In a piece titled “Calm, but Moved to Be Heard on Health Care” at the NY Times, we learn the following:
He skipped the antiwar protests of his college years, took a job as a regional salesman of paper and chemical products, and built for himself a quiet life of family and church (and hunting and fishing) in his rural hometown in southwest Georgia.
But on Thursday, Mr. Collier drove more than an hour down Route 19 to attend a health care forum in Albany, Ga., being held by his congressman, Representative Sanford D. Bishop Jr., a Democrat serving his ninth term.
To his wife’s astonishment, as the session drew into its third hour, Mr. Collier rose to take the microphone and firmly, but courteously, urged Mr. Bishop to oppose the health care legislation being written in Washington.
He told Mr. Bishop that his wife of 36 years had survived breast cancer through early detection and treatment, and that he feared that her care would be rationed if the disease returned.
I wonder why they think that? Where could they have gotten those ideas? Oh:
The Colliers are committed conservatives who have voted Republican in presidential elections since 1980. They receive much of their information from Fox News, Rush Limbaugh’s radio program and Matt Drudge’s Web site.
What a bizarre coincidence. You know what would be awesome? If there was this thing called a newspaper, maybe even an allegedly liberal one, like, say, the NY Times, who when describing people like the Colliers and their irrational fears in long stories, would take a paragraph, just a paragraph, to point out that their fears are completely unfounded and that no bill has any rationing plans. That would be, you know, awesome.
And what is even sadder is that the rest of the article points out why they should be strong, strong advocates of reform. Instead, they are opposing the only other game in town because of the power of the mighty Wurlitzer and the misinformation campaign from the right.
Time to break out the foam fingers, again. USA! USA! USA!
*** Update ***
Also, this. When did Rupert Murdoch buy the Times?
JHF
It’s a bitch, ain’t it? Democracy doesn’t seem to work when one side consistently lies. Nobody calls foul except dirty fucking hippie bloggers who don’t fact-check.
freelancer
Why do you hate America John? It’s almost like you’re saying Americans aren’t doing a good enough job. America was built by Americans, with that hard-working American Spirit. We are the best country in the world, and we have the 1st and 2nd amendment, also. We have a free press. We have freedom to speech. We have freedom to bring guns to speeches. It is amazing.
General Winfield Stuck
Shit, I’d pay good money to get criticized by this crew. Wingnut first teamers one and all.
I smell a Douchehat
SiubhanDuinne
Good for Fallows. I’ve always had a soft spot for him. Too bad about the company he keeps . . . .
El Cid
That’s all very easy for you to say, but *you* weren’t the one who had to spend his evenings exploring the cave tunnels of Georgia searching for the magic crystals which would prevent Obama the Kenyan mystic from using his powers to reach back in time and ration health care away from his wife — a task which only Fox News and Reader’s Digest helped him with, not your damn liberal big city New York Times.
binzinerator
These people have already euthanized their own brains, what can they afraid of now?
OMG. They’re zombies. Fuckin’ conservative zombies. And they just won’t die.
smiley
Come on. There’s no way those people or their fellow travelers will ever come into contact with the NYT. You answered uour own question in the blockquote.
PeakVT
What, did the country suddenly run out of politicians who need stenographers? Are reporters so desperate to uncritically pass on nonsense that they are seeking out average citizens to transcribe?
Something strange is afoot here.
Makewi
Of course there won’t be rationing, because Obama and the Democrats say there won’t. Hell, they probably even wrote it down somewhere and that should be good enough for you wingnuts.
Maybe even the NY Times isn’t willing to swallow that stinker. Nah, it’s much more likely that the Times has gone over to the dark side.
dom
Of course the bill has no “rationing plans”. Just like the bill has no plans
for the government take-over of healthcareto nationalize health insurance But it doesn’t mean they won’t happen.And most likely it would. In order to keep costs down—in fact, the ONLY way to keep costs down—will be by rationing. New drugs, complex and expensive treatments and procedures, etc. All of it will be rationed in order to keep costs down. It’s the only way that the competition in health care will be “kept honest”—to steal a talking point from the White House and left-wing Democratic soundbites.
But hey, who cares about that? Just keep our head down, STFU, and just swallow whatever our virtuous government gives to us! Free healthcare! Wow!
But…but…SARAH PALIN!
General Winfield Stuck
@binzinerator:
It is eternally baffling to me, especially having grown up in the south (of sorts), how people that are reasonably well educated are so prone to believing such audacious lies.
I’ve thought it could be patriotism, but that doesn’t explain it to the degree it is endemic in this country. Ideology, maybe some, but our recent history has demonstrated clearly the faulty tenants of conservatism. I keep coming back to one thing, something that has the power of enough fear to short circuit otherwise good working order synapses, on a sustained and even belligerent basis. Though tribalism is heavily involved, but what tribe and what is the primal fear that keeps it together?
The one thing, I think, is what some people call Xenophobia, or the more verbish racism. When all else these people believe in turns to shit and they still won’t ask themselves an honest question, even for economic survival, it seems to me that fear of different people is the only thing with that much power. I saw it first hand growing up in the pure WASP hollows of Appalachia, where it is most concentrated, but not the only place it can be found.
HK
I can’t take this anymore. I simply can’t. Outside of drinking, what is there to do with a country filled with know-nothings that believe anything these disgusting, immoral Repub creeps tell them? I give up.
If this country goes to hell we deserve it. That’s it.
handy
If there’s one thing we know we can count on, it’s for the front page of the New York Times to twiddle its proverbial thumbs on the sidelines during the great policy scrimmages.
Trinity
If we don’t pass healthcare reform now, I seriously don’t know if I will ever vote Dem again. As a life-long loyal Democrat, I’m freaked out about that.
Apparently Dems want the terrorists to win.
I mean, they must know this is do-or-die…right? Right?
freelancer
@Makewi:
Is it a complicated process when you unhinge your lower jaw like a snake to better enable you to fellate the Right Wing Puke Funnel without gagging?
Fulcanelli
Psssst, John, foam fingers are so 90’s.
Dude, how long you been a Dem? You oughta to try shining this shit on daily when you’ve been living in the reality based world watching this propaganda work it’s evil magic for over 30 years.
Love the lie, serve the lie, spread the lie. It’s their mantra. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
Good post, love yer blog, how’s Tunch & Lily? My offer’s still good for dinner and drinks if you’re ever in RI.
Makewi
I feel bad for you all, mostly because you feel the need to construct these elaborate reasons why the current incarnation of health care reform is failing and all of which are just plain wrong.
General Winfield Stuck
@freelancer:
This is gawd awful good!
handy
Fixt.
Zifnab
@Makewi:
JUST BECAUSE IT’S NOT IN THE LEGISLATION DOESN’T MEAN IT’S NOT TRU-U-U-U-U-U-U-UE!
Sad, because Makewi is a known spoof, but he manages to nail down the wingnut logic to a T.
wyld_pirate
the US is filled with a bunch of dumb shits who are proud they are dumb shits.
We are well and truly fucked as a country.
handy
@Zifnab:
I suspected. But no one does RW spoofery quite like BOB. He takes it to a whole other level.
Leelee for Obama
Perhaps the glaring fact that there are no plans to do away with private health insurers, even though they have proved themselves to be greedy, miserable rationers of health care dollars should lead the Volk to think perhaps there are no plans afoot to force them to do anything. Perhaps, if their higher brain functions would override their lizard brain default to fear, they would not believe the horseshit being peddled by the likes of Beastly McCaughey.
In a rational, not rationed, world, how has a man who has spent his life trying to cure or at least ameliorate the effects of a killer disease that we all fear become the bad guy in this debate?
The mind reels at this kind of BS, truly, it does. What on earth is wrong with people?
freelancer
@Zifnab:
Spoof? I call Bizarro-Poe’s Law. Spoofs are funny.
Makewi is just an asshole.
Makewi
@freelancer:
Your tears give me hope that a better world is possible. Hey did you hear the one about the Obama administration suspending visa services in Honduras? I guess that’s what you get when you don’t kowtow to the one.
I’m curious though, why does Obama hate democracy so much?
DonkeyKong
“You know, I tried to talk about good roads and good schools and all these things that have been part of my career, and nobody listened. And then I began talking about niggers, and they stomped the floor.”-George Wallace
Yep, tribalism is a bitch!
Fulcanelli
Does Cole pay this Makewi troll to visit to sharpen up the BJ commentariat so when the real turd polishers come by we can keep ’em in the air like a seal with a beach ball for 400-500 comments on a week night?
I can haz lamer trolz? Srsly?
handy
@Makewi:
You’re spelling it wrong. It’s not “the one,” it’s “The One.” Or, “That One” if you’re John McCain.
freelancer
@Makewi:
Because, like Churchhill, he knows that the best argument against it is spending 5 minutes with a prick like you.
General Winfield Stuck
Nope. Makewi is a poorly informed RW troll on assignment to strike fear into the libtard beast. Turned out to be an idiot nuisance with a computer keyboard.
Makewi
@Zifnab:
The laws of supply and demand bend to the will of the written word. Market forces would never go against the might that is the one.
General Winfield Stuck
@Makewi:
Absolutely goddamn right. And don’t you forget it Grasshopper/
dmsilev
@handy:
You do have to worry, though. That much deep-cover spoofery, and BOB may forget how to return to sanity. As Nietzshe said, if you stare into the Wingnut long enough, the Wingnut stares back at you.
-dms
gwangung
They certainly do. As we’ve shown elsewhere, when one side tampers with the flow of information, one CAN jimmy the law of supply and demand.
Tonal Crow
The real problem with that article is its characterization of Collier as “more reasoned” than the screamers. He may be “calmer”, as the article also says, but “more reasoned” is badly misleading.
Makewi
Still, it has to be sad to be a child in Honduras knowing that the captain of um hates him so much.
goblue72
Buried at the very end of this embarrassment of an article is the truth: “I don’t want no stickin’ healthcare going to them shiftless negroes.”
The more the world turns, the more it remains the same.
Mr. Furious
Holy fuck! Who needs FOX News when you have the NY Times running this shit on page A1?
They basically turned over the (arguably) most valuable real estate in the media to an uninformed rube and transcribed his fears about Obama and Democrat administrations in general. He doesn’t even stick to health care—he goes on to make all sorts of bullshit paranoid government expansion rants.
And they didn’t refute or point out the truth about a single one of them.
John S.
All hail Makewi, Lord of the Non Sequitir!
freelancer
@Makewi:
It must be ruinous to be that child’s parent, if the kid has parents, if he wasn’t orphaned by a covert policy under Reagan and Bush in the 80s of perpatrating and aiding genocide in Central and South America.
USA! USA! USA!
Makewi
The world is out to get you guys. Fortunately, the list of people you have to blame for your problems is very, very long.
It’s funny that you might actually accomplish something if you actually understood that just because you don’t find a particular issue a concern, doesn’t mean others don’t. So far, the only solution you have is to demonize them.
So you can call me a troll all you want, because in the world of cranks (and that’s you guys) – the troll is king.
Mr. Furious
And they sent a photographer out there and everything…
Fucking awful.
Anne Laurie
“Tell me where a man gets his corn pone [daily bread], and I’ll tell you where he gets his opinions.” — Mark Twain
General Winfield Stuck
The world don”t surf, motherfucker.
General Winfield Stuck
@Anne Laurie:
LOL!
Anne Laurie
If we’re lucky, and have worked hard enough, Mr. Collier’s grandchildren will one day be doing school reports making fun of his backwards know-nothing agitation against something so eminently sane as national health coverage.
On the other hand, if Certain People don’t stop feeding the vermin, we’re going to end up with troll latrines.
Makewi
@freelancer:
Well then, that makes it fine then. Everyone knows that 2 wrongs make a right. Tell that kid to STFU.
mcd
I {heart} The Guardian … http://bit.ly/3TYlpJ
Funny how a British newspaper can send someone to do this story, but American ones can’t.
Well, maybe funny isn’t the word.
Mr. Furious
@Anne Laurie: Awesome.
But wasn’t Twain just a satirist? The Jon Stewart of his day? His comments don’t really count…
John S.
YEAH!
YEAH!
I love when conservatives go all Glenn Beck with the instantaneous contradiction.
Rosali
Cause and effect is that she was able to get diagnosed and treated early because she had health insurance. I guess the poor suckers who don’t have access to health insurance should just shrivel up and die a painful death and it’s their own damn fault for not having insurance.
freelancer
@Anne Laurie:
But that kid is back on the escalator again!
Mark S.
Geez, Makewi, you’re so prickly tonight. Did you get your meds changed?
You may notice, however, that the Left is not quite as enamored with The ONE as of late, due to rumors of a menage a trois involving the President, Senator Baucus, and the insurance companies. You shouldn’t be surprised if it is the liberals who derail the health plan, not the Republicans who were never going to vote for it in the first place.
General Winfield Stuck
Trolls coming around on their own volition, not feeding them will work. I still think Makewi is here on assignment and ignoring him/her won’t work all that well// I could be wrong, it wouldn’t be the first time/
Makewi
@John S.:
Yeah, it’s best if you keep demonizing your opponents. Not only will it help you get booted from power faster, it will keep you from enacting some of your more statist impulses.
freelancer
@General Winfield Stuck:
You think maybe Bill Dembski sent him?
http://sensuouscurmudgeon.wordpress.com/2009/08/11/william-dembski-godfather-of-trolls/
Makewi
I can be reasonable. If the majority of you don’t want me to comment here anymore, I’ll leave.
General Winfield Stuck
@freelancer:
Could be. I don’t know. I’ve seen this on other blogs, and generally, someone as thin skinned as Mak. only keeps returning like clockwork after so much abuse, because they are on a mission, or sorts.
Ailuridae
@Makewi:
Umm, weren’t you the same ignoramus who outright lied about insurance pooling and then had me correct you at great length and detail to disappear from the thread.
Why, exactly, should anyone here listen to a person like you about the current state of the health care system or the lack of need for reform?
Tonal Crow
Once again, I feel compelled to point out that we *already have healthcare rationing*. We ration by ability to pay, by whether you are eligible for a group health plan, by whether you have a pre-existing condition, and by whether, when you applied for an individual plan, you told your insurer about every cold you had as a child. We also ration by insurance company fiat — such as when a private bureaucrat decides that she doesn’t want to pay for your cancer therapy.
We ration nine ways from Sunday. And we almost never do it humanely or with adequate consideration of the ethical issues it raises. Instead, we avert our eyes from the plug-pulling that happens every day to instead hyperventilate about hypothetical plug-pulling.
We have become one sick puppy.
KLG
Having grown up in Georgia, I recognize the type by the tasseled loafers and no socks on the porch of his “hunting cabin.” A real dumbass who thinks that sending a letter from Montezuma (btw, a very good Mennonite restaurant there for you travelers on I-75) to Anchorage in a few days for 43 cents is evidence of inefficiency by the Postal Service. As for the IRS, it has been my experience that honest mistakes are met with complete understanding. So, yeah. I’m all for that kind of work by a health care system.
Oh, and methinks Kevin Sack has left off part of his name. Shouldn’t it be Kevin Sack-of-Sh*t?
Makewi
@Ailuridae:
Wait, were you the one who tried to claim that pooling could be accomplished by a single entity? If so, are you trying to claim I lied now? Because that would be sweet. To have someone unwilling or unable to admit error accuse me of lying. That’s like winning the Internet.
Makewi
@Tonal Crow:
Rationing and allocating are different things.
Jay B.
@dom:
And most likely it would. In order to keep costs down—-in fact, the ONLY way to keep costs down—-will be by rationing. New drugs, complex and expensive treatments and procedures, etc. All of it will be rationed in order to keep costs down. It’s the only way that the competition in health care will be “kept honest”—-to steal a talking point from the White House and left-wing Democratic soundbites.
It’s rationed now you fucking tool. And costs AREN’T contained. And your Sky Fairy and your Invisible Hand aren’t doing shit but preventing people from getting care.
Second, you guys act and pretend that there aren’t literally dozens of actual, real world examples of countries which have government-influenced health care, their people live long AND don’t pay as much per capita as we do — while providing better service than most insurance companies.
Do they ration sometimes? Probably. But, again, since you can’t get it through your brainwashed head that insurance companies routinely deny care to people right now, it’s an irrelevant conversation to have.
Chris Johnson
I guess I missed where ‘lazy and irresponsible’ were pre-existing conditions that exempted you from treatment when you are SICK.
Do you also get to drop the lazy and irresponsible off private insurer plans, since these are apparently capital crimes?
How about broadening it- death penalty for if you’re depressing? No wait, we’d have to kill John Cole, no deal. He’ll just have to carry on being a valuable American even if he is sometimes really depressing.
I love how if health care is government run, suddenly it’s not okay unless you decide who is lazy and KILL THEM ;) or more accurately, let them die if they have severe enough health problems.
For God’s sake nobody tell the private insurers, or they WILL cook up some way to invalidate insurance claims based on the idea that you aren’t thinking the right thoughts.
As for Makewi- yes, if you are a spoof, do please go away. Shit got real. We don’t need your noise in the signal.
Makewi
@KLG:
Well, what if the health care service is more like the EPA? How’d that be?
Third Eye Open
Makewi just wants a little attention. Believe it or not, he is a wonderful little imp, all blustery as he does his little penguin walk for the family. What he prolly never told you was that if you scratch him under his second chin, just right, he piddles down his leg.
Ailuridae
@Makewi:
So, stupid. I was the one who explained in detail to you how insurance pooling worked after you ignorantly asserted that insurance pooling could only come from multiple insurance companies pooling resources. You conveniently disappeared from the thread. .
Someone else can find it but its strong evidence you are entirely ignorant of the fact that multiple businesses (say real estate offices) could pool their resources to better allocate risk which is exactly what the public option would do for the self-employed and independent contractors. Erqo, insurance pooling doesn’t need to involve multiple insurance companies. Alternately you could be a malicious liar. Regardless, when you don’t understand basic facts about an issue its tough for me and possibly other commentator to take you seriously. I don’t suffer fools.
Ash Can
@Makewi: You don’t have to leave, just argue in good faith. Back up your opinions with objective factual information that can be corroborated by multiple sources, keeping in mind that ones with obvious biases are suspect to say the least. I know that there are a lot of people here who wouldn’t agree with me, but Church Lady is a good example of someone who argues conservative views in good faith on a regular basis. Watch her and learn.
John T
If we don’t get substantial health care reform this year, I’m going to nominate the U.S.A. for a Darwin Award.
Ailuridae
@Makewi:
What if health care service were more like the VA or Medicare both of which hand private insurance their ass on efficiency, effectiveness, satisfaction and cost containment? How about comparing apples to apples, junior?
Tonal Crow
@Makewi:
1. Those are, of course, two different words denoting same process: determining who gets care and who gets her plug pulled.
2. I seem to remember that trollberry is your favorite pie. Do you like any others? Maybe whipped corn syrup infused with a Limbaugh-cheese reduction?
General Winfield Stuck
Church Lady and Makewi pairing up. Lord hep us.
YellowJournalism
As someone who watched a relative slowly die from cancer because he didn’t have insurance and didn’t want to be a financial burden on his family (didn’t let anyone know he had cancer until it was too late), I find people like the Colliers to be just as bad, if not worse, than the sceamers. Yes, they’re calmer, but they’re of the “I got mine” mentality and are just repeating the lies spewed by the far right. Maybe if there’d been a public option back then or even, lord forbid, national health care, my uncle might be alive today to see his grandchildren grow up.
I also just recently witnessed one of my in-laws battles with cancer here in Canada. He was diagnosed, went through treatments, and had surgery all in a span of six months. Just released from the hospital, he’s getting home nurse visits to help him adjust to the changes he’s experienced. Damn socialists.
Makewi
@Ailuridae:
Interesting that you don’t suffer fools, since you clearly are one. Your problem, apparently is that you don’t understand that words have discrete meaning. Provide a link to your supposed schooling.
Midnight Marauder
@Ash Can:
You don’t have to leave, just argue in good faith. Back up your opinions with objective factual information that can be corroborated by multiple sources, keeping in mind that ones with obvious biases are suspect to say the least. I know that there are a lot of people here who wouldn’t agree with me, but Church Lady is a good example of someone who argues conservative views in good faith on a regular basis. Watch her and learn.
Agreed. HOWEVER, since none of the things you just discussed will ever come from a post written by Makewi, it is entirely inapplicable.
I can be reasonable.
You have failed to demonstrate as much during your most recent escapade in inanity.
If the majority of you don’t want me to comment here anymore, I’ll leave.
You already know the answer to that question, most likely. Really, there was no reason for you to write another post after hitting “Submit” when you penned that little ditty.
General Winfield Stuck
Maybe you should do the same genius. And I thought you were leaving? If you can’t find the door, someone will show it to you.
dom
That’s right. Because the best way to “reform” healthcare is to promise
forty acres and a mulefree goodies to the uninsured, while insisting that it will all be deficit neutral and not inflate the budget—all while increasing the quality of care and “keeping the insurance companies honest”. This despite the fact that the CBO is the only one keeping the administration and Democrats honest by insisting how ludicrous and financially ruinous these “responsible” reform initiatives really are.I thought the Democrats entered the 21st century and came up with new policies and proposals that don’t require promising free stuff with no reprecussions on anything? Guess I was wrong…
But hey, teabaggers!!
Makewi
@Ash Can:
How about I enjoy the same level of proof as the rest you you enjoy. Which is to say, by assertion alone?
Or do you have facts to back up how this is all the fault of the out of power GOP?
Makewi
@General Winfield Stuck:
Your like the angry hall monitor of this joint right?
Midnight Marauder
@dom:
I thought the Democrats entered the 21st century and came up with new policies and proposals that don’t require promising free stuff with no reprecussions on anything? Guess I was wrong…
Yep. You were.
Ailuridae
@Makewi:
https://balloon-juice.com/?p=25567#comment-1334686
One of us has actually had to organize an insurance buying pool and one of us is you. Now, shut your pie hole.
Corner Stone
@HK:
“Outside of drinking”…”OUTSIDE OF DRINKING”??
WTF is wrong with you, you repentant scum?
Get the fuck outta my sight. You’re dead to me.
oh really
What the Times did was run a companion piece, with its link just below the introductory paragraph (outside of the main article’s content), that explains that experts say there is unlikely to be rationing.
Of course, that information belonged inside the main article with a link from there to the article about the lack of rationing.
What they did was not the best way to do it, since many people probably won’t notice the second link, and even those who do may not open it and read what the experts say. I imagine they would defend themselves by pointing out the existence of the second link.
I don’t know if the second article appeared simultaneously with the first, but it showed up fairly soon afterward.
General Winfield Stuck
@Makewi:
I am hardly the only one who is tired of your mendacious bullshit. You aren’t here to debate, but to disrupt as much as possible. You and your belief system are total shit. You have screwed up this country from being in power the past 30 years and now your here to try and rewrite history and demand proof of your failing. . Angry. No. Just blunt.
Makewi
@Ailuridae:
The reason you are an idiot, is two-fold. First, I was already gone from that thread by the time you posted your comment, so it hardly constitutes me “running away” and second, and even more importantly, you aren’t arguing the same topic I was. Here is my first comment, and you see if you can figure out how the topic is different than what you were describing. I will give you points for taking the wrongness of those that came before you to a grander level.
Ailuridae
Crickets. How fucking predicatable?
Makewi
@General Winfield Stuck:
You live in a fantasy world. I haven’t ever been in power.
Makewi
@Ailuridae:
No, try harder. In what way is what you describe fundamentally different than what I was talking about when I started that topic. Take your time. No points will be awarded for angry evasions.
Ailuridae
@Makewi:
Cripes you are a disingenuous little shit.
https://balloon-juice.com/?p=25567#comment-1334620
That’s the link to the post I responded to and here is the text of that post:
@Andrew:
One agency cannot pool. A pool would necessitate the inclusion of more than one insurer. Which I spelled out in my initial question. Maybe you should read more carefully in the future.
You have no idea what insurance pooling is clearly
Here is a link to the google results for insurance pool.
http://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1CHNG_enUS334US334&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=insurance+pool
You will notice the first ten results are all from state’s regarding high risk individuals, health insurance and a single state fucking entity. Therefore you ignorant fucking statement that “One agency cannot pool. A pool would necessitate the inclusion of more than one insurer” is incorrect. Now, again, shut your damn pie hole.
Xenos
Feh, maybe he is thinking of reinsurance. A pool is a pool is a pool. Can be small, can be big, I suppose it could involve more than one insurance company. I can’t think why that would ever make sense from and industry perspective.
Is anybody reinsuring any more now that AIG has buggered up the industry?
General Winfield Stuck
@Makewi:
By your own words you are here representing them. The GOP that was in power and now is not. The one that left the mess we now have.
Ailuridae
@Makewi:
No, dumbass. What you failed to understand that Andrew and everyone else was talking about the pooling of risk on the side of the buyer while you ignorantly presumed it could only exist on the side of the insurer. You then tried to lecture other people from a point of extreme ignorance. Anyone can read the posts in question: its clear you don’t have an earthly clue about health care and its equally evident that I do. Now, again, shut your pie hole.
Elie
Ach…but while it is wonderful that Mrs Collier has done well thus far, depending on her particular disease, she may find herself facing that dreaded recurrence and another 100k or more before back in remission after chemotherapy etc..
Smugness is not something any cancer survivor should feel comfortable displaying. We live from check up to checkup and hope for the best. I have great coverage but cannot even imagin expressing such cock sureness that coverage is a foregone conclusion. I have had several friends, one still living but the other one passed, that were “covered”, so to speak. Both middle and upper class and with resources but still beat up financially and mentally from the encounters with Insurance — especially for rare, experimental care —
Someone should possibly remind the Colliers about hubris
Makewi
@Ailuridae:
Ah, but the post you responded to actually referred to an even earlier post, one that you continue to pretend doesn’t exist. That post actually has been copied into this thread. Would you care to read it now, or would you like to continue to pretend that jumping into the middle of a conversation and then accusing others of dishonesty based on that jump is perhaps not the best course of action?
I’m guessing you will double down. I would imagine it seems kind of hard to back down now after you’ve called me a indigenous little shit over this topic, but you could be a bigger person and actually admit your error.
It’s kind of funny if you think about it, I mean in the comment you just copied there actually appear these words “Which I spelled out in my initial question. Maybe you should read more carefully in the future.”
Ailuridae
@Xenos:
No you are clearly wrong. He linked to a definition and everything so he must be correct./snark
Clearly anyone who actually understands risk and the issue of pooling can understand the rather long-winded but exceptionally clear post I wrote about its efficacy on the buy-side for health insurance.
Makewi
@Ailuridae:
I see. Except I stated that fucking conversation. So if they were talking about something else then that just means they were morons who were incapable of understanding the topic to begin with. Kind of like you.
This is why you fail.
Makewi
@General Winfield Stuck:
That’s almost like logic. If logic was paranoid and hiding under its bed. So if I talk about fairy godmothers, does that mean I have a little set of wings?
Ailuridae
@Makewi:
No dumbass you clearly stated that there couldn’t be a risk pool without the presence of more than one insurer. While that may be true on the sell side its not true on the buy side.
As Andrew the poster you tried to criticize on this point pointed out to you before you ran off – a (risk) pool is a (risk) pool is a (risk) pool.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
Isn’t it adorable to see the twenty-eight percenters stomp their widdle feet and cry and whine about the evils of givin’ the po’ folk health care? I don’t know why anyone here does anything more than laugh in their faces, point to the scoreboard, and go back to Congresswatching.
A n—-r President and a public option, bitches!
General Winfield Stuck
@Makewi:
I don’t know, you might. While your at it, maybe you could ask the Fairy Godmother to bring you some facts, the real kind. Not the nonsense you use to hijack threads. You are a tea bagging knucklehead right winger. Own it. It would be the first sincere thing you’ve said here.
kay
@Elie:
This is a serious question Elie. When you have cancer, and get really sick, you must (eventually) lose your job, right?
Then what do you do? Medicaid? What if you have some assets left? Do you have to burn through those to qualify? So, it’s ” get poor and get Medicaid, or keep some of what you have accrued but (sorry!) DIE”?
I mean, she had cancer and none of this occurs to her? What if she had been alone? Doesn’t she talk to anyone other than her husband?
Her experience is the only possible experience?
Makewi
@Ailuridae:
If you had actual reading comprehension skills, which clearly you do not, you would have easily been able to tell that by simply reading the first comment on the subject. Which oddly enough, was brought up by me, and had to do with insurance companies sharing the risk of the uninsureable. I understand that actually using those words is like some fucking puzzle to you, but there you are.
You continue to pretend that the conversation started at that point, and nothing on Gods green earth is likely to shake you from that belief. That being the case, you are clearly too stupid or too proud to be worth wasting even one more second on.
May God have mercy on your soul, because if he doesn’t I feel you will be eaten by a bear.
Elie
You all come in here and leave that troll alone!
The last time y’all played with the troll you got stinked up so bad it took hours to get you clean and decent smelling again. Its the heat and commotion that draws it out from under the ceptic tank.
It can’t help the way it is. It is blind, deaf, vicious and very smelly. This one isnt even entertaining like ol BOB. What’s the point?
Makewi
@General Winfield Stuck:
You don’t get to define who I am. I realize this frustrates you, but those are the facts. Aspiring to the tyranny that you will likely never achieve makes you a sad, failed little despot.
wilfred
Let’s see if the critical thinking applied to the health care comedy can cross over to other things, like Iran, the war in Afghanistan, Iraq, U.S. policy in the Middle East, etc., all of which include statements that beggar belief and which are never challenged by the press.
4,331 Americans and hundreds of thousand of Iraqis are dead because of lies distributed willingly by the NYT, among other media outlets. They didn’t question anything then, why now?
El Cid
What the CBO estimated for HR3200 was a net cost of $24 billion a year. “Ruinous” my ass.
Ailuridae
@kay:
Kay, this is the peril of the self-employed as well. I’m self-employed and have been for a decade. I’ve seen my insurance rise about 300% above inflation despite being in a state with many insurance options (IL) and shopping aggressively for health care. I am healthy as an ox, don’t have any prescriptions or pre-existing conditions and I have seen a doctor exactly 11 times in ten years – once for an annual physical and once for a script for Ambien.
Essentially I make no use of my health care and have paid a whole lot of money into the private insurance system (about 28K not adjusted for inflation). And, I basically have that insurance in case i get hit by a bus. If I were to get some common form of cancer for men in their thirties I would be subject to recission and not qualify for other insurance (pre-existing condition ftw). With any luck I wouldn’t be dropped before being in remission. This, of course, is the unspoken truth of why so many people in my situation don’t carry insurance – they stand to never be able to get anything near out of insurance what they put into it.
Midnight Marauder
@General Winfield Stuck:
You are a tea bagging knucklehead right winger. Own it. It would be the first sincere thing you’ve said here.
That’s not entirely true…
Fortunately, the list of people you have to blame for your problems is very, very long.
That seems kind of spot on to me, don’t you think?
@Makewi:
You don’t get to define who I am. I realize this frustrates you, but those are the facts.
You’re right.
You’ve done a spectacular job of making yourself look like the know-nothing, repellant jackass you most likely are outside these parts.
Ailuridae
@Makewi:
You are frightfully fucking dim.
In response to your initial query about whether there was anything similar to auto-insurance pools for high risk drivers in the bill Andrew wrote this:
Is there anything like this being proposed for health care?
Yes, it’s called the public option, where the uninsurable are pooled into an public insurance plan; this allows the risk to be spread by those who weren’t able or willing to take it on themselves.
Your drivel is in bold, his is in italics. Andrew is right here – it is similar as its pooling risk across a wide group. its not analogous but its similar. To which you responded that Andrew didn’t understand the question. He then explained to you that he indeed did understand the question here:
Oh, I understand it just fine. The only difference between what you were asking about and what the public option is, is what entity is administering the pooling.
Again he is in italics.
To which you responded, ignorantly and untruthfully:
One agency cannot pool. A pool would necessitate the inclusion of more than one insurer. Which I spelled out in my initial question. Maybe you should read more carefully in the future.
And there is when I wrote the long post about buyer side pooling and you left the thread. One agency can indeed pool – it can serve to pool the risk of the people who use its services to acquire risk. So when you wrote “one agency cannot pool” you betrayed a basic lack of understanding of a key, basic principle of insurance. When you further wrote “A pool would necessitate the inclusion of more than one insurer” you demonstrated you had no idea what you are talking about.
Makewi
@Midnight Marauder:
Sure, sure. Except I knew that Obama was going to be as full of shit as the rest of them, and you got suckered. How’s it feel, sap?
Ailuridae
@El Cid:
HR3200 would be less than the most conservative (with a small c) estimates of 10 weeks in Iraq.
IMO, HR3200 is radically superior to the other 3 finished bills.
Veritas78
They should keep the public option but drop the mandate. Then, social Darwinism (which, until now, I deplored) can sweep the Colliers and all the other fool who revel in their own ignorance into the abyss.
Don’t want socialistic healthcare? Fine, you don’t have to have it. When you die from your treatable disease, you’ll save us the burden of taking care of you.
Really, this health-care thing will take care of itself if we just let the South vote on its little Fox feet. Meanwhile, the rest of us who have actually read the bill and know what’s at stake will thrive.
Veritas78
They should keep the public option but drop the mandate. Then, social Darwinism (which, until now, I deplored) can sweep the Colliers and all the other fools who revel in their own ignorance into the abyss.
Don’t want socialistic healthcare? Fine, you don’t have to have it. When you die from your treatable disease, you’ll save us the burden of taking care of you.
Really, this health-care thing will take care of itself if we just let the South vote on its little Fox feet. Meanwhile, the rest of us who have actually read the bill and know what’s at stake will thrive.
kay
@Ailuridae:
Thanks. I mean, I have considered this. I am self-employed, but have not always been. I’ve had federal employee health insurance, private health insurance that I purchased, and now am covered under my husband’s health insurance. He took a part-time contract job with the state government that pays next to nothing but offers state employee insurance, so he gets to be (primarily) self-employed and insured, and so do I.
I guess I’m bewildered that the woman in the article doesn’t feel more vulnerable on this, because I don’t know anyone personally who is “secure” in their health insurance.
Considering her history, and, well, the FACTS of life, her blithe confidence is remarkable.
You don’t need “empathy” to “get” the need for reform. You need a functioning brain, and to get out of the house once in while.
General Winfield Stuck
@Makewi:
This is actually a little bit funny. Though I doubt is was meant to be. And You’ve done a bang up job defining yourself, Buckwheat, without moi help.
Also, maybe we need to start calling you Colonel Jessup, with slinging around all those facts you say.
wilfred
Speaking of cause and effect:
Now that’s interesting. Namzi is part of that Iranian ex-pat clique determined to attack Iran, overthrow the government and re-instate the Pahlevi ‘dynasty’ in the form of the moron son of Shah-n-Shah.
His lawyer is former Attorney General Mukasey’s son. For various reasons, this worth keeping an eye on.
Makewi
@Ailuridae:
As it turns out, I have no further use for you. It isn’t my fault that you would rather win an argument than understand what the question was. You may, in fact, be the most stubborn stupid person here. A dubious prize, to be sure. But yours none the less.
Ailuridae
@Makewi:
I hesitate to speak for anyone else but I doubt many here have any use for you. Nice dodge on the more salient point: you tried to lecture on insurance pools while only having a minimal understanding of insurance.
HyperIon
my favorite quote from the Fallows piece:
McCaughey, Bachman, Palin, LaRouche — shaping American debate and media coverage about health policy? Was Zsa Zsa Gabor not available?
Midnight Marauder
@Makewi:
Sure, sure. Except I knew that Obama was going to be as full of shit as the rest of them, and you got suckered. How’s it feel, sap?
What? That’s it? That’s your response?
In the words of Dwight Schrute,
“Shun.”
HyperIon
first darrell’ed thread i’ve experienced in a while.
not a pretty read.
tripletee
Can people please stop posting clear, unambigous proof of Makewi’s laughably inept mendacity? I know it’s fun, but his non-stop blizzard of bullshit in response makes it hard to read the thread.
Brachiator
@Ailuridae:
Thanks for providing a very clear depiction of the health care dilemma for many self-employed people.
Instead of the phony political theater of the disrupted town hall meetings, I would like to see people take this to the GOP and ask simply, “where is your plan to solve this problem?”
Svensker
@tripletee:
Yes. Who is this Makewi person and why is he/she smearing turds all around the joint? He/she doesn’t seem to like most folks here, so why still hanging around?
Ailuridae
@Brachiator:
I ask my RV anti-HRC friends what I feel is a variant of that question:
What, exactly, is objectionable about allowing me to buy into Medicare (or the VA) for 125% of whatever is deemed my class’cost by the actuaries? Since I (and millions of others) would happily do this it would help Medicare’s financial situation, increase their negotiating and buying power and allow me and many other chapter S folks and independent contractors some piece of mind?
And to my original point – if my monthly insurance is 290 a month right now as healthy as a man can be in his mid thirties can be (honestly) than what would my insurance be after testicular or even skin cancer? 800/month? 1100/month? And I still have no assurance that if something else were to hit me that I would be covered.
Tonal Crow
Please feed the troll only pie.
Brachiator
@Ailuridae:
Hmmm. This sounds kinda like a … well, like a … public option.
What is obviously objectionable about it to the GOP is NOT that it violates some supposed free market principles, but that it might cause distress to the health insurance industry, which has bought and paid for numerous members of Congress (including quite a few Democrats).
This is another selling point to a public option. The GOP is always talking about wanting to reward risk (e.g., through low capital gains tax rates). But it seems to me that it helps small business owners, and people who want to become small business owners — say after a lay-off — if they can get and keep health insurance at a reasonable cost.
The opponents of health care reform keep yelling, “OMG! Socialized Medicine!!” But health care reform could actually give the economy a shot in the arm. USA! USA! etc.
Tonal Crow
@Ailuridae:
Because
if Obama lets people do that it’ll send the GOP into the wilderness for another centurshut up, that’s why.Elie
kay @102
No its not the only possible experience — not by a longshot. And yes, if she stayed in prolonged treatment, she would first be on disabilility at a partial salary (usually half), or she might altogether lose her job.
Medicaid requires spend down to your basic assets (your home) before it kicks in and even then it depends on the state. You can get Medicare disability after two years — if you last that long but even then you have to pay for Part B somehow (non institutional coverage for such things as transfusions — something you end up needing not infrequently during cancer treatment)
And let us not forget other things, unrelated to cancer that can STILL happen to you during the time you are being treated for cancer or in remission. Its all at least emotionally stressful and usually both emotionally and physically stressful and that damned uncertainty many times at whether you will remain disease free or have round two and three or more to face — while trying to earn a living, keep your family together and an attitude that life is still worth living.
But I still believe all of this posturing about self sufficiency and all is not really about health care anyway — its about needing to oppose something to hold up what you think is the only way to think about living. Many people live by rules and the rules have a life of their own. They forget that learning and changing in the face of new information is also important so that your brain and spirit remain dynamic and vital. So many of these folks are just afraid of anything that is new….
Anne Laurie
@HyperIon:
Zsa Zsa was busy with her key role on the Rethugs’ “Defense of Traditional Marriage” bill.
Elizabelle
John, I am so glad you had something to say about this.
I saw this this morning and thought, um, NYTimes, why are you carrying their water for them?
Thingumbob
Yeah this site rocks! Trillions for Wall Street! A pillow for grandma! Remember–whoever has the most toys wins!
Librarian
I’d love to get Soupy Sales to agree with me on anything.
Johnny B
I read this article on the train to work. These stories of seniors complaining about “socialized medicine” and government involvement in a government-run program are taxing my progressive instincts. If meaningful health care reform goes down in flames, I will no longer spend any of my political energy defending Medicare from the inevitable cut backs it will face when the Republicans take power.
My Dad is one of these Fox-viewing, socialist-hating, Medicare and Social Security recipients. He also has a state pension from his state job, as well as a municipal pension from a municipal job.
I remember when Bush was trying to “privatize” Social Security, he was supportive of the idea. “We can’t afford it, anymore.” He said. When I pointed out (sarcastically) that it might be more fair to just kill the program entirely (presumably a goal of a “good conservative” like himself), he laughed. “That’ll never happen,” he told me smiling.
I love my Dad as conservative as he is, but that self satisfied smile to this day pisses me off.
binzinerator
@General Winfield Stuck:
I agree.
When I started to read your comment, I had just read the sentence “It is eternally baffling to me, especially having grown up in the south (of sorts), how people that are reasonably well educated are so prone to believing such audacious lies” and I thought ‘Oh, hell yes, I know how that’s possible.’
I lived in Georgia for some years. I think I know what you’re talking about. It was no surprise to me that the GOP is now the party of the South and birtherism is concentrated in the non-Black Belt regions of the old Confederacy.
An example of racism outside Applachia: my brother, a white middle-aged blue collar guy, even though he agreed with everything Obama said in his campaign and hated the republicans because they were ruining the country, he refused to vote for Obama. The reason? He said “No fucking way I want to have a black man in control of my future.” He voted for Ron Paul (the guy who either wrote or lent his name to decades of racist-tinged newsletters and has accepted the endorsement of white supremacist groups).
It occurred to me the other day that these healthcare protesters are channeling the same bigotry — ‘no black man is gonna have a say over me’. Everyone damn one of these ‘protesters’ I’ve seen is white and at least middle aged and I have no doubt one of the big things they hate and fear is that the president is blackety black black black.
Another thing I noticed among a number of racists (ones I could actually get to talk about their fears — some, like this barely literate white guy I remember meeting in Forsyth County, could only say things like ‘I hates n#ggers cuz theys so stupid.’) was a deep lurking fear that they will get treated the same way they treated the people they oppressed when they get any power. Deep down inside they really truly know they have shit on certain people. And they are afraid they’ll get done unto as they have done unto others.
Ask yourself, would these white racist fucks ration the health care of the people they like to shit on? Hell yes. They’ve been trying to do it for decades — supporting people and policies to defund or dismantle programs that provide any sort of health care for the poor is a way of forcing a certain disproportionate number of black people to go without — and isn’t that what rationing is?
So it’s no wonder one of the things they seize on, that grips their brain and burns in their imagination is the belief that their health care will get rationed.
As I said, these bigots know what they’ve done to others. And they fully expect they’ll get treated the same. It’s what they still do without hesitation.
So this could be part of the reason they fear a black man in charge. They are unconvinced anyone would act differently from them if they had the upper hand.
It really makes me want to see them get shit on. They expect it, and nothing will convince them otherwise, and any effort to be impartial and fair is either construed as an effort to get them to let their guard down, or it is viewed as a weakness (because they would never do that — they’d stick the shiv in as deep as they could) and they respond with contempt.
There’s also a generational thing going on, but it also bears on racism — the young just don’t seem to have the depth and breadth of animosity against darker skinned people who live here.
As for these old white people raging about government getting in their medicare — I only can look forward to 20 years from now when most of these selfish stupid racist fuckers are dead.
I have this wicked fantasy that they end up getting dragged out of their nursing homes a few years from now and thrown out on the street when the assholes they listen to on Fox and Limbaugh finally succeed in axing most of their medicare. It’s bad of me, I know, but… damn. The stupid fucks. They really insist on shitting in their own hat. I say make them wear it.
I console myself with knowing my children will have a much easier time getting affordable health care insurance legislation passed after these racist fuckyouIgotmine shitstains are dead and gone.
binzinerator
Oh shit. Sorry for the long comment. I never have enough time to make it short.
Lisa Williamson
THANK YOU for writing this. I read that NYT article yesterday and I thought to myself, “WTF?! How do the right-wingers think this is a liberal newspaper?”
Zak44
I was stunned by this quote:
“We’ve got to do something about those people who can’t get insurance,” he said. “There has to be a safety net there. But I don’t want that safety net to catch too many people.”
Apparently, Mr. Collier is all for rationing–as long as it applies to someone else.
How many is “too many?” Who are the people you don’t want the net to catch? The poor? The sinful? The nonwhite?
When did this country get so freaking mean?
dr. luba
@Zak44: Yeah, I saw that AND this line: “If everyone is covered, Mr. Collier said, supply and demand will dictate that some must wait for their care.”
Better your unisured child should die from lack of care than that I should have to stand in line.
Care for me and mine, but not for thee. Awfully Christian of them.
Peter Keane
I sent an email to Kevin Sack, the author of the NYTImes article suggesting that a die-hard republican might well be expected to disagree w/ a Democratic president & congress, and received this reply:
“Sorry, I guess I didn’t get the directive saying we should only report the
views of electoral winners. Sometimes the commissariat loses my email
address.”
–Kevin Sack
charming.