Heckuva job
I’m so glad America provides the best health care in the world:
For the first time since the Spanish influenza of 1918, life expectancy is falling for a significant number of American women.
In nearly 1,000 counties that together are home to about 12 percent of the nation’s women, life expectancy is now shorter than it was in the early 1980s, according to a study published today.
The downward trend is evident in places in the Deep South, Appalachia, the lower Midwest and in one county in Maine. It is not limited to one race or ethnicity but it is more common in rural and low-income areas. The most dramatic change occurred in two areas in southwestern Virginia (Radford City and Pulaski County), where women’s life expectancy has decreased by more than five years since 1983.
But hey, Hillary Clinton is a closeted lesbian with a scary laugh and Barack Obama is a stealth Muslim who can’t bowl, so there’s no way they can fix this stuff.
More:
The phenomenon appears to be not only new but distinctly American.
“If you look in Western Europe, Australia, Japan, New Zealand, we don’t see this,” Murray said.
Yeah, but I bet people in those dumb countries don’t have as many iPods as we do.
The next time some wingnut says to us, “What, do ya want socialized medicine like they got in YURP???” everything in this country should answer “Hells yes we do!” Because after another eight or so years of Bushian policies, we’re going to officially become a third-world nation.
Cue the wingnuts to tell us how awesome it is that in America, you can live almost as long as your great-grandparents did.
America, Fuck YEAH!!!!
The next time some wingnut says to us, “What, do ya want socialized medicine like they got in YURP???” everything in this country should answer “Hells yes we do!”
That’s exactly what I do say to them. They almost never expect that response.
Sometimes they sputter, “But . . . but . . . you want the gubmint to choose your doctor? You want some bureaucrat to decide what treatments you can have?”
When I point out that this is already how it works, but with an insurance company doing the choosing instead of the government (an insurance company that has a strong motivation to make sure I get the cheapest – not best – possible care) . . . well, it can be entertaining. But, ultimately, their minds don’t change.
Ladies, any minute now the WingNuts are going to inform you that if you’d only stop messing around with witchcraft and lesbianism and get married to the first unwashed knuckledragger who farts in your general direction you’d be happier and therefore live longer.
Please don’t take it out on your poor innocent computers. Unless you’re sure it will hit a passing Wingy when you toss it out the window.
It’s taken a lot of work by a lot of people to get us to this point. The dark ages of America began with St. Ronnie Reagan: imprisoned blacks, dying women, stupid, drugged, and diabetic children are his great legacy to us.
But John McCain is a straight talker!
Is this why it has cost me $3000 above what my health insurance pays just to get diagnosed and treated so far this year? I can’t wait for the moment I have to tell my Neurosurgeon, “Well, sounds like a great almost cure and all, but I just can’t afford it now.”
Anyone else noticing the extreme amounts of pain syndromes hitting women in this country? Not to mention the over-medication that frequently follows? People cannot deal with stress in our society. At all. I think this is the cause of much of this, suffer from these as I do. Just an observation.
OBAMA!!!!!!
The dark ages of America began with St. Ronnie Reagan: imprisoned blacks, dying women, stupid, drugged, and diabetic children are his great legacy to us.
You can add putting the mentally ill out on the streets to that list.
In related news:
President Bush has set a record he’d presumably prefer to avoid: the highest disapproval rating of any president in the 70-year history of the Gallup Poll.
In a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll taken Friday through Sunday, 28% of Americans approve of the job Bush is doing; 69% disapprove. The approval rating matches the low point of his presidency, and the disapproval sets a new high for any president since Franklin Roosevelt.
The previous record of 67% was reached by Harry Truman in January 1952, when the United States was enmeshed in the Korean War.
Hey, what’s wrong with me getting a little sunshine once inna while?
My wife is graduating from medical school soon, and is currently finishing up a four-week rotation working with the chief of medicine at a local hospital. The guy is (apparently) a Republican, and recently had the task of rounding up fellow MDs to attend a $1000/plate McCain fundraiser.
Out of the entire hospital staff, he got one guy to go along.
As far as I can tell, doctors are perfectly aware that care is getting worse and more expensive–and they hate dealing with insurance companies as much as patients do. A substantial minority of my wife’s instructors agree that single-payer would be a huge advantage for both doctors and patients; most of the rest are suspicious of government healthcare programs but see studies like the one in the OP and know that something’s gotta change.
Gonna go nuts for a sec here:
I worry- very much worry- that if the United States were ever to adopt universal/free healthcare, you’d see some serious butterfly effect wreckage across the entire planet. As in:
1) U.S. drug companies would cease to exist/bail from the country.
2) European countries would actually *drop* their universal healthcare, as cheap drugs are no longer an option…until
3) China becomes the dominant force in drug creation. China, they of the lead paint in toys and all. That China. Delicious.
So no, I’m not afraid of boo scary socialized medicine, but I think we’re kidding ourselves if we think that the ripple effect would be contained entirely within our borders. Recall the Civil War- I’m sure the Europeans were just awfully offended by the Americans and their peculiar slave enterprise…but gosh golly did that cheap cotton ever feel good to the touch. Once again our own squalor goes toward alleviating many burdens for our fellow industrialized types…only this time we’re not dealing with cheaper shirts, we’re dealing with life-saving sort of stuff.
Very likely I’m talking from my hindquarters. Ultimately it won’t matter; you’ll never see universal/free healthcare in America. But I will say I’d give me pause to grin if the globally ignorant European finger-waggers ever got what’s coming to them.
The funny thing is that we could all be living hand-to-mouth in polluted cities with no transportation, and most of us will still tell ourselves we’re the best nation on earth.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: our system of medicine is generally inefficient and has a number of glaring flaws, but I’d take it any day over the current US system.
Is this why it has cost me $3000 above what my health insurance pays just to get diagnosed and treated so far this year? I can’t wait for the moment I have to tell my Neurosurgeon, “Well, sounds like a great almost cure and all, but I just can’t afford it now.”
Jeez dude, I’m sorry to hear that. You got a neural issue?
Anyone else noticing the extreme amounts of pain syndromes hitting women in this country? Not to mention the over-medication that frequently follows? People cannot deal with stress in our society. At all. I think this is the cause of much of this, suffer from these as I do. Just an observation.
Pain syndromes eh? Can you give an example?
Oh, D.N., Im sure those Big Pharma execs will be able to find work elsewhere.
Where? Either
– Places with too much regulation for their liking
or
– Places with too little regulation for *our* liking
So either enjoy drugs too expensive to make Europe’s universal healthcare sustainable, or enjoy rat poison in your drugs. America is the West’s best hope for balance between the two. So, you know, thank an American.
I wonder who our society’s Edward Gibbon will be.
A couple of squawks from across the northern frontier:
…socialized medicine
Here it’s more like an insurance plan than socialism. IT’S NOT FREE! Everybody pays their premiums except for the destitute. We also PAY FOR DRUGS and dental care. The government builds and supplies the hospitals, pays for administration, etc.
But . . . but . . . you want the gubmint to choose your doctor?
My gubmint doesn’t choose my doctor, that’s up to me. I would say we have more choices up here because nobody’s shutting down treatment options in order to increase profits.
NOTE: The all-caps bits are for D.N.
Oh, and that? The United States falls and takes the rest of the world, galaxy, universe with it. Dark Ages II, folks. You’d have NATO/UN troops propping up some government in Washington before letting the world succumb to the darkness.
Henry- Yeah, I’d like America to basically = Canada’s system too. Be best for us and the world. And I wouldn’t mind the boo scary lines.
But McCain says that nationalized health insurance is bad because it doesn’t let families CHOOOSE!
Choose what, I wonder? Between bread and prescriptions?
– Places with too much regulation for their liking
or
– Places with too little regulation for *our* liking
Which, if you think about it, means that the pharmaceutical company execs would either go work in some third-world country, or get a different kind of job, or they would work somewhere and learn to deal with regulations.
If they got a job in some unregulated third-world country, I couldn’t do anything about that, so I’m not worried. If they got different kind of job,
that’s fine. If they just learned to deal with regulations, once again no problem.
Your argument about why there would be a bad result from Universal Healthcare in the US does not make sense to me.
If they got a job in some unregulated third-world country, then your drugs will be epic fail. If they learn to “deal with regulations,” then your drugs will be epic expensive..er.
Other “socialized medicine is worse that teh awesome American system” myth – if we have socialized medicine, health care will be rationed and you’ll have to WAIT TOO LONG for a doctor!
Anyone who’s spent an entire morning in a waiting room for a 9:30 a.m. appointment can put the lie to this.
But it’s worse.
I’m one of the luckier people in America because I work for a public agency and have teh Awesome health insurance. I can choose (see? I have CHOICE!) between 3 different coverages, PPO and HMO both.
But guess what? I developed a very acute painful condition last spring, and wasn’t able to even schedule an appointment with the specialist for 2 months because….he was the only surgeon in the system not on leave, that was on my plan.
Now I’m sure, with our Teh Awesome American ability to CHOOSE, it’s my fault for signing up 5 years ago with Aetna HMO without doing my homework to find out that only 3 AETNA approved surgeons were working at UCLA Medical Centers. I’m reluctant to say more, for fear Michelle Malkin will come snoop in my garbage.
McCain also told me the time for talk is over and it’s time for action. He then said we should trust the Market to be efficient. (I believe this was in reference to the overall economy but I imagine its his healthcare plan too.)
That’s some bold action. We get to sit and watch the efficient market! Pass the popcorn, please.
If we do get universal health care it’ll be becasue business doesn’t want to pay for it anymore. Drug companies will deal with the repercussions along with everyone else. Also, it’s not “take American drugs or die.”
If they got a job in some unregulated third-world country, then your drugs will be epic fail.
No. They go to a third-world country… and then you just get some new people to invent drugs. I don’t think it would be that hard.
If they learn to “deal with regulations,” then your drugs will be epic expensive..er.
Highly-regulated European drug companies invent drugs. They aren’t epic expensive. And they’re safer.
No, but as is, I think we offer the best middle ground. And no, I’m not trying to be a Big Pharma!!!! apologist.
It’s only happening to the poor, so it doesn’t matter.
“after another eight or so years of Bushian policies, we’re going to officially become a third-world nation.”
Back in the late ’90s, Greg Palast wrote “The Best Democracy Money Can Buy” In it he outlines how the GOP leadership intends to wipe out America’s middle class and plunge this once-great nation back to third-world status.
At the time I read this I scoffed, Surely, I thought, no one would do that.
But after 7 years of GOP leadership with the full complicity of the Democratic Party, the US in firmly sliding down into that abyss.
The US will be a third world country in only a few short years. This change is moving rapidly now, and even faster now that banks are no longer writing student loans. Thousand of US kids will not be returning to college, or be able to start, since the banks have decided to de-fund the education that makes a middle class.
All three Republican candidates for President, Obama, Clinton and McCain have vowed that they will not substantially alter the policies of the Bush Administration. Ever since all the actual Democrats were hounded out of the race by our “Free Press”, our nation has been firmly forced to stay on the path of our own destruction.
The US is no longer the beacon of Liberty and Justice – our leaders personally ordered Inquisition-era torture. Our currency, which ruled the whole world when Bush was installed, is now worthless. Oil has gone from $20/barrel when Bush was installed to $120/bbl now.
The excessive profit-taking of the oil industry, which has severely damaged every other industry, and combined with the sell-of of our Treasury to the Chinese (who control most of the US debt) and the near elimination of any taxes for more than $200,000 have all combined to crush the US economy.
And all of this is intentional. Since Saint Reagan was installed as Acting-President this has been the goal of the GOP and Democratic Leadership. Of course the Democratic leadership is in league with the GOP, what other reason can there possibly be for their refusal to fight back since 1980?
The US is past the point of return, our slide into third-wold status is now inevitable. Our only hope was to have a Democratic President, but now that will not happen. We will have a Republican no matter who ‘wins’ our rigged elections next November. And America will stay fixed on our path to self-destruction.
D.N., I think you are greatly underestimating the price paid by EU nations for Big Pharma drugs. Though the sorts of economies of scale that socialised medicine brings to bear should greatly reduce the cost of drugs – through bulk purchase alone – this is rarely the case. This is compounded by the Patients Charter, which generally speaking means that if a viable drug is on the market then the NHS should make it available for patients, no matter the cost to the NHS (Herceptin being the most recent high-profile example) which loads the dice in favour of Big Pharma. While patent laws still apply in Europe this will continue to be the case. A partial socialisation of the US Market (based on the French model, perhaps only applying to non-elective medicine) probably wouldn’t change profitably significantly.
Additionally, a number of large drugs companies are still based in Europe even given the increased regulation (Bayer, GlaxoSmithKline etc) and remain extremely profitable. I don’t envision a situation whereby they will say to thier shareholders “You know what, Europe is too stringently regulated… lets move to China“.
Aside: Big Pharma is more likely to move to India. Low wages, an educated elite and respect of patent laws is probably more tempting than the mire of China for that particular industry.
If we do get universal health care it’ll be becasue business doesn’t want to pay for it anymore
The whole idea that you should get your health insurance from your employer is a peculiar artifice. Does any other developed nation do it this way?
Ahh.. the evil WAIT LINES…
Another red herring. You don’t wait if your diagnosis looks potentially catastrophic.
A broken wrist, yeah, you might have to sit for a few hours but these waits have more to do with a shortage of doctors and stresses on the system. Canada has a growing population.
I’m always amazed at how speculation and outright bullshit carry more weight in the US when it comes to healthcare discussion than actual examples from around the world.
Suicidal Zebra- I hope you’re right.
Comrade Rutherford- At the risk of opening up a particular Pandora’s particular box yet again, I’m curious who you voted for in 2000. I won’t run with it, just want to know for my sake.
Here is an interesting book review that summarizes a few of the inefficiencies in the current system.
IMO, when people are actually dying earlier than they used to, that is a pretty good indication that we don’t have a “best middle ground.”
The whole idea that you should get your health insurance from your employer is a peculiar artifice. Does any other developed nation do it this way?
I think Germans technically get their health insurance from employers too, but they do it all way differently. It’s much more subsidized by the state, and they offer way, way more complete care for less.
No, but as is, I think we offer the best middle ground.
No, actually, we’re not in the middle of anything. As far as industrialized nations’ health care systems go, our is really quite extreme in its attachment to corporate-run insurance.
In 2000, I happily voted for Nader.
I voted for Nader with a clean conscience because I knew that my district would go to Gore with a huge margin.
I voted for Nader SOLELY to support the Green Party in NYC, they had to get a certain percentage of votes in order to stay a ‘legitimate’ party. If I had lived in a smaller district I would have voted Gore.
But please understand, I knew in 1992 that the Clintons were moderate Republicans. But I voted for them anyway because they were NOT Bush.
This time I live in a rural district, I voted Kucinich in the primaries. During the general election, I don’t know who I’ll vote for, maybe I won’t even vote on the president line.
Senator Clinton just said, “I want the Iranians to know, if I am president, we will attack Iran.” With what Army? She will NEVER have my vote.
Obama has said he will not stop Blackwater or any other mercenary army. How am I supposed to vote for him?!
That’s what I thought.
Enjoy your war.
Well D.N. said he wouldn’t run with it so I’m sure that will be the end of any more Nader talk.
I mean, PLEASE!!!!
I’m sorry. I can’t resist. You can actually…smell these people through the computer screen.
Pedestrian-
Ahh, I’d love to read more. This would be why I gave ground for the possibility of talking out of my hindquarters.
PLEASE don’t argue about Nader today. No one ever changes their opinion about him, and it ruins the tread every time it comes up. Thanks.
Look, dickweed, you’ve been told.
YOU are the smelly one. Now knock it the fuck off.
In other news, Megan McArdle will be telling us today that even if people aren’t living as long, they get to spend their lives with colour televisions, iPods and massive medical bills, all luxuries that prove… well, that she’s a lanky bint.
DN, you didn’t actually read my post, as evidenced by your ridiculous reply.
My vote for Nader did NOT affect the election!!!
My vote for Nader had NO effect on Bush being installed as Acting-President.
My vote for Nader had NO effect in creating the illegal and immoral war on the people of Iraq.
So don’t be a dick about it. This is NOT my war!
I’m sorry. I can’t resist. You can actually…smell these people through the computer screen.
And just what the fuck do you mean by that?
SHUT UP.
Na Ga Happen. Your concern is noted, though.
What’s more likely to happen is that the smart drug companies will adapt to an environment where dick-stiffeners, TV-advertised shyness pills and the pimping of anti-psychotics to boisterous children are less significant.
You will also end the quackery that is a huge part of American healthcare — the people who buy vitamins and snake-oil capsules in lieu of the pharmaceutical products they can’t afford, in an environment where DTC drug adverts blur into quack informercials.
In nearly 1,000 counties that together are home to about 12 percent of the nation’s women, life expectancy is now shorter than it was in the early 1980s, according to a study published today.
[Using comically deep stage voice]
If they are going to die, they had better do it, and decreeeease the surplus population! (giggle)
Senator Clinton just said, “I want the Iranians to know, if I am president, we will attack Iran.” With what Army? She will NEVER have my vote.
Obama has said he will not stop Blackwater or any other mercenary army. How am I supposed to vote for him?!
Dear Comrade Rutherford,
Believe me, I understand your disgust with both of them. Their apparent belief in dangerous propaganda about Iran, and other issues, is very worrying.
May I suggest, however, that all our energy should now be focussed on pushing the Neoconservatives as far away from power as we can possibly get them, by whatever means available. The Neoconservatives should not be viewed as a similar to the Free-trade Liberals, the Socialists or Union types, the racist or religious Paleoconservatives, or even the Libertarians. They do not believe in a democratic state in the same way that those other factions I mentioned do. They need to be as disempowered as we can get them, and as far as I can see the only way this can be done is to put Democrats, who are only somewhat connected to them, in power, rather than Republicans, who work hand-in-glove with them.
Atheist,
I understand your point here clearly.
But Clinton and Obama have made public promises that they will NOT substantially change the policies of the NeoCons.
Both have promised to continue the war on the people of the middle east
Both have promised to continue using ‘signing statements’ to subvert the will of Congress.
Both have promised to continue to allow US-based merc armies to be deployed here and abroad with immunity from prosecution when they murder civilians.
The list goes on and on.
So just how are they supposed to be different / better / savior of America? I don’t see it.
And of course, you have evidence that all of those things are true.
My gubmint doesn’t choose my doctor, that’s up to me.
Yeah, I get that. It’s just one of the right-wing talking points that all the gibbering idiots down here have internalized, and it’s one that has to be refuted. In my experience, that’s not generally accomplished by saying “that won’t happen,” because they’ll respond with “yes it will” and things will just deteriorate from there. I’ve found it’s better to point out that the things they fear have already come to pass, only in a worse form than they’re imagining because they have absolutely no recourse with a private insurance company.
Hope that clarifies things.
Hey I know this great little neighborhood bar just around the corner. Great tap beer that holds up well even when diluted with rivers of teardrops. Wanna go there?
You got it all wrong. Women’s life expectancy decreasing is a sign of progress. Back in the days of yore, we opressive men wouldn’t let our womenfolk smoke. So us males died from emphysema and heart disease. Well the womenfolk got up on their high heels and demanded the right to act like men and so they did. Live like a man, die like a man. Ain’t progess wonderful?
So just how are they supposed to be different / better / savior of America? I don’t see it.
They are both significantly better on some key issues than McCain. McCain expresses eagerness to begin more military action in the Middle East, and I think he’s serious. Obama and Clinton both express a desire for diplomacy over military action.
I’m not saying that either Obama or Clinton would be a savior. I’m saying that, in my view, McCain would be significantly more damaging to this country than Obama or Clinton. In my opinion, that is worth working for.
Koncern troll is koncerned.
Please, really. GtFo. We have to continue to appease our Drug Overlords or they’ll take their ball and go to Afghanistan and we’ll have to take plutonium pills from China and everyone will be sorry!
Guess we better make those tax cuts permanent while we’re at it so the other rich bastards don’t get peevish, move jobs outside of the U.S. and otherwise screw the economy beyond recognition.
In other news, Megan McArdle will be telling us today that even if people aren’t living as long, they get to spend their lives with colour televisions, iPods and massive medical bills, all luxuries that prove… well, that she’s a lanky bint.
And, despite the fact that she is an American, she will actually spell it “colour.” Because she wrote for The Economist, you know, and they’re very well-respected and British.
Worth working to aid Clinton or Obama, I mean, in that case.
Comrade Rutherford @16:40:
I haven’t heard about a lot of these, particularly the signing statements thing. That would be especially troubling to me, if true. Can you provide linkage? TIA.
Arky- I’m the resident sidewalk crazy. Not a concern troll.
I, for one, welcome our early-death overlords.
Let’s not forget that we are paying more for this healthcare than anyone else in the world as well. We’re stupider, shorter lived, and poorer for it!
for another interesting read on the health of americans, check out the wapo’s article on plastics today. Those old (or not so old) ladies are the canaries in the coal mine. I find myself more troubled by all the girls getting their periods at 9 or 10, and the skyrocketing rates of autism. (Now the article doesn’t link autism to plastics, but I sure as hell wish we could figure out what’s causing it.)
R&D is not a major concern of our American pharmaceutical industry. Well, not the “R” part, anyway. Most original research is done in our university system with NIH support. Pharma research consists of creating “me-too” drugs (e.g. the next Viagra) or finding ways to extend their patents, by creating combo drugs or finding new indications. (Yes, they can do this. Recent Republican-sponsored legislation allows this.)
According to Marcia Angell, the former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, “The few drugs that are truly innovative have usually been based on taxpayer-supported research done in nonprofit academic medical centers or at the National Institutes of Health. In fact, many drugs now sold by drug companies were licensed to them by academic medical centers or small biotechnology companies.”
According to an article she co-wrote with Arnold Relman in the New Republic, the pharmaceutical industry estimates that each new drug costs them $800 million to develop and bring to market, but Angell and Relman estimate the cost to them is actually closer to $100 million. Examples are imatinib (Gleevec), zidovudine (AZT) and erythropoietin (Epogen). An unpublished internal NIH study in February 2000 of the 5 top-selling drugs in 1995 (Zantac, Zovirax, Capoten, Vasotec, and Prozac) found that 16 of the 17 key scientific papers leading to the discovery and development came from outside industry.
In an interview with PBS, she said “If we had set out to design the worst system that we could imagine, we couldn’t have imagined one as bad as we have.” In the PBS interview, she urged the nation to scrap its failing healthcare system and start over:
“Our health care system is based on the premise that health care is a commodity like VCRs or computers and that it should be distributed according to the ability to pay in the same way that consumer goods are. That’s not what health care should be. Health care is a need; it’s not a commodity, and it should be distributed according to need. If you’re very sick, you should have a lot of it. If you’re not sick, you shouldn’t have a lot of it. But this should be seen as a personal, individual need, not as a commodity to be distributed like other marketplace commodities. That is a fundamental mistake in the way this country, and only this country, looks at health care. And that market ideology is what has made the health care system so dreadful, so bad at what it does.”
A woman after my own heart. And, apparently, that of an increasing number of our colleagues. According the Reuters, more than half of U.S. doctors now favor switching to a national health care plan and fewer than a third oppose the idea, according to a survey published in March, 2008. Of more than 2,000 doctors surveyed, 59 percent said they support legislation to establish a national health insurance program, while 32 percent said they opposed it, researchers reported in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine.
The attitudes of doctors have changed a lot in the last twenty years, and the change has accelerated under Bush. With the exception of the most die hard free market types, some of whom suggest getting rid of medical insurance altogether and going back to a cash payment system (not all the dinosaurs were killed by the Chicxulub comet), most of us realize that the system is badly broken, and see a need for a change.
The AMA, which was one of the parties that helped to torpedo health care reform in the 90s, has seen its membership fall to just 15% of practicing physicians. (It had been 70% in the 1960s, and even higher in the past.)
Of course, it doesn’t hurt that doctors are being screwed by the insurance companies–not just professionally, but we and our families are patients as well.
I recently had the opportunity to see one of those eeeeeeeeevil socialized medicine systems in action and it was really eye opening. My wife is Taiwanese and we recently went back to visit her family. Since she’s still a Taiwanese citizen, she has full access to their medical system. One day, we were out sight seeing in Taipei. We were planning on meeting two of her friends for dinner and had finished our sight seeing early. So we had an hour to kill before dinner. So she looks at me and asks if I mind if she went to the doctor’s office since she was feeling a cold coming on. Next thing I know, she’s stopping at a random doctor’s office in Taipei. She goes in, hands over her id card and goes into the back. 5 minutes later, she comes out, hands over her co-pay (about $5) and gets a prescription. Next, we go next door to the pharmacy, had over the prescription. The prescription is filled 5 minutes later with no charge and we leave the office. The entire process, start to finish, lasted about 15 minutes.
D.N., I don’t get why the drug companies ass-rape Americans, but are perfectly happy to sell cheap drugs to the Europeans. Please explain.
In Germany the Employer pays half the health insurance, the Employee the other. The basic health care costs about €120 a month, but the more you earn, the more you pay up to about an €800 max.
If you are unemployed the Social Services pay.
If you are retired (like me) I pay about €60 and the Pension fund pays the other half.
I can choose any doctor I like and any specialist – I get a discount if i go through my “Hausartzt” i.e. my GP and he makes the appointment.
We have several “Krankenkassen (KK)” – Health Insurers but they are all very similar and all roughly the same price. The Government subsidises the rest e.g. hospitals, rehab centres, etc.
Health Insurance is compulsory!!
Prescription costs vary but normally between €5 and €10 per prescription. Some KK’s have agreements with Pharma companies that they will only prescribe a certain make of drug, or a generic (sometime free of charge). We are also allowed to have “natural” or holistic medicines on the same terms.
The Government has a list of drugs that may be prescribed. if you want another you have to pay full price or order it from a drug warehouse (genrally cheaper).
It works fine – we even have German doctors gopoing to work in England for the NHS as contractors at weekends.
Welcome to functioning socialised medicine.
I thought I was at the Washington Post comments section for a second. Not used to needing an asbestos covered keyboard to read SN.
The article quoted above shows that Dubya, Darth and Yoo are literally hazardous to American (women) health. I shoulda known. President C- is that toxic.
One bit of humor, from Firedoglake:
April 21st, 2008 at 9:30 am
“Senator McCain, does Vicki Iseman love America as much as you do?”
This is truly horrible news.
Now excuse me, my bacon triple cheese monster burger with something-sauce, fried meat nuggets and trans fat fries are calling me…. I love lunch at work, sittin’ at my desk.
dr. luba got it in one. Big Pharma is in no danger of going out of business, nor are they going to run off to China since the drugs they are making come primarily from US funded research.
And let’s assume that they do run off to China or India. That isn’t going to change the requirements they have to meet under FDA regulations for “safety and efficacy.”
D.N. you are an utter asshat, spewing a bunch of ex-recto predictions based on…what? Arky has you pegged. You may not think of yourself as a concern troll but your posts are indistinguishable from same. You’re neither funny, smart nor correct.
Please drive through.
Consider my mind changed, and my heart apologetic.
Why would drug companies be scared of universal health care (UHC)? If more folks get their pills, they get more revenue.
Since UHC can’t pay for everything, they would probably just subsidize pharms, so more folks would get the cheaper stuff, and more folks could afford the expensive stuff.
How would that make their industry suffer?
I was wrong. Won’t do it again.
PBS’s Frontline covered Taiwan’s switch to UHC last week: they looked at systems around the world, picked the things that best suited them, and created something pretty damn good.
Of course, since the US is supposed to have The Best Healthcare In The World — in truth, that’s available to a different country, aka Where Rich Americans Live — the idea of looking outside the borders and taking inspiration from Foreign is anathema, no matter which side you’re campaigning on.
Why would drug companies be scared of universal health care (UHC)? If more folks get their pills, they get more revenue.
Because, under UHC, the government would be able to use its buying power to strong-arm the drug companies into lowering their prices, and thus their profit margins.
PBS’s Frontline covered Taiwan’s switch to UHC last week: they looked at systems around the world, picked the things that best suited them, and created something pretty damn good.
We watched it together. her biggest complain about Taiwan’s system is that it is too easy (and cheap) to see a doctor. At the first sign of a sniffle everyone runs to the doctor’s office and gets their $5 exam and medication. She’s afraid that this will lead to people building up a tolerance for the medications. But that’s a minor thing compared to what people go through here.
Third World nation status? We don’t have to wait; we’re there now.
If the primary driver of bankruptcy is health care bills, what good is big pharma today? Keep the rich living longer? Oh joy…
“Because, under UHC, the government would be able to use its buying power to strong-arm the drug companies into lowering their prices, and thus their profit margins.”
Good!
Folks can’t afford them today, so their high-price model is unsustainable absent other economic miracles.
Socialized medicine does not work. Here in Canada we sometimes have to wait several months for surgery. Whenever a government controls an area best suited for the free market such as health care the quality goes down and it has to be rationed because there isn’t enough good quality for everyone. When I get sick I drive down to Washington State to go to an American emergency room. In America the law requires hospitals to treat anyone regardless of whether they have insurance. The quality of American health care is second to none which is why Saudi Arabian Royalty come here when they need surgery. Canada’s health care would also be second to none if we went back to the free market.
“We watched it together. her biggest complain about Taiwan’s system is that it is too easy (and cheap) to see a doctor. At the first sign of a sniffle everyone runs to the doctor’s office and gets their $5 exam and medication. She’s afraid that this will lead to people building up a tolerance for the medications. But that’s a minor thing compared to what people go through here.”
That has a lot more to do with how illness is remedied than affordable access to care. Essentially you are saying that sick people not getting care is a benefit. But the real benefit would be to adequately address folks concerns and illnesses, no matter how small, and giving away medications is obviously a bullshit solution as “she” indicates – but the access to care should not be considered the problem. Maybe that’s up to her to figure out.
If we become a third-world country, that’s a third-world country with 300 million people in it. Might be worth a benefit concert or two.
Not to worry chums, soon India and China will be outsourcing jobs to us! Tee hee!
America will never become a third world country as long as free market capitalism is allowed to florish and the government keeps its nose out of areas it doesn’t belong such as private industry.
I’m sure someone has already said this, but who the fuck are those 28% who still approve of President Retard McFlightsuit, after several years worth of everything from simple incompetence and cronyism to outright war crimes?
No wonder St. McBBQ has a realistic shot of winning the Presidency now.
This new puppet troll is pretty boring, albeit prolific.
President Bush is one of the greatest world leaders of all time. He has stood valiantly in the face of terror and successfully defended America from another attack. Al Queda has been routed in Afghanistan and the Taliban overthrown and the terrorists are losing popular support in Iraq and are on the run. Anyone who hates President Bush for fighting back against terrorism is a traitor and a fifth columnist. As the great man once said “You’re either with us, or your’re against us.”
I’m sure someone has already said this, but who the fuck are those 28% who still approve of President Retard McFlightsuit,
Allow me to introduce you to the 28%ers. Don your hazmat suit, watch your step, and keep your dissonance-sick bag handy at all times
http://www.darefugees.com/forum/forum.asp?FORUM_ID=2
P.S.
The posters at that site sound EXACTLY like throwing-monkey-poo-troll—except—they are serious
I’m about tired of this faux-Canadian troll already.
I am serious. I know it maybe hard to believe but there are some of us in Canada who support President Bush and appreciate his efforts in the global war on terror.
I’m just irritable because Bonzo never lets me bottom.
But I’ve been IM’ing J. Fred Muggs…
nu uh. not going to do it.
I’m perfectly serious. Don’t knock monkey dick until you’ve tried it.
You know what they say: Once you go macaque, you”ll never go back!
President Bush is protecting you people from terror, why do you hate him?
Would you rather he did nothing after 9/11 and let the terrorists get away with that atrocity?
Would you rather he do nothing and let America get attacked again?
Would you rather he did nothing after 9/11 and let the terrorists get away with that atrocity?
But this is exactly what Bush did.
He couldn’t be a better ally to Osama if they were dating.
Dare the Fugees to what?
President Bush invaded Afghanistan, overthrew the Taliban regime which was harboring Bin Laden and routed, killed and captured thousands of terrorists. That doesn’t sound like nothing to me. Sure Bin Laden got away but its only a matter of time before the good guys prevail.
I refuse to believe that anyone making the egregious spelling errors that you routinely do was a product of the fine Canadian educational system. Keep your Bush-blowing-bullshit to yourself until you’ve honed it to at least the level of a Frum or Steyn — terribly wrong and morally repugnant, but grammatically correct.
Fuck off, come back, and fuck off again.
What must happen is that right of centre governments need to be elected in all Western Nations so that we can be united against the islamic hordes. Western Nations with right of centre governments right now are of course the United States, Canada, Israel, France, Germany, Greece, Poland and now Italy with the election of Silvio Berlusconi.
Please don’t feed the trolls. It’s like wrestling with a pig, etc. etc.
And, yes…recently I’ve been saying “Socialized medicine is exactly what we need!” Besides boggling my wingnut relatives, it feels great.
Not to mention, it’s a parody troll.
If everyone ignored it, it might actually go away (although more likely, it will come back with a new name and annoying schtick).
You rang?
Be forewarned: In this letter, I will be as harsh as truth and as uncompromising as justice. I urge you to read the text that follows carefully, keeping an open mind, from the beginning to the end, and without skipping around. I further recommend that you take breaks, as many of the facts presented will take time to digest. Words fail me in describing my pure distaste for Barack Obama’s orations and duplicitous fulminations and if you don’t believe me then you should advocate social change through dialogue, passive resistance, and nonviolence. Barack believes that he is a refined gentleman with the soundest education and morals you can imagine. The real damage that this belief causes actually has nothing to do with the belief itself, but with psychology, human nature, and the skillful psychological manipulation of that nature by Barack and his squalid cohorts.
Barack has vowed that one day he’ll inaugurate an era of hotheaded, crude propagandism. This is hardly news; Barack has been vowing that for months with the regularity of a metronome. What is news is that he should start developing the parts of his brain that have been impaired by obstructionism. At least then he’ll stop trying to make excessive use of foul language. I repeat: He has no discernible talents. The only things Barack has indubitably mastered are biological functions. Well, I suppose he’s also good at convincing people that we should be grateful for the precious freedom to be robbed and kicked in the face by such a noble creature as him, but my point is that I am aware that many people may object to the severity of my language. But is there no cause for severity? Naturally, I profess that there is because I am hurt, furious, and embarrassed. Why am I hurt? Because if Barack is going to talk about higher standards then he needs to live by those higher standards. Why am I furious? Because he wants to create a drossy world of guilt and shame. Who does he think he is? I mean, if he sincerely believes that he could do a gentler and fairer job of running the world than anyone else then he must be smoking something illegal. And why am I embarrassed? Because if you don’t think that whenever I hear someone say that he is omnipotent, my upper lip develops an involuntary curl, then you’ve missed the whole point of this letter. Now that you’ve read the bulk of this letter, it should not come as a complete surprise that Barack Obama’s acolytes carry out orders like puppets obeying the puppeteer. However, this fact bears repeating again and again, until the words crack through the hardened exteriors of those who would promote the silly ideas of tactless pettifoggers. I am referring, of course, to the likes of Barack Obama.
*sigh*
What’s with the trackbacks stalking me?
What’s with the trackbacks stalking me?
Looks like it’s some annoying fuckin’ spammer bot. Maybe there is some way we can get rid of ’em. (Without making WordPress go nuts again, that is.)
This is Excellent News!
For McSame!
I don’t think he’s new. It looks like Saul with another new identity, once again trying to pointlessly stir the shit.
That’s good advice in Saul’s case. Feed the boy some pie.
Nice complaint generator. Take this:
You have been dialectized.
To bad the dialectizer can’t convert something from moron to plain English, because then I might be able to use it to make the original make sense. Oh well.
I’ve heard many reports lately like those of Dr. Luba – when the doctors, nurses, and all other healthcare workers get together and start acting politically to end commodity healthcare, then things will begin to change. They have the most powerful voices to counteract the whole, “your healthcare will be worse” trope.
As for our Fauxnadian friend, I was reading down the thread having a delightful Bart Simpson, “Stupid Lisa Garbage Face! Somebody please pay attention to me! Hello, pay attention to me! Look at me!” moment – and then you suckers bit. Boo-urns, boo-urns indeed.
Calm down, D.N.
NIH is not going to go anywhere if we get universal health care. Medical scientists aren’t going to stop working if we get universal health care. What will change is the obscene amount of profit that big Pharma currently rakes in.
So, bit Pharma shareholders and exec’s will have to rein themselves in quite a bit. Sure, that will have an effect – most likely in the luxury goods market and the level of shrieking from shareholders – but I would bet that not one pharmaceutical company will go out of business.
You are also completely neglecting the currently thriving European pharma industry which is quite innovative, mainly because of funding from their governments.
Relax.
We’ve gone over it already, but it’s good to hear again.
Additionally, I wish we weren’t paying for the Iraq war. Goes without saying, but shoot…every time you think of a major problem facing this country and wish we had about a trillion dollars just sitting around…
Yup and I wish we weren’t spending more than the combined military spending of the rest of the world on our own military (before the war). That might have something to do with the funds we have available for little things like the health and welfare of our citizens.
Look on the bright side. Bush just made the record for Worst Preznit Evah!
Yeah, but the rest of the world doesn’t have the ridiculous toys our MIC has bestowed upon us.
Guns and butter, except “guns” in our case should replaced with “Super-awesome raygun thingy that could destroy the Death Star AND the Borg in like 5 seconds and costs a googolplex dollars.”
The fact is, I am not saul or Gary Ruppert but I am a close friend of these two fine American patriots and regularly post from their computer when I am having a sleepover with them at their house in the Heartland. The fact also is that we are not gay and that we were just curious and it was only that one time and the other time after that and that does not make you gay.
Brad, you’ve left out some important data here. The decline in life expectancy for women is directly tied to increased rates of smoking and obesity. I fully expect to get reamed over the coals for saying this but, you know, smoking and eating lots of fatty junk food really will kill you. The US health care system sucks for the poorest people, of that there is no doubt, but smoking and obesity are manageable. Ok, bring on the tomatoes and tell me where I’m wrong here.
OT: http://www.nypost.com/seven/04222008/postopinion/opedcolumnists/green__smart_107556.htm?page=2
Glenn Reynolds says the key to stopping global warming is…robots. Heh.
Incidentally, can I just say what a stupid standard is, “if we get a universal health care system, Europe, who is *using us as a third-world country to get their drugs from*, will be put out, so let’s not get health care for ourselves.”
You think revolutionaries in Central America or China give a shit about how them organizing something to help their own nation will affect our exploitation of them?
Sometimes I agree with the isolationists and think that we really need to stop thinking so much of our goddamn selves that if we change a single aspect of our fucked-up culture for the better, the entire global system will collapse.
And stop going to war! Others can pick up the slack if we really need a freaking world war again.
I’m not sure I would accept the notion that we’re headed towards becoming a third-world nation, not at this point. But what would I know? I’m just an:
Average White Guy
Dr BLT
http://www.drblt.net/music/AverageWhiteM2.mp3
The problem with this is that it seems the only way to get congress to spend money is to have a war.
War on Drugs? Check.
War on Terra? Check.
War on Poverty? Guffaw!
BTW, that’s the “I Could Swear it was recorded in a Pennsylvania pub” mix.
I think we are headed towards being or already are a second-world nation. Give us time and we can make it to third-world. I’m kind of pulling for us to make it. Now back to American Idol.
Speaking of, any of you seen this? http://3trillion.org/
Brad, you’ve left out some important data here. The decline in life expectancy for women is directly tied to increased rates of smoking and obesity.
Obesity, maybe. Cigarette sales are down, however.
I fully expect to get reamed over the coals for saying this but, you know, smoking and eating lots of fatty junk food really will kill you. The US health care system sucks for the poorest people, of that there is no doubt, but smoking and obesity are manageable.
Well, I suppose we could approach this like so.
Health care blows for the poorest people in this country (and by poorest, I mean anyone under the 95% line of wealth, without insurance). Now, crunching that down further to those in genuine poverty, whose health care still sucks, what food options do they have on their salaries?
Fatty junk food and unhealthy fast food you say? Goodness.
Now, as a result of being in poverty, which has no real sign of help or support in this country because of a pervasive protestant work-ethic in people’s head thinking poor people deserve what they get, folks are likely to be stressed the fuck out.
Now, what is the likelihood of using legalized drugs such as cigarettes or alcohol in order to relieve stress and calm nerves in a self-medicating fashion, since they sure as fuck can’t afford actual medication for their nerves…
Pretty high, I’d wager.
So, only real source of food for them and their families shows a marked trend towards supporting obesity, and their lives suck, so there’s a higher likelihood of smoking or drinking to relieve stress, killing their internal systems…
And their health care still sucks.
I wonder if this might not actually be their fault as people, and instead a reflection of the continued suck-assedness of this third-world country bullshit going on in this developed first-world country.
The next time some wingnut says to us, “What, do ya want socialized medicine like they got in YURP???” everything in this country should answer “Hells yes we do!”
Sorry, but I have this image of staplers, chairs, cars, kitties, Cheetos and podia all screaming in unison in my head.
Gosh, you mean to say that neglecting women has consequences? I had no idea.
How would we be a second-world country? The second-world is only there to distinguish communist nations. Is Castro going to take over? Cause then our health might actually improve!
Lord knows he’s got a bunch of trained doctors and nationalized health care.
Women have an increased rate of smoking? Got a link?
As for obesity, you’re right, but that leads to other very American problems- that we work too hard/too long for our own good, that too many of us rely only on cars for our mode of transportation, that we subsidize and legitimize aspects of agriculture that give us the worst crap for our bodies, etc.
When I lived in New Zealand, some people were referring to it as a second-world nation. New Zealand is certainly on par with the U.S. as I see it. They had a national health care system that worked just fine. The disparity in wealth between rich and poor was not nearly as profound as here. I think that this country is on a downward spiral of decreased wealth in the hands of fewer and fewer, with more poverty and less opportunity for a large part of the citizenry. I don’t know at what point you would call it second-world, but things will likely continue to get worse.
I think we are headed towards being or already are a second-world nation.
Well, the color coding on this map from the World Health Organization agrees with you. Our friends in Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and Western Europe* all get to sit at the cool kids table while we allow women to die in childbirth at the rate of North Africa, Latin America, and China.
WHO ranks our health care system at #37 in the world, behind Singapore, Oman, Japan, Colombia, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Morocco, Chile, Dominica, Costa Rica, Canada, Australia, and pretty much all of Europe. I think it is fair to say that we have fallen out of the top tier.
When I lived in New Zealand, some people were referring to it as a second-world nation.
Well, they were, well, wrong. Or at least using incorrect terminology. The ‘second-world’ was used as a descriptor for those nations considered under the aegis of the Soviet Union or other Communist states. It’s largely fallen out of usage due to the whole, collapse and all, but it’s still a viable historical term.
What you want to say, is a “fourth world”, which has its own interesting qualities. Since there’s not really a descriptor for developing states in the manner you want ‘second-world’ to mean, they bumped what our conception of ‘third-world’ down to fourth, and slotted in the other nations into third-world.
Of course, ‘fourth-world’ is also used as a descriptor for people who’re in a state of non-nationhood, such as the Kurds, the Palestinians, or the Roma.
But we can’t be a ‘second-world’ nation. We’re not eligible for it.
How would we be a second-world country? The second-world is only there to distinguish communist nations
Yeah, but since the end of the Cold War the terminology has gone all to pieces. The Economist likes to group Latin America and Eastern Europe into a newly defined “second world” because they are richer and more industrialized than the non-aligned bloc that became synonymous with poverty. I have also seen “fourth world” tossed around for nations that face such dire conditions that “devolving” would be more accurate than “developing”. You know – Somalia, the DRC, Iraq…
NobodySpecial said,
April 22, 2008 at 20:58
Obesity, maybe. Cigarette sales are down, however.
The fact that cigarette sales are down, generally, is irrelevant to this particular stat. The rates of smoking and obesity have increased in the poorer counties cited. Life expectancy isn’t down everywhere in the United States. In fact, it’s higher in some places – the wealthier ones and lower in the poorer places. This stat reflects the growing divide in the United States.
I don’t know which to be more thankful for:
1) Being an Uhmurkin, so’s I got the bestest healthcares in teh hole wide world
2) Being a disabled veteran, so’s I get A-number-one-five-star healthcare with hardly any lines out the door and into the parking lot, nor eight-month waits for appointments, nosirree
3) Making enough money that I get tripped up by Preznit George Jesus Bush’s super-cool-money-saving means-testing for disabled vets so’s I can’t get the free VA care anyways and have to go try to get coverage elsewhere for my pre-existing condition that’s all documented in my medical records and lots of fun for HMO bean-counters to read and giggle at
Yep! Best healthcare on Earth! We honor your service, faithful veteran. Now get lost before we call security.
Glenn Reynolds says the key to stopping global warming is…robots. Heh.
Actually, I’m pretty sure that robots are the cause of global warming.
Btw, life expectancy has increased to 80+ years for those born in 2006 (up from 77 a quarter of a century ago) in British Columbia.
In BC, fewer people are smoking. Smoking is banned in public places (soon it will be banned in any outdoor area where people congregate – like bus shelters).
Our public health care system hangs by a thin thread and governments (and doctors) seem intent on completely destroying it. It will be interesting to see the vital stats in a few years when the system has been completely dismantled and doctors are making bucks hand over fist in a two-tier system where the poor get the dregs (public hospitals staffed by interns [and cleaned by minimum wage workers who leave feces on the floor – yes this is already happening!]) and the rich get to go to plush clinics staffed by the cream of the medical crop. The overall plan seems to be to reduce the public funding of health care as much as possible until people beg to be allowed to use their credit cards to pay for private care. It’s infuriating.
DavidL is an idiot and I can’t comment on his stupid blog.
Patkin,
Would you care to give a proper descriptor for a country that is somewhere between first-world and third-world, since second-world is not acceptable to you?
tweener-world?
fence-post-world?
edge-of-the-abyss-world?
declining-world?
We need our own american designation, first world plus, maybe. It would carry 2nd, 3rd and 4th world status as well..
You know what this thread needs? Some Nader!
and pie!
The fact that cigarette sales are down, generally, is irrelevant to this particular stat. The rates of smoking and obesity have increased in the poorer counties cited.
I googled around a little, but all I can find is that smoking rates have dropped dramatically over the last few decades, but recently leveled off. Low-income people do smoke more on average, but I can’t find anything anywhere that says that the percentage of smokers has increased for any demographic, or that those who do smoke are smoking more. Can you point me to something?
We need to think outside the box, search for innovative solutions to our problems. All this back and forth isn’t getting us anywhere closer to actual programs that work. What I’m saying is, quit yer bitchin and start contributing.
For example, a while back we were faced with the problem of big tobacco getting sued into oblivion and the tobacco
pharmersfarmers were in danger of losing their livelihoods. Not to mention the number of congresscritters that would have to find new renters. At the same time, we were (and still are) faced with the problem of massive homelessness – the human litter on the streets, the panhandling, the expense of feeding them and washing them and what have you. And don’t forget the immigration problem!Solution: Cigarettes for the homeless / illegals. Free, government subsidized smokes. The effects on the homeless and illegals problem won’t be immediate of course but we can afford to be patient; in the mean time, we’ve saved a vital part of our economic system from collapse; the
drug lordstobacco companies andgrifterslegislators of the most important deliberative body in the world are saved from certain disaster.Couldn’t we adapt this model for the health care probem?
WTF! My comment appeared to fade in, from the ethers, and some extra “live comment preview,.. has wordpress been reborn as a beautiful butterfly?
Where’s the malfunctioning Glenn Reynolds robot when we so desperately need him?
Couldn’t we adapt this model for the health care probem?
Well, food prices are up and kids don’t have health care. Exactly how far outside the box?
Nah.
Maybe the idea should be to abandon shit like ‘first-world’ and ‘third-world’ to begin with, since it’s ultimately outdated global politics bullshit that we should’ve left behind when the ‘second-world’ ceased to exist.
Though I kind of like the sound of declining-world. But really, with entropy, what world isn’t declining in some fashion?
I’m glad Nader has a solution for our healthcare crisis, as well as reaped the benefits of supporting people who helped create in the crisis in the first place.
What an odd, charmed life this man leads.
(Hey, Humor Me started it.)
Heh. Indeed. We’re winning! I need to get something out of the way before I begin. I must say that objective consideration of Barack Obama’s mingy, cankered whinges compels the conclusion that Obama arrogates to himself the right to pit the haves against the have-nots. Read the whole thing. Obama doesn’t back up the rhetoric. Heh. Indeed. We’re winning! I need to get something out of the way before I begin. I must say that objective consideration of Barack Obama’s mingy, cankered whinges compels the conclusion that Obama arrogates to himself the right to pit the haves against the have-nots. Read the whole thing. Obama doesn’t back up the rhetoric. Heh. Indeed. We’re winning! I need to get something out of the way before I begin. I must say that objective consideration of Barack Obama’s mingy, cankered whinges compels the conclusion that Obama arrogates to himself the right to pit the haves against the have-nots. Read the whole thing. Obama doesn’t back up the rhetoric. Heh. Indeed. We’re winning! I need to get something out of the way before I begin. I must say that objective consideration of Barack Obama’s mingy, cankered whinges compels the conclusion that Obama arrogates to himself the right to pit the haves against the have-nots. Read the whole thing. Obama doesn’t back up the rhetoric. Heh. Indeed. We’re winning! I need to get something out of the way before I begin. I must say that objective consideration of Barack Obama’s mingy, cankered whinges compels the conclusion that Obama arrogates to himself the right to pit the haves against the have-nots. Read the whole thing. Obama doesn’t back up the rhetoric. Heh. Indeed. We’re winning! I need to get something out of the way before I begin. I must say that objective consideration of Barack Obama’s mingy, cankered whinges compels the conclusion that Obama arrogates to himself the right to pit the haves against the have-nots. Read the whole thing. Obama doesn’t back up the rhetoric. Heh. Indeed. We’re winning! I need to get something out of the way before I begin. I must say that objective consideration of Barack Obama’s mingy, cankered whinges compels the conclusion that Obama arrogates to himself the right to pit the haves against the have-nots. Read the whole thing. Obama doesn’t back up the rhetoric. Heh. Indeed. We’re winning! I need to get something out of the way before I begin. I must say that objective consideration of Barack Obama’s mingy, cankered whinges compels the conclusion that Obama arrogates to himself the right to pit the haves against the have-nots. Read the whole thing. Obama doesn’t back up the rhetoric. Heh. Indeed. We’re winning! I need to get something out of the way before I begin. I must say that objective consideration of Barack Obama’s mingy, cankered whinges compels the conclusion that Obama arrogates to himself the right to pit the haves against the have-nots. Read the whole thing. Obama doesn’t back up the rhetoric. Heh. Indeed. We’re winning! I need to get something out of the way before I begin. I must say that objective consideration of Barack Obama’s mingy, cankered whinges compels the conclusion that Obama arrogates to himself the right to pit the haves against the have-nots. Read the whole thing. Obama doesn’t back up the rhetoric. Heh. Indeed. We’re winning! I need to get something out of the way before I begin. I must say that objective consideration of Barack Obama’s mingy, cankered whinges compels the conclusion that Obama arrogates to himself the right to pit the haves against the have-nots. Read the whole thing. Obama doesn’t back up the rhetoric. Heh. Indeed. We’re winning! I need to get something out of the way before I begin. I must say that objective consideration of Barack Obama’s mingy, cankered whinges compels the conclusion that Obama arrogates to himself the right to pit the haves against the have-nots. Read the whole thing. Obama doesn’t back up the rhetoric.
This morning when I tried to put on my new socks, I found a hole in the left toe.
I blame Nader.
Would you care to give a proper descriptor for a country that is somewhere between first-world and third-world, since second-world is not acceptable to you?
Avis-world.
Yeah, Canadians DO sometimes have to wait too long for care (wait-times are shrinking BTW), but that’s due to a shortfall in staffing, which is the Health Minister’s fault, not the system’s – a problem ironically exacerbated by med students jumping the border to glom the better pay offered by the horrid US system. America actively poaches medical staff from other countries & we’re the closest. Your system actually weakens ours. Meanwhile, US seniors continue to schedule bus charters to come north & scoop up cheaper generic Canadian drugs, since the drug companies & HMOs are such moral vipers as not to give a damn about old folks – & that too makes Canada’s health-care bill go up, since it puts stress on the nation’s drug-supply.
America’s not going to get real medicare until you can get all the folks terrified of creeping Marxism to understand that it’ll let them live longer happier lives – with more money left in their wallets. Actually, I’d recommend heavy emphasis on the money … everyone likes having more money … oh, & not wasting huge amounts of time being dicked around by your provider … not too many people get off on that from what I’ve read.
Maybe we could address the prison overcrowding problem while addressing health care at the same time.
We could, say, transfer the violent criminals, for whom we currently pay over $100,000 per year to
treat like animalsrehabilitate, transfer them to medical facilities where they would have their spinal cords severed below C6. That would, of course, make them quadriplegics for whom a neverending morphine drip would be a huge improvement over their previous miserable existence.As medical research subjects and organ donors they’d finally be be making real contributions to society, if not actually productive members of it. We could turn the prison system from a liability into a profit center.
C’mon people – let’s get creative. We need to come up with the solutions because it’s obvious that our politicos are incapable of creativity (save for new and clever kleptocratic moves).
I’m just tossing out ideas…
pedestrian said,
I googled around a little, but all I can find is that smoking rates have dropped dramatically over the last few decades, but recently leveled off. Low-income people do smoke more on average, but I can’t find anything anywhere that says that the percentage of smokers has increased for any demographic, or that those who do smoke are smoking more. Can you point me to something?
Pedestrian, here you go:
Study: http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0050066
Women and smoking fact sheet: http://www.lungusa.org/site/pp.asp?c=dvLUK9O0E&b=33572
Articles: http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSN2146521720080422?sp=true
Ezzati and colleagues analyzed death rates in all counties of the U.S. states from 1961 to 1999.
Overall U.S. life expectancy increased mostly because of fewer deaths from heart disease, the No. 1 cause of death, and stroke. But by the 1980s, death rates started to head back up in many counties.
“The majority of these counties were in the Deep South, along the Mississippi River, and in Appalachia, extending into the southern portion of the Midwest and into Texas,” Ezzati’s team wrote.
“The rise in all-cause mortality was caused by an increase in cancers, diabetes, COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, mostly emphysema), and a reduction in the rate of decline of cardiovascular diseases,” they wrote.
“There was also an important influence of HIV/AIDS and homicide among men.”
Ezzati said the worst-affected counties had other troubles, such as lower levels of educational achievement.
“One of the questions we are asking is whether our ranking in the world is getting increasingly worse because we are not doing a good job of taking care of the worst-off,” Ezzati said.
“To have 20 years of decline for about one out of five American women, it is something that is rather unprecedented,” he added. “We are leaving a larger and larger part of the population behind.”
While many of the worst-affected counties had a high black population, Ezzati found that white populations in poorer counties fared worse that whites elsewhere, too.
“It exists above and beyond race,” he said.
The fact is, when I was a kid we had those candy cigarettes, allowing us to establish our brand preferences before our confusing teen years, when we might make a poor decision and end up smoking Larks for the rest of your life.
We could turn the prison system from a liability into a profit center
Dude, where have you been?
“when you might…”
or “our lives”, something like that.
Humor Me:
The fact is, I still try looking for those candy cigarettes in consignment stores. Never took up smoking, but the candy had me hooked.
They were like the sweet cousin of blackboard chalk. I even think they used the menthol flavoring to flavor them.
I never really got into cigarettes, but I always seem to date women that smoke…
Hmmm…
Btw, the tobacco companies have some insidious marketing campaigns targeting not only women but very young children. A couple of years ago I was at a fireworks event where thousands of people congregated. My friend and I were sitting on our blanket surrounded by thousands of families with kids. Out of the corner of my eye I saw someone dressed up like a cigarette (a big friendly cigarette) and this individual was running around chatting to children. I walked over and enquired what the hell he was doing and he told me he was employed by one of the sponsors of the event (a tobacco company) to do some friendly advertising. I told him to get the fuck out of there before I raised hell. This guy was chatting up little kids as young as four. Now go figure…of course, the tobacco companies are aiming at the kids because fewer adults are smoking and anyone who reaches adulthood and hasn’t started smoking is unlikely to start.
Oh yeah, and I recall reading somewhere that American tobacco companies actually give away free cigarettes in the third world as part of a marketing campaign to get ’em hooked and then you can sell them the stuff. They’re worse than drug dealers. I’ll try to dig that up.
Hey, this is fun…
Be fo’ewarned: In this hyar letter, ah will be as harsh as truth an’ as uncompromisin’ as jestice. ah urge yo’ t’read th’ text thet follers carefully, keepin’ an open mind, fum th’ beginnin’ t’th’ end, an’ wifout skippin’ aroun’. ah further recommend thet yo’ take busts, as menny of th’ facks presented will take time t’digest. Wo’ds fail me in dexcribin’ mah pure distaste fo’ Bareeck Obama’s o’ashuns an’ dooplycitous fulminashuns an’ eff’n yo’ don’t believe me then yo’ sh’d advocut social change through dialogue, passive resistance, an’ nonviolence. Bareeck believes thet he is a refined juntleman wif th’ soun’ess ejoocayshun an’ mo’als yo’ kin imagine. Th’ real damage thet this hyar belief cuzs acshully has nothin’ t’do wif th’ belief itse’f, but wif psychology, hoomin nature, an’ th’ skil’ful psychological manipulashun of thet nature by Bareeck an’ his squalid coho’ts. Bareeck has vowed thet one day he’ll inaugurate an era of hothaided, crude propagan’ism, dawgone it. This hyar is hardly noos; Bareeck has been vowin’ thet fo’ months wif th’ regularity of a metronome. Whut in tarnation is noos is thet he sh’d start developin’ th’ parts of his brain thet haf been impaired by obstruckshunism, dawgone it. At least then he’ll stop tryin’ t’make excessive use of foul language. ah repeat: He has no discernible talents. Th’ only thin’s Bareeck has indubitably mastered is biological funckshuns. Wal, ah suppose he’s also fine at cornvincin’ varmints thet we sh’d be grateful fo’ th’ precious freedom t’be robbed an’ kicked in th’ face by sech a noble creature as him, but mah point is thet ah’s aware thet menny varmints may objeck t’th’ sevahity of mah language. But is thar no cuz fo’ sevahity? Natcherly, ah profess thet thar is on account o’ ah’s hurt, furious, an’ embarrassed, cuss it all t’ tarnation. Whuffo’ is ah hurt? On account o’ eff’n Bareeck is a-gonna talk about higher stan’ards then he needs t’live by them higher stan’ards. Whuffo’ is ah furious? On account o’ he be hankerin’ t’create a drosty wo’ld of guilt an’ shame. Who does he reckon he is? ah mean, eff’n he sinsyarly believes thet he c’d does a juntler an’ fairer job of runnin’ th’ wo’ld than ennyone else then he muss be smokin’ sumpin illegal, ah reckon. An’ whuffo’ is ah embarrassed? On account o’ eff’n yo’ don’t reckon thet whenevah ah hear someone say thet he is omnipotent, mah upper lip develops an involuntary curl, then yo’’ve missed th’ whole point of this hyar letter. Now thet yo’’ve read th’ bulk of this hyar letter, it sh’d not come as a complete surprise thet Bareeck Obama’s acolytes carry out o’ders like puppets obeyin’ th’ puppeteer. Howevah, this hyar fack bars repeatin’ agin an’ agin, until th’ wo’ds crack through th’ hardened exterio’s of them who’d promote th’ silly ideas of tackless pettifoggers. ah’s referrin’, of course, t’th’ likes of Bareeck Obama.
Damn. I’m always late to market. Ah well, back to the shoebox I’ve apparently been living in.
Patkin, look no further.
Here they are
economy candy, a name you can trust.
I wish cigarettes were more effective.
Be fowewawned: In this wettew, I wiww be as hawsh as twuf and as uncompwomising as justice. I uwge you to wead the text that fowwows cawefuwwy, keeping an open mind, fwom the beginning to the end, and without skipping awound. I fuwthew wecommend that you take bweaks, as many of the facts pwesented wiww take time to digest. Wowds faiw me in descwibing my puwe distaste fow Bawack Obama’s owations and dupwicitous fuwminations and if you don’t bewieve me then you shouwd advocate sociaw change thwough diawogue, passive wesistance, and nonviowence. Bawack bewieves that he is a wefined gentweman wif the soundest education and mowaws you can imagine. De weaw damage that this bewief causes actuawwy has nothing to do wif the bewief itsewf, but wif psychowogy, human natuwe, and the skiwwfuw psychowogicaw manipuwation of that natuwe by Bawack and his sqwawid cohowts. Oh, dat scwewy wabbit!
I recently starting working for the NHS and it has its fair share of problems but you never hear on British news the good it does, its always full of negative stories, which I think colour people’s perceptions.
and I makes me so angry the way successive governments have tried to privatize the NHS through the backdoor and lumber trusts with the expensive and inefficient PFI (Private Finance Initiative).
It’s alright PeeJ, the organ harvesting was a fresh twist. I’ll bet you could find a place in the McCain administration.
lesley – thanks for the links, my wonkish side is purring with content. It still bugs me that I can’t find anything showing an increase in smoking, only a rise in death due to smoking-related disease (which is not the same thing). I did find data from other industrialized countries showing that female smokers were approaching the same rates as male smokers, but only because the decline in male smokers has been more dramatic. But then again, other industrialized countries don’t have rising mortality rates among women.
I guess it depends on how you use them.
I lurve the Economy Candy store down on the LES.
Oh, and one more thing. If this is what having a Canadian style healthcare system is all about, you can count me out.
They have the Grossest tasting candy in the World!
Crunchy Frog!
showing that female smokers were approaching the same rates as male smokers, but only because the decline in male smokers has been more dramatic
Ok, so um apple and oranges here. If you look at the rates for women only, past and present, they’ve increased. Just because they’re not as high as men’s and approximately on a par with the rate of [decline in smoking] among men, doesn’t mean they haven’t increased. I divest you of your purring, pedestrian! 🙂
War on Poor people? Check.
2) European countries would actually *drop* their universal healthcare, as cheap drugs are no longer an option
Only if the politicians want to be strung up. Taking away universal health care would be more controversial than gun confiscation here.
But hey, Hillary Clinton is a closeted lesbian with a scary laugh and Barack Obama is a stealth Muslim who can’t bowl, so there’s no way they can fix this stuff..
I’d begun to think that this LIE-brul site was nothing but lies, so I’m glad to see that someone’s finally talking some sense here.
You commies may not realize this but this is the USA of America, and we’re NUMBER ONE!! If more ladies are dying here than anywhere else, there must be a good reason for it. What’s the big deal anyway? Females are good for birthin’ and cookin’ but anything else? Besides, American technology is advancing so fast that we’ll be having sexual relations with robots soon (and they’ll be trained not to laugh at the size of my tinkler), and they’ll make pemmican as well as any human lady!
It’s always something with you LIE-bruls, crying over some pointless thing or another when the real dangers that threaten this nation (I’ve tried to warn you about pelicans more than once) go unheeded. The Iranian Navy is blockading our borders and threatening us with black helicopters filled with Sharia Law and you socialists are getting all teary-eyed over the fact that females croak here faster than anywhere else? Man up, you wussies!! We’ve got a war to fight!
So here’s another question. Conceding that a larger percentage of women are smoking, and that obesity is certainly on the rise, why isn’t the life expectation of women declining in other industrialized countries? Why is this only happening in poor, underserved parts of the US?
European women also have increased rates of smoking and obesity but no corresponding drop in life expectancy. Might it have something to do with access to quality medical care?
The Elmer Fudd also works as Ceasr from Life of Brian:
“European women also have increased rates of smoking and obesity but no corresponding drop in life expectancy. Might it have something to do with access to quality medical care?”
No, silly.
It’s that peasant stock. Yeah, that’s the ticket! Healthcare has nothing to do with it.
pedestrian, I’d have to see the stats for women in other countries, including my own. I can’t say for certain but I believe, at least in Canuckistan, that the rate of obesity hasn’t reached the US level yet though it’s surely getting there as more kids exercise less and eat more junky fast food. Not sure about the smoking stats here…but with the education and rules and bylaws restricting smoking (which were instrumental in helping me quit more than 2 decades ago, btw), the rates are probably lower in Canada. Canada is slightly ahead of the US in its social policy (but not by much anymore, unfortunately, as our neoconservative governments demonstrate).
Canada’s public health care system is definitely not as good as it used to be for two reasons: a labour and skill shortage – we’re woefully short of doctors and other medical specialists – and the lack of public funding for medical care and preventive care. Funding is the biggest issue. For the past fifteen years the federal government has chipped away transfer payments to the provinces. The provinces have been forced to reduce funding to the hospitals and restrict coverage for patient care. Patients are now having to pay for services they never used to and fewer medical services receive coverage. Emergency care wards are overflowing and people are literally dying while they wait for care. Cleaning standards are at an all time low because the provinces have privatized non medical health services (food prep, cleaning, security etc) and in-hospital infections are on the rise.
Canada also cut funding to a highly effective program called Participaction whose purpose was to educate Canadians about the benefits of exercise. This program had been in place for nearly 25 years before it was cut in the naive assumption that it had done its job. Meanwhile tens of thousands of immigrants are entering Canada every year and kids are growing up in schools that are cutting phys ed classes.
If the feds funded the health care system adequately, it would function just fine. We wouldn’t have wait times for surgery and the country could attract more doctors. I’m convinced this is a plot to do away with public health care altogether. The Liberals started chipping away at it and the Conservatives are continuing the trend. They’re gradually brainwashing Canadians into thinking public health care is a sham and that private is the way to go. Younger people don’t realize how good it was. I remember. So do a lot of boomers. But Conservative boomers are into spreading the lie that it was never any good. Of course these people would never move to the US where, they say, the health care is so good.
A recent Canadian study showed that residents of low income urban neighbourhoods have little to no access to big discount grocery stores. The big grocers are all located in the suburbs and wealthier neighbourhoods. The poor are forced to shop in corner stores that retail mostlhy junk food at higher prices because they can’t get out to the ‘burbs. Few poor people eat as many vegetables and highly nutritious food because they can’t afford it. One of the ideas that’s being tossed about where I live is the idea of urban farming, especially in the poorer communities. This could be accomplished on rooftops of city buildings and in parks and other designated areas. But what’s really needed is integration of market and social housing where the poor and middle class live together. I saw this work very well in the seventies in Toronto. I lived in a housing co-op where rich, middle class, and welfare recipients all had nicely laid out apartments and co-operated in planning and maintaining the housing community. The welfare recipients were subsidized and the middle class and rich people paid full market value for their suites. It worked beautifully. I don’t see why we can’t have a society like this. In the end we save money and solve social problems. It’s a win win.
[…] (Middel)Levealderen for amerikanske kvinder er i nogle områder af USA faldet med 5 år i de sidste 25 år: […]
I just had an interesting conversation with my mother. My father’s insurance has gone from the 100% coverage that used to be standard, to a mandatory co-pay model, plus it became way more expensive. She started wailing and gnashing about the cost . . . I told her this was what I’ve been dealing with for five or six years.
She’s been a big supporter of private healthcare up until now. I wonder how long it’s going to take her to realize what a fuck-job it really is.
What you want to say, is a “fourth world”, which has its own interesting qualities. Since there’s not really a descriptor for developing states in the manner you want ’second-world’ to mean, they bumped what our conception of ‘third-world’ down to fourth, and slotted in the other nations into third-world.
Our worlds go up to 11!
– Why don’t you just make ten louder?
– But ours goes to eleven…
black helicopters filled with Sharia Law
That’s Shania Law to you, bub.
Y’know, I really want to know why all those helicopters are black alla the time. I mean, sheesh, isn’t there any other color of helicopter semi gloss latex down at the helicopter depot?
Why can’t they be blue, or yellow, or paisley, or batik or Cloisonné?
Black isn’t even practical, fer cryin out loud!!
mikey
Heeeyyy.
WordPress didn’t balk.
Didja fix it?
Or is it just trying to lull me into a false sense of security, then, when I don’t copy a post, BAM!! it’s gone forever?
mikey
Black isn’t even practical, fer cryin out loud!!
It’s primer, as far as I can figure. The air flying forces of the USA of America always have their flying thingies fully painted but the enemies of the heartland never have enough credit line for anything more than primer. I’m betting that there’s plenty of doodly body work on those babies too, they probably fly crazy due to being off balance with fiberglas patching.
On This Week, 4/20/8:
STEPHANOPOULOS: What’s wrong with government — what’s wrong with government-run health care?
MCCAIN: And we continue to have these debates — what’s wrong with it? Go to Canada. Go to England and you can find out what’s wrong with it.
And he, like all the other lying Republicans, gets away unchallenged when spreading this bs.
MCCAIN: And we continue to have these debates — what’s wrong with it? Go to Canada. Go to England and you can find out what’s wrong with it.
The wingnut argument is so transparently easy to rebut that it makes me want to scream every time I see it going without rebuttal…in other words, every single time a Republican or talking head discusses health care, thousands and thousands of times….AAAAAiiiiieeeee!!!! Anyway:
“If the Canadian and British healthcare systems are so terrible, why don’t we ever hear about popular citizen movements in those countries to change over to a private system like the US has? Is it because they don’t want ‘the best healthcare system in the world’? Or is it because they don’t want a system with lower life expectancy and higher infant mortality that costs 1/3 more?”
See, three sentences, max.
forgive any incoherence.
I believe that there needs to be a single payer system in the US.
However, a concern I have is that health care companies such as Aetna, United health care, humana, etc are too powerful to truly get out of the picture.
I also have some familiarity with how Medicare and Medicaid works in the US. Currently, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services handles about 42 million bennies. As the baby boomers retire, the number is expected to go to up to 60 to 80 million. There are 47 million uninsured Americans. Even so, CMS is probably the only agency that can handle a health care program of this size and adding just the uninsured is going to double the existing load. This will be very expensive to establish. There is alot of 30 year old technology that has been extended to meet new needs over the years but to do it right will require major systems designs and I am afraid that once the price tag is known then the politicians will baulk.
CMS can’t even negotiate with drug companies to get the best prices for the Part D drug plans. I just see more of the same happening
And he, like all the other lying Republicans, gets away unchallenged when spreading this bs.
Actually, Steph challenged McCain on it a little bit. He brought up the fact that McCain has had full insurance provided by the government since the day he was born, and that he’d be denied insurance if he had to go out and buy it now. McCain got so flustered he called it a cheap shot and then brought up his time as a POW to justify his position. Lame and crackheaded. If Steph would have gone that ‘but it’s wafer thin’ extra step, McCain’s head would have exploded. I think we’re all in for a big treat sometime before November.
Jeezus christ’s tits in a mason jar.
Listen to Joe, Pat and Timmeh on MSNBC absolutely ecstatic that the horserace will go on. They LOVE this. They simply will NOT say that it’s all for nothing, it’s all over, it’s just selling refrigerators and Chevy coupes.
Goodness. It’s like the media and the TV are managing the elections process in this country.
I can’t stand it…
mikey
Thank you, Dr. Luby, for saving me a whole lot of typing.
I’m late to the party as usual, but D.N.Nation is conflating the three legs of the modern American legal-drug-delivery system:
1) Drug research. As others have mentioned, most actual *medical* research is currently done at universities and other government-sponsored institutions. When America finally achieves UHC, the taxes now spent to subsidize Big Pharma & its lobbyists can be used for actual Research. Not to mention the sums ‘da guvmint’ will save by treating the uninsured and elderly with preventative programs for stuff like diabetes and high blood pressure, rather than waiting until they need dialysis and bypasses and prostheses.
2) Drug advertising/distribution. Again, as described earlier, most “private” (for-profit) drug companies spend the big money tying up America’s finest minds on the search for patentable near-copies of the latest Miracle Cure — preferrably for something like erectile dysfunction or seasonal allergies or osteoporosis, which make people unhappy but usually don’t kill them, because such is the definition of ‘captive market’. When UHC makes it impossible to charge $10,000 a dose for the latest cancer treatment “because the company needs to recoup its investment”, the vast network of marketing execs & salespeople will return to their natural habitats — telling men that women find bad beer and expensive cars sexually stimulating, and telling women that buying this month’s fad diet program will turn them into at least a D-list celebrity. And presumably, especially since UHC will have to involve a lot more direct government educational support, some larger percentage of smart researchers will find it profitable to occupy themselves with big intractable problems like AIDS and malaria and cancer, rather than finding analogs for this year’s hottest boner pill or allergy cream.
3) Drug manufacturing. Now *here’s* the real kicker, DN… most “American” drugs are already manufactured in third/fourth-world nations where the labor costs are low and the environmental regulations are even lower! Just as both your generic Walmart sneakers and your top-dollar Nikes are “outsourced”, frequently to the very same slave-labor factories, everything from generic heparin to your latest brand-name high-profit cancer treatment is being manufactured in Mexico, Brazil, Thailand, or China. (India used to be a huge exporter, but over the past dozen years the Indian government has gotten increasingly snitty about making for pennies the patented drugs that Big Pharma will turn around and sell them for dollars .) All the Evil Consequences imaginable under such circumstances are already happening (google “tainted heparin” to see why I used that as an example). On the other hand, under UHC, it’s possible we might once more find it affordable to hire enough inspectors to ensure that those cheaply-manufactured drugs actually met our supposed safety standards. Win-Win!
Here’s were over 340 million of our health care dollars went in one year:
http://www.forbes.com/lists/2006/12/Health_care_equipment_services_Rank_1.html
25 CEOs.
Aside to Mickey: The results will (hopefully) be the same tomorrow morning as they are tonight. Do yourself a favor and don’t watch that shit.
Nope, you’re right.
Gonna watch the giants game…
Brandon Webb is due to give it up hard…
mickey
And, once again, The Onion anticipates the news.
From The Onion: 9/11 Conspiracy Theories ‘Ridiculous,’ Al Qaeda Says
(Video).
From Haaretz, Israeli Jewish daily newspaper: Qaida No. 2: Hezbollah started rumor that Israel planned 9/11
Meanwhile, Al Qa’ida is clearly falling afoul of their HR department:
Anne-Laurie – Thanks, nice summary.
Anything happen today?
Are you suggesting that the Iraq war is expensive? Surely you’re mistaken! I have it on good authority that it’s not costing us anything at all.
For fuck’s sake.
It’s too debonaire; it’s too Fred Astaire; it’s too Kumbaya.” Talking about Barack Obama, Chris Matthews’ quote of the evening.
So far.
–Josh Marshall
If anyone ever gets the chance, please kick Tweety in the nads. For all of us (i.e. that’s a lot of kicks).
Additionally, a number of large drugs companies are still based in Europe even given the increased regulation (Bayer, GlaxoSmithKline etc) and remain extremely profitable.
Bayer, for instance, holds the patent to Ciproxin, which is the antibiotic of choice for dealing with anthrax. When the States had the big anthrax-terrorism scare a few years ago, and people started panic-buying Ciproxin, US drug companies wanted a share of the windfall. So the US government invoked some international agreement (which I can’t be arsed looking up right now), thereby allowing them to ignore the patent and start manufacturing the stuff for themselves.
What I’m trying to say is that the US pharmaceutical industry piggybacks on drug research in the rest of the world, so there is no need to worry about any reform of US healthcare somehow stifling innovation or pushing up drug prices. The right reform might even reduce the pressure on manufacturers to lie about the non-existent benefits of their latest least patentable difference drug, to fund astroturf patient support groups clamouring for the drug on prescription, and to suppress its lethal side-effects.
What’s that? Dr. Lupa and Anne Laurie have already made these points? Unpossible.
[…]some interesting pointsRead this[…]America will collapseWorld will follow!!!11![…] ButBut[…]some concise rebuttals […]Nyeah NyeahI can’t hear you[…]fascist plutocracy[…]Nader[…]not Nader[…] more Nader[…]fuck you[…]no fuck you[…]sorry[…]I’m a big sucky babyReally i mean it […]badgers[…] pelicans[…] learned responsePharmaceuticals[…]ThanksYeah thanks […]Liberals=fags[…]monkeypoo[…]ignore that guy[…]liberals eat monkey feces […]McCain, fuck yeah111!![…]yawn watchin’ the Giants […]
I love trackbacks!
The thing is, if we didn’t have a major war going on, those dollars would be fucking invisible to conservatives, because of course tax money only exists to fund WARS and bailout SHITTY CORPORATIONS.
Killing off people in red states? This is a problem?
Patkin — I’m a little late on this, but most of the time they are now called “candy sticks.” They started turning up in my daughters trick-or-treat bags last year. Very thin boxes, they hold about four or five “sticks”, and a cartoon character on the outside. I almost died when I saw them. I actually to think about whether or not she could have them (she really wanted them). My main concern was that she would have them in the car, or at the park, or somewhere and some busybody parent would rip into me over them. (Now, my main concern is that they were probably made in China out of antifreeze.)
This would have nothing to do with obesity rates? Only the “sorry” US healthcare system?
Asshats.
BTW, everyone head over to Urban Dictionary and give lots and lotsa thumbs-up for my Sadly, No! entry!!!!111eleventy!
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=sadly%2C+no%21
The fact is, liberels seem to hate the free market and want to trust the state and socialists when they are ill. While, this will not go over while in the Heartland. Health care is a consumber product like any other. If you cannot afford it, then don’t ask Big Daddy State to pay up, just suck it up, I have no pity.
I scrimp and save, but I can never afford to buy a consumber.
What’s with this trackback frenzy?
What’s with this trackback frenzy?
They warned you against the brown acid, but did you listen?
My work here is done.
Yur not gonna drag Pennsyltuckians outta their caves and steal their guns and stop ’em from goin’ to church.
Nosiree!
God, guns,
gays!Hillary!
fucking trackback pelicans.
How do you communicate with someone so stupid they don’t understand that “obesity” is a failure of health care?
Cry Trackback, and let slip the pelicans of spambotic exornation!
Apropos of nothing, am I the only one to find it incredibly amusing that John McCain managed to win with 73% of the PA primary vote? Last man standing, indeed. Dear John, You have been the realistically unchallenged, presumptive nominee for how long? And more than a quarter of the Republican primary voters still don’t want you?
This could indicate an interesting general election.
Is that a pelican in your pants, or are you trackback to see me?
Athiest–Trigeminal Neuralgia. (TN) Thanks for asking;)
examples–interstitial cystitis, irritable bowel syndrome, Crohn’s Disease, Fibromyalgia, Myofascial Pain Syndrome, the list goes on and on. And of course, incessant back problems. That has been almost proven to be cultural in the West. See the works of Dr. John Sarno, or at least the works he cites.
Stress induced illnesses. And now I see commercials for Restless Leg Syndrome. How many people are going to start having that problem now that its existence is known to them? Yesterday I opened the door to the backyard, leaving the screen door shut. My dog, who is actually really intelligent, just couldn’t get it. His desire to go outside since one door was open was overwhelming and he just whimpered and whined. People are the same way, IMHO. Once symptoms are suggested (if not caused by an injury or neurological disorder), people start having them. Many people have now gotten rid of back pain by just learning that this has become an acceptable problem to have. Being unable to deal with stress in life? That is not yet acceptable in our society, though you wouldn’t know it from the drug sales related to stress problems–and the emergence of what are likely stress related syndromes. Possibly even my TN.
Gary, you little fucktard, my parents played the game, OK? My Dad was basically third in command at a MAJOR U.S. corporation. Excellent health care. Then he died of a brain tumor. After that, this corp. pulled the excuse that he had died 90 days before “permanent benefits” kicked in, leaving my Mom and brother with NO HEALTH INSURANCE. My Mom still has none until she becomes eligible for Medicare. The company logic was that she was left with enough $$$ to buy her own health care. The problem was, a woman in her mid-50s with high blood pressure isn’t eligible for any health care programs. No one would take her!
Ahh, when you care to send the very best. They treated my Dad very well. I shouldn’t bitch. But then I see a Gary Ruppert comment and I go through the roof. You little bastard, I dare you to climb the lovely Capitalist ladder as deftly as my family has only to end up with no health care. Gary, fuck off. Now.
Fuck these fucking trackbacks.
The fact is, America has the best health care in the world. If you can’t afford it and get sick, just shut up and leave. We love it here in the Heartland, like everything else about our freedom and our great nation, unlike liberal eleitists who whine and want terrorists to impose Shania Law.
I for one look forward to my Shania Law overlords.
Jesus Christ, you finally get the windows to quit sticking and your apartment fills up with bees.
I blame Hitlery.
Is there some reason why you can’t just disable “TrackBack” ? From what I’ve read Both sites have to have it enabled for the links to be generated.
[…] We can haz nu post pleez?? […] mucho pronto like maybeez […] Kthxbye […]
Ooh my little Gary R., Gary R.
When you gonna give me some time, Sharia?
Ooh you make my motor run, my motor run.
Gun it comin’ off the line Sharia
Never gonna stop, Gary R..
Such a dirty mind. Always get it up for the touch
of the younger kind. My my my i yi woo. M M M My Sharia…
Come a little closer huh, ah will ya huh.
Close enough to look in my eyes, Sharia.
Keeping it a mystery gets to me
Running down the length of my thighs, Sharia
Never gonna stop, Gary R. Such a dirty mind.
Always get it up for the touch
of the younger kind. My my my i yi woo. M M M My Sharia…
When you gonna give it to me, Gary R..
It is just a matter of time Sharia
Is it just destiny, destiny?
Or is it just a game in my mind, Sharia?
Never gonna stop,Gary R..
Such a dirty mind. Always get it up for the touch
of the younger kind. My my my i yi woo. M M M My Sharia…
The fact is, we here in The Heartland appreciate trackbacks, as it gives us other opportunities to click links and debate how you liberals are ruining the country and will lose in November. Trackbacks and cheesesteaks are the way of The Heartland, which Hussein is unable to even comprehend because he’s an elitist, unlike David Brooks who has the pulse of the nation, or Thoms Sowell who more people should be like.
Yeah that figures, Gary…
I can’t tell the difference between the real Gary and Gary parodies. I’ve just decided to assume they’re all parodies.
can’t tell the difference between the real Gary and Gary parodies. I’ve just decided to assume they’re all parodies.
Garodies?
America is, however, easily Number One in trackback spam and trolling.
And incarceration.
Especially if you count Gary’s Midwest as one big isolation camp. Apparently in Midwest Ruppertland, the proles just LOVE to get used up for their corporate overlords and tossed aside when they break, like a cheap stapler from Walmart.
Plus they get to watch with love and amusement while their corporate and governmental masters get to enjoy all the finest things in life while the Garys are being denied life, liberty, and health….
It truly seems like a horrid place, and I’m glad I live in a different Heartland.
Gary Ruppert,
But the problem with America’s health insurance system is that even if you CAN afford the best insurance plans, they will NOT sell one to you that will cover “pre-existing” conditions.
They will not cover past a certain amount (say $200,000). They cut you off and you have to pay those bills yourself.
Only the top 1% of all Americans can afford to pay those ind of bills out of their own pockets.
I haven’t had insurance since I was 18. I am now 42. I have no health issues, I don’t smoke, and have no ‘pre-existing’ conditions.
Not one single insurance company will take me on, they do not even quote me a price. Or if they do it’s $2000 a month (just for me and not my wife and children). Since I make just over $30K a year, just how am I supposed to have health care?
By your logic no one that makes less than $200,000 should be allowed to receive health care.
Just how is this the “Best” system in the world?
“Responding to a questionnaire late last year by the Boston Globe, Sens. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) made clear their view that Bush has gone too far in issuing signing statements — but that there are circumstances in which such statements are necessary.
“The problem with this administration is that it has attached signing statements to legislation in an effort to change the meaning of the legislation, to avoid enforcing certain provisions of the legislation that the President does not like, and to raise implausible or dubious constitutional objections to the legislation,” Obama answered. But, he added: “No one doubts that it is appropriate to use signing statements to protect a president’s constitutional prerogatives.”
In her own Globe questionnaire, Clinton made a similar point about legal issues. “I would only use signing statements in very rare instances to note and clarify confusing or contradictory provisions, including provisions that contradict the Constitution,” she wrote. “My approach would be to work with Congress to eliminate or correct unconstitutional provisions before legislation is sent to my desk.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/24/AR2008022401995.html
Earlier I said:
“Both have promised to continue to allow US-based merc armies to be deployed here and abroad with immunity from prosecution when they murder civilians.”
Here is the link:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080317/scahill
“A senior foreign policy adviser to leading Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has told The Nation that if elected Obama will not “rule out” using private security companies like Blackwater Worldwide in Iraq. The adviser also said that Obama does not plan to sign on to legislation that seeks to ban the use of these forces in US war zones by January 2009, when a new President will be sworn in. Obama’s campaign says that instead he will focus on bringing accountability to these forces while increasing funding for the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security, the agency that employs Blackwater and other private security contractors.”
Please note that Sen Clinton was for Blackwater until only two months ago, when she suddenly switched, for political expediency, to claiming she was against Blackwater. I don’t believe her for a second, since Blackwater was fine when Clinton was President, and don’t forget that Mark Penn works for Blackwater (through Burson-Marsteller) to make sure they are never held accountable to the law.
Clinton and Obama are Republicans in disguise. Plain and simple.
A Real Democrat would say, “Signing statements are clearly unconstitutional and I will never use them. I will also call on Congress to pass legislation to make it very clear that signing statements are wrong.”
A Real Demcrat would say, “Mercenary armies have no place in this modern world. One of my first acts as President will be to replace all mercenary armies with regular forces. At the earliest opportunity I will direct my Sec of Commerce to revoke the charters of all mercenary armies headquartered in the US, and start prosecutions of all executives of mercenary armies based in the US for mass murder.” I will also work with Congress to make sure that private corporate entities are not able to set up their own paramilitary forces. (see InfraGard).
A Real Democrat would say, “I will immediately withdraw US forces from nations that the US has occupied and promise to never start a war of naked aggression as former President Bush has done.”
Obama has promised to not remove troops from Iraq, and Clinton has promised to nuke Iran, so obviously neither of them are Democrats.
I don’t think that they aren’t Real Democrats, but rather that the Democratic Party isn’t really particularly liberal. Personally, neither party really represents my beliefs — that said, the Democrats are the closer of the two, and are far less odious than the Republicans, so I vote strategically. I view my vote less as a vote for a candidate, more like a vote against Grandpa Simpson.
This was more serious than usual for me…um…BOOBIES!!!!
Comrade Rutherford –
Thanks for the link. Disappointing responses indeed.
Apropos of nothing, am I the only one to find it incredibly amusing that John McCain managed to win with 73% of the PA primary vote? Last man standing, indeed.
The TPM tracker I read said 16% of the Republicans voted for Ron Paul and the other 11% for Huckabee. Presumably, the Huckabee voters hope that Old John will tap Arkansas’ Elmer Gantry for VP, which makes perfect sense since they are good evangelicals who believe in miracles. As for the Paulistas, well, I’m told it’s rude to use the term “cult” when discussing politics, but I don’t think Dr. Ron’s brave defenders are going to vote for McPain in November, either.
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