okie'.”

“Oh, Cocaine Dan!”

“
An Outrage Smackdown: Family Guy Defeats Palin

by James Poniewozik Wednesday, Feb. 24, 2010

http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1967793,00.html


In the movie Annie Hall, Woody Allen's character, Alvy Singer, is standing in a movie line, listening to some blowhard intellectual hold forth about media scholar Marshall McLuhan. When the loudmouth cites his own academic credentials, Singer produces the actual McLuhan to refute him: "You know nothing of my work!" Alvy 1, Egghead 0.

Sarah Palin likes to position herself against the eggheads of the world, but she was on the receiving end of her own "I happen to have Mr. McLuhan right here" comeuppance when she got in a public feud with the Fox animated sitcom Family Guy. In the Feb. 14 episode, the character Chris goes on a date with a young woman who has Down syndrome. When he asks her about her parents, she tells him, "My dad's an accountant, and my mom's the former governor of Alaska." Palin's 1-year-old son Trig has Down.

Palin posted on Facebook that the scene was "another punch in the gut." This time, however, Palin's outrage prompted not an apology but a smackdown, from Andrea Fay Friedman, a Family Guy voice actress � who actually has Down. "My parents raised me to have a sense of humor," she said. "My mother did not carry me around under her arm like a loaf of French bread the way former governor Palin carries her son Trig around looking for sympathy and votes." Ouch. Cartoon 1, Politician 0.

The Family Guy scene was a personal shot � but at Palin, not Trig. Friedman's character was assertive, intelligent and confident (and a young woman, not an infant boy). Palin seemed to be defending neither her son nor the disabled generally but herself, a public figure whom a cartoon had the temerity to poke fun at.

But what's more important is the way Friedman bested her supposed defender: by beating her at her own game. As a public figure, Palin is the embodiment of the "I have Mr. McLuhan right here" argument, taking her authority not from policy papers or r�sum� credentials but from her biography.

Do you believe that white-male conservatives are hypocrites for limiting women's abortion rights? Why, we have Mr. McLuhan right here: Palin � a woman! � says that when she was pregnant with Trig, she had the fleeting thought that she could have an abortion but didn't. Disagree with her foreign policy? Her son Track went to Iraq! Reject her claim that health-reform "death panels" will cull special-needs children? She's worried about her own special-needs child! With Palin, the political is always intensely personal. She styles herself as someone who has given bodily to her beliefs, and that makes her connection with her followers visceral, a blood tie.

Likewise, having a baby with Down meant that Palin had the authority to condemn Rahm Emanuel for calling politicians he was arguing with "retarded" but to excuse Rush Limbaugh for using the same term because he's "satirical" � a dispensation that somehow did not apply to Family Guy. You say that's illogical? Well, do you have a special-needs child?

Palin is a master practitioner of identity politics, with an ironic twist. When it comes to social issues or the academic canon or civil-rights legislation, it used to be conservatives who would chafe at liberals playing race, gender or other such oppressed-group cards. With Palin, though, conservatives have a champion who uses group identity � rural, female, military mom, special-needs mom, etc. � as her seal of authenticity. But against Family Guy and Friedman, Palin, for once, was outranked by someone enlisting her own biography and personal experience. This time, Palin was not the McLuhaner but the McLuhanee.

Now, Palin and her defenders could argue that Friedman is simply one woman with Down and cannot decide for everyone � disabled or not � what is and is not offensive. That response, by the way, would have the advantage of being correct. But it would also implicitly undermine Palin's claim to authority. She would then be just one more military mom, one more teen mom's mother �

She'll still get that attention, though, because the Family Guys and the David Lettermans can't resist giving it to her. (On March 2, she's scheduled to stick it to antagonist Letterman by guesting on Jay Leno's Tonight Show. And despite Palin's objections to "Hollywood" intruding on her family, daughter Bristol will play herself as a teen mom on ABC Family's The Secret Life of the American Teenager.) Just as she has made her personal life the basis for her politics, so are the attacks on her consistently personal. That in turn feeds the victimization that only strengthens her connection with her fans: Hollywood is mocking me, personally, so it is mocking you, personally.

Did I say Cartoon 1, Politician 0? Maybe we should call it a tie.

”

“I loved that line from Annie Hall.

That's an interesting point, Tiilt. A lot of us seem to be loosing our sense of humor. Political correctness seems to be infecting lots of people. Shows like Family Guy, South Park, In Living Color, have a brand of American humor I really enjoy: in-you-face anti-politically-correct, nothing is sacred comedy.

Too bad. Palin's a reasonably bright and likable woman.

What an interesting observation to see her mimicking leftist emotionalism, leftist "identity politics," and playing the leftist "victim card."


If we all start acting like leftists... FORGET GLOBAL WARMING, WE ARE DOOMED ANYWAY!!!


God Dang, Tiiiilt! Are you long-winded or what? Why did you make your post so long? How do you expect us to read all that? Blah-de-blah-blah-blah....”

“Good demo of tillltification.”

“"Freddie and Fannie were privately held, for profit companies."

Do you really think you contradicted me arclite?

I didn't even have to rely on google to know that what I posted was true.”

“I may write long posts, but I aint about to read one...”

“The entire conservative movement has become tools (literally in several cases here) of the corporate entities that the Republicans sold America to.

All you're seeing from the right wing here is the result of the media manipulation and lobbying efforts.

It's funny to see this group of people being manipulated, while all the time they run around thinking they are defending their "freedom".

Actually it would be funny were we not seeing the destruction of America.”

“no specifics?”

“It's interesting to see the conservatives whining and making excuses that the recession was secretly the fault of everyone else.

If only they'd been better conservatives, had been truer to their ideology, everything would have been ok. On your knees boys, pray to those Corporate boardrooms just a little bit harder, a little bit longer - suck a little bit harder.”

“i guess not.”

“Looking around this site there doesn't seem to be anything of any substance from You HighPlainsDrifter. Arclite seems to provide some. You just seem to want to criticize others.”

“Then you're selectively reading coward.”

“Amazing that some of the paragons calling Toyota out just kinda did a "meh" with the Freddie and Fannie crap.

OH from the FANNIE MAE WEB SITE

Fannie Mae is a government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) chartered by Congress with a mission to provide liquidity, stability and affordability to the U.S. housing and mortgage markets.

Fannie Mae operates in the U.S. secondary mortgage market. Rather than making home loans directly to consumers, we work with mortgage bankers, brokers and other primary mortgage market partners to help ensure they have funds to lend to home buyers at affordable rates. We fund our mortgage investments primarily by issuing debt securities in the domestic and international capital markets.

Fannie Mae was established as a federal agency in 1938, and was chartered by Congress in 1968 as a private shareholder-owned company. On September 6, 2008, Director James Lockhart of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) appointed FHFA as conservator of Fannie Mae. The U.S. Department of the Treasury has agreed to provide up to $200 billion in capital as needed to ensure the company continues to provide liquidity to the housing and mortgage markets.

Fannie Mae has three lines of business - Single-Family, Housing and Community Development and Capital Markets - that provide services and products to lenders and a broad range of housing partners. Together, these businesses contribute to the company's chartered mission to increase the amount of funds available in order to make homeownership and rental housing more available and affordable.

Thats like the defense that Postal crimes are a Private thing...Lusho...its a government agency.”

“IT = Y2?”

“More lies and excuses.”

“Of course it is dumbass. :OD”

“Washington (CNN) – A majority of Americans think the federal government poses a threat to rights of Americans, according to a new national poll.

Fifty-six percent of people questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Friday say they think the federal government's become so large and powerful that it poses an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens. Forty-four percent of those polled disagree.

The survey indicates a partisan divide on the question: only 37 percent of Democrats, 63 percent of Independents and nearly 7 in 10 Republicans say the federal government poses a threat to the rights of Americans.

According to CNN poll numbers released Sunday, Americans overwhelmingly think that the U.S. government is broken - though the public overwhelmingly holds out hope that what's broken can be fixed.

The CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll was conducted February 12-15, with 1,023 adult Americans questioned by telephone. The survey's sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points for the overall survey.”

“That's the manipulation. Mustn't question the corporate entity, must fear the Government.”

“y2, what about questioning the government?

Are you against that? Is that a "silly" idea espoused by the right?”

“Yeah Y2 we over here kinda got tired of paying for a certain "King's" excesses. The whole Love my Country hate the Government thing....”

“Get 'im, XL!


I don’t have to contradict you violin. I only have to tell the truth:

The Federal National Mortgage Association (FNMA) (NYSE: FNM), commonly known as Fannie Mae, is a stockholder-owned corporation chartered by Congress in 1968 as a government-sponsored enterprise (GSE), but founded in 1938 during the Great Depression. The corporation's purpose is to purchase and securitize mortgages in order to ensure that funds are consistently available to the institutions that lend money to home buyers

The Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (FHLMC), known as Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE), is a government sponsored enterprise (GSE) of the United States federal government.


“Government sponsored enterprise.” That means they could take all the risks entailed with lending money, and pay none of the consequences for failure because they are backed by taxpayer funding.

Now, you can deal in semantics all you want, but that's not a market based banking system.”

“Y2, we have printed example after example of the Open Cesspool that has become Great Britain. Please spare us the "pod humping, limpwristed, mincing about faggotry" that is the remains of the English nobility.

Britannia is a joke, and will soon be a Moslem joke.”

“That is how leftists rationalize:


It’s only a little government interference, so it’s still a market system.

It’s only a temporary nationalization, so it has nothing in common with socialism or fascism.

Social Security is only a temporary program, so it has nothing in common with socialism or fascism.

"Us leftists are only temporarily insane, so we are not off-the-wall-fruitbats."”

“Get real, the right has tried with tax cuts and less regulations, to allow the corporate world to take over control of this country and the left has retaliated with trying to force government between the citizens and the corporations. You people could have established colonies on mars with the energy yawl have put into trying to avoid calling this spade a spade.”