healthcare
gregladen | September 15, 2009But when Conservatives for Patients Rights, an anti-health care organization, made a commercial designed to scare Americans into opposing heath care reform, they lied to various Canadians and tricked them into making the Canadian system look bad. The same organization did the same thing earlier with the British health care system.
Heres the ad:
YOU LIE!!!!!
Here's the truth.
mikethemadbiologist | September 15, 2009My colleagues have all heard of the Mad Biologist's Rule of Base Ten Numbers: when you see too many numbers that end with zero, become skeptical. That's because only one in ten numbers should do should end in zero. So, if you read news reports that routinely say, "Today, American forces blew the crap out of [number that ends with zero] enemy forces" (and with a globe-spanning garrison empire, we do read a lot of those, don't we?), nobody has a good idea what actually happened.
Likewise, if you're reading a grant proposal and each treatment will be done ten times, there probably hasn't been…
grrlscientist | September 15, 2009tags: CIGNA, health insurance, medical care, health care, Edward Hanway, denial of care, health care rationing, streaming video
CIGNA Chairman and CEO, Edward Hanway, spends his holidays in a $13 million beach house in New Jersey. Meanwhile, regular Americans are routinely denied coverage for the care they need when they need it most.
Welcome to the American health insurance industry. Instead of helping policyholders attain the health security they need for their families, big insurance companies get rich by denying coverage to patients. Now theyre sending lobbyists to Washington, DC to twist…
mikethemadbiologist | September 11, 2009One of the things that everyone has been talking about, including Obama, is slowing the growth in healthcare costs, what some have called 'bending the curve' (and if we bend it, will we Bend It Like Beckham?). But consider these per capita healthcare expenditure data from the OECD:
In case you missed, let me make this a little clearer:
Other than Canada and Norway, every other country in the OECD spends less than half of what we do per capita. And before someone starts talking about higher incomes in the U.S., Denmark has a higher median income than the U.S., but half the per capita…
mikethemadbiologist | September 10, 2009Needless to say, I'm not happy with Obama's healthcare proposal. Before I get into this, I want to make something clear: my opposition is due to experience, not ideology. If it appeared (or better, if there were evidence) that putting on a pink mumu, whirling a rubber chicken around our heads, and singing the Star Spangled Banner would make a good healthcare system, then rubber chickens, mumus, and singing lessons all around.
But what Obama proposed is what we're living through in Massachusetts. And it's, at best, a modest improvement--it's more 'chang-iness' than significant change.…
gregladen | September 10, 2009... And he has apologized. He actually called the White House to apologize, and the apology was accepted by a high ranking staff member and presumably conveyed to the president.
I just saw him speak of the "apology." If that was an apology, I'm the Queen of England.
NBC report below the fold.
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
What do you think. Do we still take him down?
gregladen | September 9, 2009Here's the whole thing:
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
John Dingell's Wikipedia page is here.
mikethemadbiologist | September 9, 2009One problem with the Blue Dog Democrats is that they're corrupt, venial, and cowardly. Sadly, there's not much to be done about that. Another problem, and usually much less noticed, is that many of them are dumber than a fucking sack of hammers, with a good dash of ignorance to boot. Certainly, they have never heard of viral marketing. More about that in a bit.
When thinking about reelection, most Blue Dogs still seem to be focused on traditional fundraising, although a couple probably realize that they could get some money through the intertubes. Let's not be naive about the role of…
grrlscientist | September 9, 2009tags: Obama, health care, AFL-CIO, Labor Day, politics, streaming video
This is a clip of President Barack Obama speaking at the annual AFL-CIO Labor Day Picnic. In this clip he is addressing the cynics and naysayers regarding healthcare reform.
If I am not mistaken, being poor, unemployed or homeless are felonies in the eyes of the GOP, so those Americans who dare commit such horrible crimes deserve nothing less than death.
gregladen | September 3, 2009Dusty Trice has some brilliant reporting. Here's his film:
Read his detailed report and analysis here.
I love this: The woman who asks the opening question seems to assume that the general population is behind her. Love the way she says "Obama" ... reminds me of how southerners used to say a different word back in the old days. Then, I love the way she stands there dumbfounded when actual conversation happens.
mikethemadbiologist | September 3, 2009Well, now we've reached flat out thuggery. He must be a moderate: he only punched him in the face, he didn't shoot him in the face. From Miami:
A 65-year-old man rallying in favor of healthcare reform was knocked to the ground by a man who disagreed with the call for a government-run health plan outside of a Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce meeting headlined by Sen. Bill Nelson.
Luis Perrero of Coral Gables was standing among about 40 Democratic activists and union workers when a man in a Ford pick-up truck pulled up to the rally at Jungle Island and began arguing with the crowd. The man,…
gregladen | September 2, 2009...all you need to do to not die from the flu is to "eat healthy" and take lots of vitamins. If you eat healthy and take lots of vitamins and get the flu, your lymph nodes will swell up a little but that's all....
...Addicts totally made their own decision to become addicted and then become thieves because they needed a fix. If I have to exercise my constitutional rights and shoot this addict breaking into my home, then so be it. That is not my problem....
... and so on ...
I couldn't help it. I wrote a raving political rant over at Quiche Moraine.
mikethemadbiologist | September 2, 2009I'll have more to say about the first part of the post header tomorrow (hopefully), but this exchange between Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner, a proponent of a Medicare-for-All public option, and CNBC reporter Maria Bartiromo is mind-boggling:
At one point, Bartiromo was critical of the government-managed health care system in the United Kingdom. "How do I know the quality [of health care in the United States] is not going to suffer" with a public option? she asked.
Rep. Weiner reminded her that there already is government-managed health care in the United States -- namely, Medicare,…
gregladen | September 1, 2009So I'm standing there at the Al Franken booth at the State Fair chatting with a volunteer and this run of the mill Minnesotan working or middle class looking couple comes along and says hi. Another volunteer starts to say "would you like to..." and the woman cuts her off and says "No, we're AGAINST that!" pointing to a petition favoring health care reform.
I reeled and was about to slam the bitch but I held myself back at the last second and watched the volunteer handle it. Well, OK, I wasn't really going to slam her, but when I saw her "Keep your hands off our health care" button, heard…
mikethemadbiologist | August 31, 2009Republican Dick Armey supports an option to enroll in Medicare. Which isn't socialism. Or something.Hunh? Dick Armey in an interview with The Economist:
If you in fact freely choose to enroll in Medicare that's a wonderful gift, it's a charity, it's something I applaud. But when they force you in, that's tyranny.
That's what the strongest version of the public option--Medicare for All--would entail. You have a choice between private plans and a public one.
[jaw hits floor]
The incoherence from the right is staggering, although still effective.
I CAN HAS FREEDOM NOW?
mikethemadbiologist | August 30, 2009Hunter has a succinct summary of the Romneycare the proposed healthcare legislation coming out of the more conservative committees (italics original):
But a trade of mandated purchase of a for-profit, private product in exchange for a meager promise to not abuse customers is -- let's all say it together, for good measure -- goddamned asinine. The government of the United States should not have to bargain to get an abusive industry to be slightly less abusive. What a fucking insulting thought. Especially when (1) the industry in question has a historical pattern of rampant customer abuse, and…
gregladen | August 29, 2009I did not go to the Michele Bachmann "town hall" meeting yesterday because of a schedule conflict (I was out of town) but there is some news. Check out the last few posts on Dump Michele Bachmann blog. There is evidence, apparently, that Bachmann supporters were bussed in to pack the room. I've heard from two other private sources, one from inside and one from outside, that there were mostly supporters inside and mostly anti-Bachmann people outside.
I expect there to be a couple of good blog posts out about this in the next day or so, and I'll point to them if I find out about them. Add…