This is their plan and they are sticking to it:
The House Republican budget would leave up to 44 million more low-income people uninsured as the federal government cuts states’ Medicaid funding by about one-third over the next 10 years, nonpartisan groups said in a report issued Tuesday.
The analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Urban Institute concluded that Medicaid’s role as the nation’s safety net health care program would be “significantly compromised … with no obvious alternative to take its place,” if the GOP budget is adopted.
I wonder- how many of the folks who think government money is spent on black “other” people while they suck up medicare and medicaid and vote for Republican Jesus will get hurt and think, hey, “maybe tax cuts for Trump aren’t in my best interest?”
Also, I would be remiss if I did not point out how bold and serious this plan is.
Also, as has been pointed out in the comments, this isn’t just about “poor” people, but disabled and elderly. You wanted death panels? Paul Ryan is the chairman.
Just Some Fuckhead
I’m going to go out on a limb and say zero.
JPL
Emergency rooms are required by law to treat everyone. The cost gets past on and on and on. Health care cost will continue to rise and insurance premiums will soar but at least taxes won’t have to be raised.
mellowjohn
i’ll say, “not enough.”
(i’m a little more generous.)
Keith G
What is the Democratic plan for dealing with this GOP plan?
Jazz Superluminar
Now you’re just doing Sully’s “work” for him.
The Dangerman
Sooner or later, the Republicans will start consistently governing as opposed to passing shit that will never get by the Senate, let alone get The Man’s signature. Will their base never tire of the Red Meat from the Orange Man?
carlos the dwarf
My favorite part is that the study claims that the South and Mountain West will be hit hardest by this plan. IOW, red states.
cathyx
I would love to see a poll of how many Medicaid recipients are republicans.
Bulworth
But no tax can be raised on anyone, ever, because all taxes “kill jobs”. So, sure, some people will end up on the streets, or perhaps even dead, because of cuts in Medicaid. But at least taxes will not be raised. Because it’s all about Life.
cckids
I wonder if they realize how many disabled children and adults (you know, the ones they bleat about “choosing life” for) depend utterly on Medicaid to, you know, LIVE. My (adult) son has been disabled all his life; if not for Medicaid he’d have been dead 20+ years ago. He was thrown off my insurance policy when he was diagnosed, in 1983.
Of course, to them, once you choose life & have the kid, f*!k off & die if you can’t get care. Or use chickens. Whatever, not our problem.
Sorry for the lack of coherence, this makes me so angry & depressed at the same time.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Keith G: What would your plan be? I’m just curious how you convince someone who sticks their fingers in their ears that they will be screwed if they vote Republican.
David in NY
Has anyone commented on this? “About half of all nursing home residents pay nursing home costs out of their own savings. After these savings and other resources are spent, many people who stay in nursing homes for long periods eventually become eligible for Medicaid.” medicare.gov/nursing/payment.asp .
What that means is that, for most people, even those in the middle and upper middle class who can for a while pay for nursing home care, medicaid is the payer of final resort. And what it also means is that at some point, many in the middle class will depend on medicaid. Or go bankrupt. Or be put out into the street without care. That’s middle class people.
I think.
Church Lady
That the report says there are 60 million people on the Medicaid rolls is just stunning. I’m pretty shocked that the figure is that high.
Martin
@Keith G: Veto not a good enough plan?
DonkeyKong
Why is this happening?……….
Lee Atwater: You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can’t say “nigger” — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I’m not saying that. But I’m saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “Nigger, nigger.”
JPL
@cckids: It’s very coherent and you explained the situation perfectly. Unfortunately, the repubs don’t plan on paying for pregnancy and child birth either, they simply want to pretend they care about the fetus.
Villago Delenda Est
The verb in this sentence – “think” – really is inappropriate, because it’s pretty obvious that they’re not thinking at all. Certainly not about their own long term interest. There is no “enlightened” interest that is obvious for these vile tribalist bigots, who would rather stand with a white guy with a comb over.
The Founders are weeping at the demise of their so carefully conceived and crafted system that had, as its underpinnings, the civic mentality of the New England town meeting.
cathyx
@cckids: Sorry to be so blunt, but your son is just the type of person they don’t want to help. They consider him a drain on society and he doesn’t contribute anything to them.
They are the definition of selfish and unchristian.
steviez314
The meth demands it!
Ash Can
@Keith G:
1. Not passing it in the Senate
2. Vetoing it if 1 fails
Sounds like a decent plan to me.
The Sanity Inspector
I remember the talk about the federal debt during the Reagan years, how the stack of dollar bills would reach to the moon and back, or wrap around the earth umpty-seven times. We’re so much more over the falls now by comparison, and everyone is dependent on continuing to have money printed out of thin air, that I can scarcely bear to read the financial news anymore.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
Zero. These are the same people who think E pluribus unum is Latin for “I’ve got mine – fuck you!”
khead
The thread should have been locked/stopped after the first response.
DonkeyKong
No, I think that was the Sermon on the Mount.
Mnemosyne
@David in NY:
You are absolutely correct — the majority of Medicaid money goes to pay for middle class nursing home residents. They are a small fraction of the people on Medicaid, but most of the Medicaid money is spent on them.
Stefan
Emergency rooms are required by law to treat everyone.
Emergency rooms are required by law to treat everyone with an emergency. A stab wound is an emergency. Cancer is not, even though the cancer will kill you as well. Basically, they have to treat you for things that will kill you that day, but not for things that will kill you a few months or years from now.
David in NY
@Mnemosyne: Thank you. I was going to say I bet that a large portion of medicaid went for “custodial” care (which Medicare does not cover) for the middle class. But I didn’t really know. And I think most people think of Medicaid as being entirely for the poor — which it’s not.
This may bear repeating.
Ed: Actually, that’s probably the “formerly middle class,” since it’s means tested, though I believe there are ways for the patient to become poor without impoverishing the entire family. A kind of middle class scam, but understandable.
Jay in Oregon
@cckids:
There’s a reason why Alan Grayson said that the GOP plan for healthcare amounted to “Don’t get sick. And if you get sick, die quickly.”
Oh, how the Villagers clutched their pearls at such incivility…
Omnes Omnibus
@Stefan: Also, ERs aren’t going to treat your high blood pressure, but they will treat you after you have the stroke or heart attack. You know, when it is as expensive as hell and the damage has already been done.
Calouste
@Bulworth:
Apparenly killing jobs is worse than killing people…
CA Doc
Penny wise, pound foolish, just more evidence that Rethugs really do want to remake America into a Dickens’ novel. I just have to hope that enough sane people with disabled family members or parents in nursing homes realize the Republicans are coming after them, not just poor people.
Keith G
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):The good guys are going to have to get better at branding (I hate saying this) and message control/coordination.
As was noted earlier:
Another battle field conceded.
I work with low info voters who, sheep that they are, often believe the first story that they hear.
Ana Gama
@Omnes Omnibus: Yep. They wouldn’t treat a guy I know for diabetes, but they did take care of the the double amputation he needed for his legs.
Spaghetti Lee
You know, if we’re trying to get some of these people to vote for us, maybe calling them idiots and tools isn’t the best idea. Yes, there are some who would vote for a dead skunk as long is it was the Republican candidate, but there’s others who are more open-minded, which is in large part why 2006 and 2008 happened in the first place.
Martin
@Church Lady: There are about 7-8 million dual-eligibles. They represent about 1/4 of all Medicaid spending. Periodically, HHS gets approval to shift how that spending lands – and lately they’ve been shifting from Medicare to Medicaid in order to get the states to pick up some of the costs. Drug costs have been going the other way because the costs are better under Medicare.
42% of all Medicaid spending goes to the (under 65) disabled. The average dual-eligible and disabled participant receives about 6x what the average adult or child on Medicaid does. This is just prior to the recession, so that’s all shifted some. There are a lot of poor on Medicaid, but they don’t cost all that much – the big dollars are on dual-eligibles and the disabled.
David in NY
Here’s how Medicaid ends up benefiting the non-poor. cms.gov/MedicaidEligibility/09_SpousalImpoverishment.asp .
And if Mnemosyne is right, @Mnemosyne: , that accounts for most of Medicaid’s expenditures.
Davis X. Machina
@Mnemosyne: Every middle-aged child of non-stinking-rich elderly parents knows this.
The GOP thought this would be another cost-free exercise in ‘programs for the poor become poor programs’.
They have stuck a stick in a bees’ nest.
Omnes Omnibus
@Spaghetti Lee: Yeah, I have tried to make that argument. You are going to get a lot of flak for it.
Martin
@Ana Gama: See, the GOP is right. Everyone does have health care.
Dennis SGMM
You so funny; you used the words “vote for Republican Jesus” and “think” in the same sentence. Thinking people don’t vote Republican.
General Stuck
The ultimate in poor, disabled and minority voter suppression tactics.
Ana Gama
@Martin: Yes, they sure do. My legless friend cost Medicaid about $750K by the time his stay in intensive care and rehab was over, after the emergency double amputation. Sure would have been cheaper to hook him up with some insulin, though.
aimai
@David in NY:
Well, I take it that just the way the Republican party doesn’t think Grandma and Grandpa care about the services going to their kids and grandkids the kids and grandkids won’t notice when grandma and grandpa are kicked out of their nursing homes into the streets. And you know what? I think many americans are just stupid enough not to notice how fragile the status of “middle class” is for anyone who is a wage earner and not an owner. By definition nobody who isn’t working because they are too old, or too sick, is really in the middle class except on sufferance. If grandma and grandpa can’t pay for eldercare? Apparently the GOP thinks “screw ’em” and forget about any little inheritance for the kids is the answer the voters want.
aimai
geg6
The saddest thing is that, based on past history, raising taxes during recessions actually creates jobs. Reagan raised taxes numerous times in response to recession and jobs went up. Bush I did the same. And look at what Clinton did with a tax increase. Not only plenty of jobs but a surplus. Prosperity ruled. Until 2000, that is. Wonder what happened?
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Keith G:
“Find out just what any people will quietly
submit tonot pay attention to and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them.”/Frederick Douglass, updated for the 21st Cen.
trollhattan
@Jazz Superluminar:
Bold and serious and adult, damnit! It’s the ethics tripod(tm).
Sloegin
@JPL: It’s as if Republicans want single-payer, but want to get there the hard way, by destroying the entire health care system first.
Bullsmith
So how do the fact checkers keep saying this doesn’t “end” medicare? Universal coverage is ended. I know this is redundant but the way so many so-called neutral arbiters of fairness have nit-picked democratic criticisms of the Paul plan while at the same time pretending it’s reliance on magical revenue and cost-control ponies are perfectly reasonable, if vague, discussion points drives me crazy. Drives me to run-on sentences, even.
PurpleGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: When I ran out of my medication I called a city hospital and because I didn’t have insurance I was told there were no open appointments. I was told to go to the ER, which I did. The ER could give me only that day’s pills and a prescription for two more days. What they could do was to get me the clinic appointment I needed to start continuing care. It’s a weird system. I understand that the ER can’t do continuing care, but they were integral to my getting the continuing care at the clinic.
danimal
You didn’t denounce Stalin or come up with a position on broccoli, either. How can we trust your judgement?
Just Some Fuckhead
@Ana Gama:
Sounds like the free market maximized returns for the private sector.
Joel
@cckids: It makes me angry, too.
mai naem
Anybody looked at Medicare HMOs? What a fcuking ripoff. I know several people who are getting bills for $400-700 for ambulance rides after the medicare HMO pays out. And $300 per day in hosp copay? Are you fcuking kidding me? Thats like ten grand a month. Who are they kidding? Meanwhile old fashioned medicare which generally wealthier people have has a $200 deductible.
David in NY
@aimai: Hey! Doing away with Medicaid is like imposing a “death tax”! I like it.
To add to what you said, even a family of the fairly well-to-do would get wiped out having to pay for nursing home care after more than a year or two. I feel that, and my wife and I have crawled into the bunch, barely, that the Democrats keep threatening to tax more.
Keith G
@General Stuck: The sad thing is Stuck that there is an end result that we are heading for (and which I fear we may get to by default) in which the “modified” safety net will fail millions of our fellow citizens. I work part time in a setting that provides charity hospice care and I do not see us getting any more help supplying services that are in greater demand. Infact, we soon will be getting less governmental suport.
The ultimate class warfare.
Ozymandias, King of Ants
@trollhattan:
.
So does that mean that a bold and serious adult film would satisfy the VSPs?
PurpleGirl
I also understand that I’m lucky to live in NYC where they have had an extensive health care program for a long time and do care to an extent about helping people.
ETA: It’s not perfect but it is something.
moe99
wrt the Republicans: fuck them and the horse they rode in on…
Kathy in St. Louis
The Republicans are making the best argument I can imagine for single payer government health insurance. When everyone is in the same boat, and your brother-in-law or your dad can’t get medical care, there will be a huge outcry. With jobs leaving the country daily and the Republicans throwing up every roadblock they can think of toward recovery, there will be more and more people finding single payer, not only appealing, but absolutely necessary. What aholes.
SiubhanDuinne
@steviez314:
Heh.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Ozymandias, King of Ants:
If the Ryan plan isn’t obscene, the word has no meaning any longer.
Turgidson
@Jay in Oregon:
Not that I didn’t already know what their reaction would be, but the fact that Grayson’s blunt but utterly true remark was met with such furious “HOW DARE HE” responses from all corners, including some supposed supporters of HCR, and all the “death panels” “govt takeover of health care” “pull the plug on grandma” and the like got breathless coverage, but no fact-checking, from anyone outside the lefty blogs and Maddow was….utterly dispiriting. Even if it was no surprise.
actually, “breathless coverage, but no fact-checking” perfectly describes reaction to the Grayson remark too.
So depressing, all of it.
Dennis SGMM
Go ahead and bitch all you want to; America is the only industrialized nation with the courage to let its citizens die of easily preventable diseases. Hell, we even let 12 year old boys die of tooth decay. That’s what kind of country we are.
“Oh beautiful for spacious skies…”
General Stuck
@geg6:
You know why that is, and I will surely get flamed for this, but it is what I believe. The reason is psychological in nature pertaining to those who do the hiring for private businesses that provide the overwhelming number of jobs in this country .
And I will preface my view first in stating the austerity and deficit hysteria we are getting from the wingnuts is really code for eliminating by starving social programs that benefit dems politically and that otherwise gall wingnuts that someone is getting something free/ And the ACA does that like few other liberal bills.
But there is merit to the genuine concept and viewpoint, at least by those that hire, that paying for whatever the government spends is a good thing and generally promotes the positive vibes that the country is being governed responsibly, so maybe it is time to start hiring and producing again. And once that threshold is met, it becomes psychologically self motivating for everyone to jump in with more hiring, and a cycle of growth and jobs ensues.
It doesn’t have to be done by raising taxes, to create this effect or paying for our shit, and it can be created by efforts to reduce spending as well. I know this is contrary to the Krugman keynsians, but after a period of time in a recession, there are other economists that agree with this take. Doesn’t mean government spending stimulus isn’t also necessary, but only to keep things inching along until other factors come into play.
The wingers piss me off because they lie that their belt tightening is for good intentions for the country when it is not. They do it because they like to see the poor suffer, for whatever ungodly reason. But that doesn’t mean the issue of spending cuts in other areas doesn’t have a loosening effect on those that do the hiring.
harlana
well said, Mr. Cole
Foxhunter
This Medicaid discussion unthread fails to even consider the skyrocketing rate of alzheimers diagnoses. The population affected by this nefarious disease is expected
to be 10 to 20 million in the coming decade. Currently it is upwards of 5 million. My grandmothers monthly cost in the local alz unit? $5700 per MONTH. No shit.
Have fun funding that with your nest egg or whatever collateralized property you have left.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Dennis SGMM:
We could make a fortune by developing a game show that lets people compete for life-saving medical treatments by doing debasing human stunts. I’m giggling just thinking about it.
hhex65
@DonkeyKong: Atwater truly was America’s Wittgenstein. Although when Wittgenstein died he said: “Tell them I’ve had a wonderful life”– whereas Atwater died whining and crying like a naughty little child.
Bob
No problem, the rich will give trillions to charities to pickup the slack. Right?
WereBear
No one is paying attention to this thing; no one.
There is no talk, there are no stories floating around; this entire discussion is in the bubble of people who pay attention to such things; the other 90% of the country has no idea, and if you told them:
They wouldn’t believe it.
Keith G
@Martin:
@Ash Can:
Killing it in the Senate, or a veto, just stops the Republicans’ forward momentum. The Dems will still need to:
1. Drive a stake in the heart of this notion and its originators.
2. Build and sell their own super-wonderful plan.
Loneoak
@Ozymandias, King of Ants:
And let the pron title puns begin …
Grand Old Pen*s
Shaving Paul Ryan’s Privates
High Broderism
Cream Pie on C-Street
Santorum’s Santorum
Harry Reid’s Harry Palms
Laffer’s Curves
Note: Pron names may get you in moderation.
trollhattan
@Foxhunter:
The Korean autism study just published could imply big medical care increases for newly diagnosed children, if the rates they found are replicated here (nearly triple the former estimates).
Good times.
huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/09/autism-study-south-korea_n_859231.html
fhtagn
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice:
Actually, they take it to mean – One From Many = There Can Be Only One i.e. Me.
Dennis SGMM
@General Stuck:
Your idea is interesting. It might even work save for the fact that the consumer-driven American economy has nothing to recover to. It isn’t as if things will eventually get back on an even keel and all of those steel mills, textile mills and manufacturing plants will put everyone back to work. As far as the economy outside of the financial services industry, there’s no there there.
Mike in NC
When that fat bastard Gingrich kicks off his presidential campaign tomorrow, I expect he’ll include mention of the bold new “Soylent Green Initiative” with Ryan standing by his side.
trollhattan
@Just Some Fuckhead:
We’ve nearly done just that:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_for_a_Day
Note the dates: before the Great Society ushered in the Socia1ism!(tm) we’re striving to force off the gangplank.
Seanly
@Ash Can:
3. Hang it on the necks of the Republicans who voted for it.
(well, a boy can dream.)
Martin
@Ozymandias, King of Ants: I don’t know, are there wetsuits in it? Gotta have the wetsuits.
slag
@Kathy in St. Louis:
I always thought just going to the doctor was the best argument for single payer health insurance. I know the thought of dealing with the billing cycle alone keeps me rationing my own care. The whole process–from getting sick/injured to going through recovery–utterly blows. Every time I experience it, I find myself baffled that people are happy with it. Sometimes, I think the reason that we fail to make progress in this country is nothing more than sheer lack of imagination.
General Stuck
@Dennis SGMM:
Yep, I have written a number of comments lamenting what you state. By a cycle of prosperity and jobs, I surely don’t mean like we once had, before getting on the cheap credit crack cocaine of manic consumerism.
But it is interesting that more than a few jobs that have been created recently, are in manufacturing and mining, and other not too shabby jobs. It could be just a mirage and temp, but you are correct that what we are recovering too is more contraction that anything else as far as living standards go relative to our past. But it is better than nothing.
cbear
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Too late, bro. There’s already a whole network devoted to the concept. It’s called C-Span.
Uloborus
@Keith G:
1) I’ve heard rather a lot of ‘Republicans are trying to destroy Medicare’, thankfully.
2) It was called the ACA. It passed. We could surely stand another round, but you know, government is always like that. Step Two of the plan was to prevent the GOP from destroying it in the budget negotiations. We succeeded on that, too. These alternative House budgets are meaningless posturing – thank goodness.
Just Some Fuckhead
@trollhattan: Geez, I’m always late with my great ideas.
Martin
@Keith G: No they don’t. The proper healthcare solution will form out of necessity as the current system is crushed under its own weight. The only real end state is some variation of single payer – either a full blown system or some kind of mandate for health and single payer for hospitalization setup. There’s no alternative and getting there is simply a matter of time.
General Stuck
@Martin:
This . very much so
trollhattan
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Great ideas can always be recycled! I’d think “Queen for a Day” could be combined with some Japanese game show–maybe the one Colbert always shows the clip from that has women wearing pork chops on their heads while a komodo dragon races around at neck level.
Hell, bring back the Colosseum and the hungry, Galty lions. It’s time.
Elizabelle
@WereBear:
Ah, but some of those 90% are quite reachable.
The ones that will have to fund Grandma or Dad’s nursing home if Medicaid does not step up to the plate.
The ones that have grown children (and maybe grandkids too) that have moved back in with them, because of job loss, house foreclosure, unaffordable housing.
The ones watching a friend or family member care for a child with severe autism, or childhood diabetes, or some other condition. And knowing that adult cannot participate fulltime (or at all) in the workforce.
If there were a job for him or her, in this Great Recession.
The ones that are watching their neighbors and friends deal with issues like this.
The hard luck stories are hitting closer, and so should Democratic rhetoric.
cbear
@Martin: Yep. Of course it’s also only a matter of time before most of us die from eating that delicious oil-contaminated food or drinking that refreshing fracking water—or the mutant kids kill us. In which case—problem solved.
Just Some Fuckhead
@trollhattan:
That’s actually a great idea since many smaller municipalities can no longer afford to fund their zoos in this economic downturn.
Loneoak
@Ozymandias, King of Ants:
And let the pr0n title puns begin …
Grand Old P*n*s
Shaving Paul Ryan’s Privates
High Broderism
Cream Pie on C-Street
Santorum’s Santorum
Harry Reid’s Harry Palms
Laffer’s Curves
Note: Pr0n names may get you in moderation.
Bob Loblaw
@General Stuck:
What color are a confidence fairy’s wings? Are they beautiful?
I bet they’re beautiful.
fhtagn
@Dennis SGMM:
Actually, there is quite a lot there outside the financial services industry. The problem is that increasingly the managerial class is awarding itself huge pay rises and bonuses, while punishing the people who do the dirty work. American manufacturing, for example, hasn’t ceased to exist, it’s simply much harder to make a decent living at it outside the charmed circle of the managers. The American economy has plenty of problems, mostly caused by lack of adequate internal investment, but it really hasn’t been transformed into financial services or nothing.
WereBear
Their minds work on a primitive level, I believe; that when others suffer, it means they will not.
Just Some Fuckhead
@trollhattan: We could create a show where the winner receives life saving medical treatment and the losers promise to donate their bodies when they die to feed zoo lions. (In order to maintain a modicum of decency in the beginning. You know Fox will have three shows featuring actual live humans being fed to lions within a year.)
Just Some Fuckhead
@Bob Loblaw:
I’m guessing rainbow pastels.
General Stuck
@Bob Loblaw:
You might want to wait until the recent good jobs reports turn bad again, if they do, before depositing your usual steamy pile of bullshit. It makes you look churlish and idiotic, which seems effortless in your case..
fhtagn
@trollhattan:
If you want the ultimate game show, how about Serious People Shoot Debtors And Defaulters sponsored by Bank of America and Goldman-Sachs? Can’t you just see Megan McArdle and Nick Gillespie in combat gear and toting AK-47s as they make their way into some sort of faux-urban hellhole environment, while Candy Crowley, Joe Klein and Andrew Breitbart breathlessly explain how brave they are?
Just Some Fuckhead
We need a John Galt Game Show Thread.
NaveenM
Rural white areas will be hit hard. This is what happened in Missouri when Blunt was governor.
The teabillies only wake up when you take something away from them, and then they grudgingly realize they’re on the guvment teat just as much as anyone else.
WereBear
@Elizabelle: Oh, I agree, as Republican mayhem creeps ever closer, more people are waking up.
It’s just the burden I bear in a heavily Republican district; I get robocalls with Huckabee’s voice on them; I don’t know why, I just hang up.
Geez, haven’t I suffered enough from Republicans?
General Stuck
@Just Some Fuckhead:
We need a Fuckhead Gong Show. You can be the first contestant.
Loneoak
@Just Some Fuckhead:
You win by not showing up?
Spaghetti Lee
John Galt Game Show
How many buildings can you blow up before the buzzer?
cbear
@Just Some Fuckhead: Not to be outdone:
The Discovery Channel presents-
The Deadliest Catch–Senior Citizen Season.
trollhattan
@fhtagn:
Oooh, and if McMegan only wanted to wound rather than kill (not sufficiently poor/sick) it could be with a shotgun–a beautiful Beretta over/under loaded with pink Himalayan salt.
“Eat delicious, exotic salt, scum!”
Just Some Fuckhead
@General Stuck:
Oh, how delightfully funny Stuck!
fhtagn
@cbear:
Sarah Palin Reloaded – Trigg, Triage and Taxidermy.
WereBear
Yeah, but the best title is already taken:
Survivor
Whoever gets across the log first will get their blood pressure medicine!
Calouste
@Just Some Fuckhead:
You mean that the losers get to participate in an all-you-can-eat lion-sized buffet?
kdaug
@Stefan:
And you cut your hand off, they’re required to stop the bleeding. They are not required to sew it back on.
Jason In the Peg
@Just Some Fuckhead: Richard Bachman, aka Stephen King used this as the premise for his novel “Running Man.”
Which was nothing at all like the atrocious movie of the same name.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Calouste:
Who in the world would watch that?
Just Some Fuckhead
@Jason In the Peg:
Yeah, I read it when it came out. I remember it being so fucking sad.
OTOH, there was an 80s comedy movie called Death Row Gameshow that was quite amusing.
Calouste
@fhtagn:
I think we should include a few people with the weapons skills of Sarah Palin and Dan Quayle in that show.
trollhattan
@fhtagn:
Think I found a location to shoot their overseas edition:
asahi.com/english/TKY201105090160.html
pragmatism
a few of my conservative friends try to convince me that they wouldn’t want the poor and sick people to die or suffer. they argue that people who need help can go to their church and rely on charity. because lots of (insert “other”) people are religious. and besides, the bleached producer church these fine people attend kicks some money toward the poorer churches. and that sews it up. end of story. and, no, they don’t want to hear math or facts. its quite a system. usually the conversation turns to how my ideas are elitist but i believe they’re worried i’m judging them. and i am.
cbear
@fhtagn:
Not really. Megan and Nick are too stupid to know that you have to lead ’em a little to bag the old ones on their mobility scooters.
Hungry Joe
People put up with our obscenely unfair and unimaginably expensive health-care system because it’s all they’ve ever known, and they can’t imagine anything else. Mention “Europe” or “Canada” and they hear “taxes soc’ialist welfare blah blah blah,” and picture an ancient, heavily accented sawbones arriving at a patient’s thatched hut on an oxcart, or, at best, filthy hospital hallways crammed with gurneys on which moaning Belgians/Germans/Whatevers are left to die in agony.
A couple of years ago a friend had a serious head injury in Austria and received outstanding, top-of-the-line, state-of-the-art care, including surgery to relieve pressure on the brain, followed by a month in a pristine rehab hospital. He was charged a little over $15K, which the hospital insisted HE pay because they refused to deal with his (or any) American insurance company. Last I heard, he was still fighting his insurance company for reimbursement. He was covered, but … well, you know …
Calouste
@Just Some Fuckhead:
The losers don’t get to eat the buffet, they are the buffet. You might get a few more people to participate in the show if you word it that way.
fhtagn
@pragmatism:
I’ll tell you one thing that gets to me – conservatives talk about creating a dependency culture by handing out unemployment benefits, and yet 1 in 6 Americans is struggling with hunger. If having to depend on food banks to survive ain’t dependency, I really don’t know what is.
Sorry, but it’s been on my mind for a long time.
WereBear
Yes, leeches are cheap!
Now, 21st Century Medical care… I don’t think so.
JCT
@PurpleGirl: I was just about to post to your first comment to mention that this is the way it works at my NYC hospital when I saw where you lived…
We have a large clinic that spends a good part of the day and a few evenings seeing folks referred from the ED. It *does* work and it is also a great training clinic for the beginning house officers because it teaches them to manage often neglected and complex patients. It also helps them build their own “practices”.
My colleagues who run those clinics are very dedicated — and the patients get good care.
It’s a nice system.
And slashing Medicaid would abolish it quickly. Not to mention the fact that folks are mostly ignorant regarding the nursing home dependence on those funds, until grandma is dumped on their doorstep.
fhtagn
@cbear:
Well, I wasn’t suggesting that they could really shoot straight. Habits of a lifetime and all that. I imagine we would entrust video editing to J O’Keefe Esq. I hear he needs the money.
Ruckus
@David in NY:
It’s not that medicaid is for the poor. It’s just to use it you can not have over the bare minimum in assets. IOW, poor. It doesn’t care that you were once rich, well off or whatever. It is care of last resort. That’s why people have to go through all of their assets before they qualify.
Please don’t get me wrong it’s a great program, which could be much better.
Keith G
@Martin: As a partisan, I agree with what you have typed.
As a human being living in this world at this point in history, I am dreadfully concerned that we are running out of time. To maximize electoral strategy in order to secure the votes they need, Democrats advocate meek policies that do not solve underlying problem quickly enough (if at all) to avoid some really bad looming outcomes.
We put off raising taxes, put off single payer, put off energy policy in hopes that after some future election, magically wiser voters will merrily deliver a mandate for change.
pragmatism
@WereBear: its expensive because its the best in the world! and it doesn’t matter that the US is ranked 28th in the world. once you read this article on medical vacations you hippies will understand. *facepalm*
Jason In the Peg
@Just Some Fuckhead: I don’t remember that show. Perhaps YouTube does. Thanks.
Tonal Crow
@geg6:
If, in fact, raising taxes creates jobs (as it sometimes seems to), what’s the mechanism? Does a higher tax rate encourage businesses to take some money that would otherwise become taxable profits and use it instead to expand capacity, thus avoiding some of the tax increase?
Bob Loblaw
@General Stuck:
You mean those job reports that have somehow come into existence despite the “fiscal uncertainty?” The scawy, scawy uncewtainty. LOOK BEHIND YOU, IT’S THE DEFICIT MONSTER COMING TO MUNCH YOUR BONES AND PWN YOUR ECONOMIEZ OM NOM NOM NOM!
Can’t be. Sheeeit, without the confidence fairies on board, it must all be a mirage. We should reduce corporate tax rates.
General Stuck
@Keith G:
I wouldn’t say put off, so much as recoiled from as a country born of revolution from oppressive governance. It is in our DNA to not trust government, the wingnuts just take advantage of that default political instinct and fan it to whatever ends they can. It is why there is such a chasm between what most Americans support as national policy and their inherent mistrust of government involvement perceived as control over their lives.
And why you see people seniors holding “get government out of my healthcare” . And that notion runs deep in a lot of people and is not easily mitigated. Until whatever needs changing becomes an emergency, then they usually turn to dems and liberals to fix it. Maddening, but there it is.
It is frustrating as hell that this is the case,
Just Some Fuckhead
@Tonal Crow:
When taxes are raised, you need to hire more and better accountants to help you hide money.
General Stuck
@Bob Loblaw:
Get a hold of yourself loblaw, people are watching.
Ruckus
@fhtagn:
What do you think Megan and Nick will do when people shoot back?
1 shit their pants
2 fall down crying like small children (not that far a reach)
3 run like hell
Mnemosyne
@Tonal Crow:
That seems to be the most logical explanation. It would also discourage businesses from putting all of their profits into executive bonuses since they would be eaten away by income tax anyway.
IMO, one of the big problems with our economy is that companies aren’t making capital investments in themselves anymore, especially now that so many have moved their factories and call centers overseas. They keep trying to get by with the bare minimum of offices and employees so they can pay out the maximum bonuses to their executives. If you make it more attractive to invest in the company than to bank your $10 million bonus, companies will follow. Eventually.
Keith G
@Tonal Crow: The prime example of “raise taxes and economy grows” is the Clinton years. But, I personally do not think that the tax increase factored as a primary or secondary cause. The tech boom had much input IMO.
It is likely that the USA no longer faces conditions where we can magically grow out of problems as we have in the past.
Sucks to be us.
General Stuck
@Keith G:
Upon consulting my magic Unicorn, there could be a way out of this doldrum of stagnant markets with so many jobs gone overseas. The energy and alternative energy field, along with biotech, could bring on a new era of innovation and technology to boost the job machine. Of course, those jobs will likely go overseas too, but we might get to party again for a little while. This was what half of the Stimulus Bill was meant to ignite. who knows?
cckids
@cathyx:
Yes, I know this is how they really feel, I’ve heard it for years from many, many doctors-all Republicans, loud & proud. It just makes me so sick, to then have them get all weepy & holier-than-thou about people like Terri Shiavo or Trig Palin, as if they gave half a shit about anyone who isn’t “productive”.
cckids
As for the game show ideas, steal the name from the movie “Time Bandits”: Your Money or Your Life.
Keith G
@General Stuck: The last labor-intensive resource extraction gig we have left is our own population and our own social infrastructure. Everyone from the smallest under weight baby to the sickest and most decayed octogenarian needs more human contact than we have been providing (remember I work for a non-profit hospice). The problem is, how does a society monetize such an activity? I do not see a way without significant wealth transfers and even then….? A stable society paid for by a much more progressive tax system. That’s way beyond being a difficult sell.
Just some musings.
David in NY
@Ruckus: I think you missed the import of the link I posted. A middle class family can technically “impoverish” the one needing nursing care, while protecting most of its assets. The spouse remains middle class and essentially gets the benefit of medicaid. There’s really a subsidization of the middle class here — though I think most people do not realize it. The government pays for grandma’s nursing home, and grandpa keeps the big house.
DZ
@Hungry Joe:
I got Pneumonia while living in France (4 months per year), and they billed my US insurance company. A few weeks later, they called me and said I owed them 17 Euros for my copay. That was it. Excellent care – no issues.
Ruckus
@David in NY:
With one small problem. Who is the bread winner? Is there enough left to support the home? Property taxes? Insurance?
Food? Gas? Utilities? Many time yes, but not even close to always.
I did want to thank you for the link as it shows that people don’t usually have to be bankrupt to use medicaid. But I know people on medicaid and they can not have much of anything. Maybe OK if you are married. Not so much if you are single. Or in a gay relationship with no marriage or civil unions available. Still sucks that we can’t reasonably take care of our fellow humans in this country. Will it get better with ACA? Yes. Do we have a long way to go? Yes. Do I expect to see this in my lifetime? No.
ETA My point is that if grandpa is already dead then everything has to go to take care of grandma. She will have nothing left either to come back to (OK this is not the point of end of life care) nor anything to leave to the kids.
Ruckus
@DZ:
We can’t have that here.
It can’t be too easy for the others, they will take advantage of it(us). There is only so much to go around and I wouldn’t be able to get mine.
/old white republican electric scooter