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:: For some reason, though, conservatives and libertarians like to pretend that these basic rules don't exist when it comes to health care, that if we just did away with Medicare, Medicaid, and various regulations, the market would somehow magically produce affordable medical care and health insurance for everyone, including the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions. It is difficult to overstate how divorced from reality this fantasy is.
:: The glory of Tim’s is that everybody in Canada is familiar with it and it’s okay food; CEOs eat Tim’s donuts as often as their plant workers do. You show up at work and no matter what type of work you do or how important your job is, once or twice a week somebody brings a box of Tim’s donuts for everybody. I’ve been to law firms that have their own enormous, well-staffed kitchens with private menus - and they have empty Tim’s boxes in the lounge. Always. (Woe to the Buffalo commuter whose route involves driving past a Tim Hortons!)
:: I mourn the volume of human life being wasted on this thing. If the film makes $100 million this weekend and tickets cost $10 a pop, that’s ten million viewers and a total of twenty-five million hours, not including previews, travel and the time spent earning the wasted money. If the average person lives to be 75, that’s 38 lives. This seems to me a crime, but even more deeply do I fear the thought of impressionable young minds being subjected to Fallen’s imagination-obliterating, standard-lowering disease—who knows how far the implications of this disaster will reach? With its grade Z humor, dearth of wit and ass-backwards ideological simplicity, this movie has been made with nothing but children in mind—more so the 36-year-old kind than the six-year-old kind, but children nevertheless—in that most contemptuous, “they don’t deserve better” of ways. Showing this thing to young eyes is to deliberately spawn a cinematic crack baby. (Few things are more fun to read than a viscerally negative review!)
:: I think there’s a subtext to “We Built This City” that says, Look at all those dreams we had, all that work we did, we were trying to change rock forever, and look what it’s all turned into. Deeply sad and ironic.
:: A B.S. in Kenny Rogers prepares the student for a wide variety of life situations. (One of my better moments as a restaurant manager came when one of my servers was sitting down in the dining room, talking to a regular customer. She was idly counting her tips at the time, so I came up and looked all agitated and said, "Annie, what are you doing?" She looked up at me in horror, thinking she's getting yelled at for sitting down, whereupon I said, "You never count your money while you're settin' at the table! There'll be time enough for countin' when the dealin's done!" Yep, that's how clever I was. Boo-yeah!)
:: One wouldn't think of Spackling a three-bedroom, two-bathroom house as a big job, but when the house has been lived in only by college students for the past ten years, the picture changes. Remember when we were that age? Remember all of the posters, mementos, calendars, and greeting cards we stuck to our walls? (Wow, do I. Yeesh.)
All for this week.
The personal blog of author Kelly Sedinger, chronicling the adventures of one overalls-clad wanderer.
8 comments:
ELECTIVE SURGERY. Ain't gonna happen in a govt run system.
Need a new knee, the current one is still working, painful sure, but still working. You can wait.
Instead of looking at countries that supplement their health care system with the U.S. system (i.e. England and Canada) look at countries where people have no option but what their country offers. Take Hungary for example where my mother in law had to wait 4 months for a cat scan.
As the author, Anonymous Liberal pointed out "childish kind of magical thinking" exists but it is with those who think a bunch of bureaucrats will don superhero costumes if only given more power.
I am not done with my rant.
Shall we compare the government run post office with the privately run company Federal Express or UPS? Does the post office provide a better, cheaper service? NO
Do you remember the old Lilly Tomlin routine about the phone company? Back when Ma Bell was the only phone company around we all understood her line "We can do it because we are the phone company". Back then innovation was sparse and costs were high. Now innovation is astounding and costs are offered in a range depending on what you want. Basic phone service through vonage around $25 a month and cell service through pay as you go.
Lets look at areas where the government is in complete control. How efficient is say your local drivers license bureau?
More specifically to the point of health care. Ever been to a VA hospital? Compare it your local hospital and honestly assess the difference.
In Serbia where they have government run health care (again not a country where people regularly hop on a plane and have the money or other access to American health care) you must bring your own bed linen and food if you are going to be at the hospital overnight. Those with extra money can get state of the art care, but it is at PRIVATE, FOR PROFIT testing centers. These places have sprung up all over the place for things like MRI's, blood tests etc. I saw this with my own eyes.
My wife is a nurse and was raised under communism/socialism. Michael Moore should have interviewed people like her for real perspective on this issue.
Whew, I feel better thank you
"Instead of looking at countries that supplement their health care system with the U.S. system (i.e. England and Canada) look at countries where people have no option but what their country offers."
So your argument is to point out the deficiencies of systems that are completely unrelated to the system being proposed in the US. Nice. "Hey honey, we shouldn't buy this two-door hatchback hybrid because SUVs really suck."
Also:
"Shall we compare the government run post office with the privately run company Federal Express or UPS? Does the post office provide a better, cheaper service? NO"
Mailing a letter from Rochester, NY to the Bay Area, CA:
USPS: $0.44.
FedEx: $9.50
UPS: Somewhere between $4.57 and $5.48.
Yes, I would say that the USPS can provide a cheaper service. Plus when you add in the fact that blue dropboxes are EVERYWHERE, making it quite easy to post my letter, I'd give the nod for "better" to the USPS as well.
I know of another government-run organization that works at less-than-perfect efficiency; the police department. Let's do away with that waste of taxpayer money as well.
"I know of another government-run organization that works at less-than-perfect efficiency; the police department. Let's do away with that waste of taxpayer money as well."
You really can't fathom an alternative can you? Go to San Diego and look around the down town area. Very safe, people are out at all hours of the night. I rode the trolley with my wife and kid late at night and felt very safe.
Why? Because there was a guy sitting there with a badge and a gun. He was not a cop though, but a private security officer. Looking around downtown they were all over the place. Rarely did I see a cop.So your argument is to point out the deficiencies of systems that are completely unrelated to the system being proposed in the US. After asking around it seems the police there are now in supervisory positions and investigations while private security is paroling. ITS CHEAPER AND MORE EFFICIENT. The apparent road block to implementing this in places like Cleveland or Buffalo? Unions perhaps?
Your post office example is lame especially when you accuse me of comparing apples to oranges. Yes, we all mail letters regularly. Oh, wait, its 2009. We email letters that's right and mail PACKAGES. Wanna compare that service? The post office is a great place to send your bulk, junk mail and a great place to support thousands of government workers for delviering it.
So your argument is to point out the deficiencies of systems that are completely unrelated to the system being proposed in the US. Completely unrelated?!
That is rich. Government run health care is what we originally were talking about. I know The President is proposing something that includes private insurance. How the hell is that supposed to work? Yeah, compete with the government. They will play fair. They have almost the same motive: The private companies want profit and the governement want's votes.
Some responses: firstly, I don't care one whit about health care in Serbia or Hungary. If the United States, as the wealthiest country in the world, can't do better than relatively poor Eastern European countries, then why have health care at all? France kicks our ass in health care, by virtually any measure: health outcomes, cost, spectrum of insured, you name it.
Second: elective surgery happens all the time in countries with national health care systems. This objection is just silly. Maybe you're confusing "long wait times" in some countries (not all) with "never happening at all", but that's your confusion, not mine. No knees ever get replaced in Germany? No hips in France? Really? My son had elective surgery, paid for by Medicaid. Damn that government!
Third: VA Hospitals? Wow, they really suck!
Fourth: UPS versus the USPS? I'm sure UPS is better for some things -- there's a reason why many businesses use UPS, obviously. But it's not a slam dunk. I've just looked up the cost of overnighting a 5 lb. package from my town to Hillsboro, OR, and guess what: the cheapest UPS option to get it there by Wednesday costs more than the most expensive USPS option to do the same thing. And honestly, I've never had a problem with the USPS that was unique to the USPS. That comparison is a non-starter -- and besides, the industries involved are completely different. Just trotting out a dog-and-pony show of government agencies you don't much like in order to illustrate that all government agencies suck is pretty useless.
Yeah, we're done here.
You know if we just all lowered our expectations we could all be alot happier. This should be the opening line of any bureaucratic manifesto.
Here is a newer VA reference:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/04/AR2007030401394.html
This goes to my point about Government run health care. Regardless of how great the surgery is the true test of treatment is outpatient care.
As far as elective surgery is concerned, I think "eventually" and "never" become synonymous to the trash collector with a busted knee or hip. Elecitve surgery wait times is a huge problem being minimized by those trumpeting nationalized health care. Think who you know matters? Probably?
We can learn a lot from countries like Serbia and Hungary. Namely, HOW TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM RATIONALLY. These countries like many others around the world have found great ways to trim waste. Why do hospitals require new x rays and or lab work from a person who was just transferred from a hospital across town with a full xray or lab work up in hand? Because they are afraid of getting sued by the freaking lawyers. There is our problem: Waste and lawyers. Lets have accountability and tort reform then we will have a real solution.
And where do trash collectors get the money to pay for the elective surgeries which they get immediately in our wonderful system? Come on. You're really reaching here. You said above that elective surgeries won't happen. Clearly they do. Kindly give up this talking point -- especially when you're arguing from the "Hey, just go to the ER!" side of the fence on this issue.
Secondly, the article you cite doesn't establish anything about "government-run health care". If it did, it would be demonstratively true that our health care is significantly better and cheaper than many other countries that actually do have heavy government involvement in their health care. This simply isn't true. If the market is best, then where is the industrial country in the world with awesome and cheap health care based on a purely market-driven model? There is no such country. I wonder why.
Finally, I'm not convinced by the article you linked. First off, Walter Reed isn't even a VA hospital. Second, I notice a general lack of figures and data in the article in favor of a heavy reliance on anecdotes from people who perceived that their care sucked. Color me unconvinced. I'll tell you some horror stories about our experiences in non-governmental hospitals. So what?
And I'm not in the least bit interested in tort reform, as I am utterly unconvinced that this is in any way a serious issue.
"and where do trash collectors get the money to pay for the elective surgeries which they get immediately in our wonderful system?" YES, excellent point. This is the problem in our current system: access. I am not saying our system is perfect. I never have, I am only saying that running whole hog toward socialism will decrease availability via a vain attempt to increase access.
Our trash collector may not be able to afford a new knee but at least it is available if he can garner the funds from other sources. Under a socialized system it may not be available at all depending on his age or other circumstances. Right now we are beholden to corporate bureaucrats who are kept in check by government bureaucrats. If we let the government run the show they decide everything and no one is left to keep them in check.
How can you say tort reform is not necessary when every time you turn on the TV an ambulance chaser is screaming back at you? When Doctors are giving up practices because malpractice insurance is too high?
You know what real tort reform is? Lawyers suing each other for malpractice. That is true justice.
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