If you have a strong stomach, you can wander over to the wingnut-o-sphere and see Michelle Malkin & Co. basically staking out (or stalking) a 12-year-old kid and his family, for having the temerity to say on the radio that the government helped them out when he got hurt. It’s this kind of mob action and intimidation that has become Malkin’s calling card — and don’t think it isn’t being noticed by some conservatives that don’t find it a gas anymore:
I simply can not believe this is what the Republican party has become. I just can’t. It just makes me sick to think all those years of supporting this party, and this is what it has become. Even if you don’t like the S-Chip expansion, it is hard to deny what Republicans are- a bunch of bitter, nasty, petty, snarling, sneering, vicious thugs, peering through people’s windows so they can make fun of their misfortune.
I’m registering Independent tomorrow.
So, instead of letting blood vessels in my head pop right open, I’m going to take a deep breath … (need another one, sorry) … let’s just ask What It All Means. Why does the right-wing mob action crowd desperately need to defame this kid and his family? It’s simple: They are unalterably opposed to the idea that the government actually helps someone — particularly someone in the “middle class”. It absolutely goes counter to their Panglossian idolatry of wealth, in which you always get what you deserve, and deserve what you get. And if you don’t have health care — hell, let them eat cake just earn more money!
And they know they’re losing this one. The idea of shared sacrifice and shared benefit is extremely powerful, and extremely popular. Add that to the acute awareness people have of the wrenching decisions our health care system forces on people, and their kids, and SCHIP’s popularity becomes overwhelming. The opposers know it — which is why folks like Jim Ogonowski are trying their damndest to change the subject to something else, like illegal immigration. They simply cannot win by opposing the substance and central ambitions of the law. Malkin & Co. can continue to espouse their tinny, smug individualism, and they’ll get their butts kicked at the polls. People know that’s just not how the world works.
As Kevin Drum states, President Bush is just being honest with his reasons for vetoing SCHIP: He doesn’t want the government having anything to do with health care. Sets a bad precedent, in his mind. Of course, that very precedent is part of why I’m so enthusiastic: Once we start saying we’re going to look after each other, well gosh, where do we stop?
Look, people of good faith can talk about the ins and outs of the SCHIP law, what’s good or bad about it, whether it’s the very best way to get the job done; but I’m really talking about marginalizing the people who don’t really care about making sure kids have coverage at all — indeed, who see it as a threat to their ideological shibboleths.
And that’s why a 12-year-old kid with a paralyzed vocal cord is such a huge problem for them.
Update: Ezra’s got some tough commentary, with which I totally agree. And yet … There’s got to be something beyond a.) gnashing our teeth and railing against the Malkin-mob’s lust for the personal destruction of its imagined enemies, or b.) responding in kind. Somehow we’ve got to take our game to another level, to use these spats to make bigger points than merely that Michelle Malkin is a thug (and a stain on her Oberlin pedigree). She is what she is, but I want to know how to make her irrelevant.
It’s the Dems’ fault for having him tell his story on their radio address.
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Yes, the wingnuts have went off the deep end…
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Anyone want to come on my blog and put Josh in his place? I’m so sickened right now, I’m afraid of what I’ll say.
You can always just ban him.
No registration as yet (I keep hoping I can get that all up and running soon), plus, generally, while he’s the superlibertarian on the site, he’s mostly civil. I just couldn’t believe he (or ANYone) could write that.
One wonders what we can do for this family.
…take a look at ThinkProgress http://thinkprogress…
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Other sites have described similar events.
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Why anyone pays the racist Michell Malkin filapina-american the time of day (she wrote a book a couple of years ago purporting to justify the internment of Americans of Japanese descent into concentration camps during WWII) is more than a bit of a mystery.
I learn from Hunter on dKos’ front page that
Hunter, who is involved with site maintenance there, goes on to say
(Emphasis added to blockquotes)
I wasn’t originally going to read anything about how the Republicans were targeting thhat 12 year old kid, but I clicked one of your links, which showed his message, what happened to he and his family and some of the Republican responses…. and now I’m really, really depressed. It seems that so many Americans are content with life as long as everyone else is suffering along with them.
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Can’t we have higher standards than that? Is it really that much to ask that we create a system where injury, bad luck and bad circumstances won’t damn your whole life? Isn’t that the very least we can do as a society? Most other industrialized countries manage. We’re richer and spend more on health care than they do. Surely, we can have a meeting of the minds and create a system that’ll actually work? Then again, so many people are opposed to such intelligence. After all, they had it hard and are still kicking today (even if many others AREN’T)… so damn everyone else, right?
Seems like you guys drank deeply of the leftist spin, whipped yourselves into a frenzy and got angry and depressed. Well good, you deserve it.
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BTW as far as I know Malkin does not run Free Republic.
And the post was really, really, insanely long, and as awful and absurd as you can imagine. Everything about the family completely checks out, and yet she’s still not satisfied.
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And no one’s saying she runs FreeP, only that she quotes it and takes anonymous posters there as authorities.
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Again, she’s a thug. And Republicans would be smart to disavow her tactics, either publicly or by setting a better example.
Spin it. Bring out the doe-eyed child, then anyone who dares to question a child’s motives is a monster.
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Turn facts into talking points and critics into thugs. The $82,600 earning family qualifying for welfare for example. Fact: NY sought such coverage; administration denied it; NY has gone to the courts to get it.
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BTW, NJ coverage starts for 4-family at $72K. Mass starts at $60K. Should, as a matter of policy and politics, the US be in the business of giving welfare to families earning in excess of $60K? Fair question and reasonable people disagree without being child-haters.
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Pander. (And Tsongas thought Bill Clinton was a pander-bear!) Hillary’s giving SCHIP to the SCHIPless, $5000 per baby subsidy; and just this morning I see she’s going to match 401(k) contributions.
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And the elite leftist priests cheer because social welfare is a better use of money than on the war that started because “bush lied and soldiers died”, not that one has anything to do with the other.
Gary, usually you bring some inconvenient facts to the table, for which I’ve got lots of respect. Usually you’re pretty tough.
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When you start bringing out the colorful characterizations, though, I know I’ve touched a nerve. “Pander”? I call it advocating for the middle class. “Elite leftist priests”? Really? Do the Frosts count as such?
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You don’t want to recognize that getting health care has already become very difficult for middle- and lower-income families. And you don’t particularly see it as a problem, or at least not a priority. Most of America sees it differently. If you’ve got a better solution that’s actually realistic, that will work, then let’s see it. But I can assure you that browbeating and blaming the middle class is not going to get you many votes.
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Stop complaining, recognize the problem and step up with something that’ll work. Otherwise get out of the way.
We should always stand in the way of any progress towards socialism, and in so doing stand for freedom.
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Solution? How bout we allow the supply side to open up, get the government completely out of the demand side, and let the market fix it?
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Because then not everyone (who needs it) is entitled to everything? Guess what: that can never happen. You can never give everything to everyone (who needs it), and if you try then the “unforseen” consequence will be that the set of everything to be given at best becomes static and ceases to improve, or at worst diminishes as providers and innovators get the hell out of there.
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Let me guess: you think the government can provide all the innovation (and supply?) necessary. Sure, comrade.
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This is such an obvious concept, and even after it gets repeatedly pointed out I can’t believe you refuse to acknowlege it.
I can only hope your candidates go on the road with that message.
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How do free markets fix the problem of providing services to those who cannot afford them? How would that work exactly? It seems to me that the market is not going to be competing for the business of people with no money.
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Also, why is “socialism” as you call it antithetical to “freedom”? I don’t see it. Are you saying that countries with socialized healthcard, childcare etc. are actually less free? Don’t they still have elections? Is it just that the richest aren’t free to spend as much of their wealth on themselves as in this country? Is a poor person in the US with no healthcare freer than a poor person in Canada? I just don’t get it.
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It seems to me that you are just spouting meaningless rhetoric instead of real ideas.
It would be unwise to confuse my opinions with those of the Republican party in general. I’m part of them like you socialists are part of the Democrats.
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Second, I don’t imagine you’re a big fan of Ludwig Von Mises, but a quick web search of “socialism is antithetical to freedom” (which you could have done to see the other perspective, and I am doing because based on your post I’m not going to bother to answer the topic myself) turns up many hits including this one:
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http://www.mises.org…
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Which I will provide a couple excerpts from:
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Mises writes from another era, about nations far closer to the end of freedom than ours, but the perspetive is a useful one, for the path can be long and the changes slow and hard to perceive.
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How many people here want government to control (i.e. set prices and decide what profits are correct for) the pharmaceutical industry?
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Wait, isnt this a free country? Why should anyone be subject to the government’s wishes about their how much profit they make? Because of need?! Fairness!? Yea.
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How many people think it’s America’s responsibility to pay three times as much for pharma drugs as other countries?
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Thank you, thank you, thank you for making my point for me.
Did you follow the right post?
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Anyway, as you surely realize, the reason other countries pay less is because their governments price control our drugs.
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Now, if you ask me I’d be totally fine with simply NOT SELLING to those countries if they want to price control beyond whatever prices the pharma’s want to set (which might still be lower by design – economics 101). I think they can clone our drugs and violate our patents if we do that, though.
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Maybe you think that if we bomb our pharma industry here like the rest of the world does, then maybe some other country will start inventing new drugs and we can freeload?
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Doesn’t seem like a good bet to me.
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Seems to me that there is very little of leftist philosophy that is not based upon envy of somebody else’s sweet deal.
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Well, you’re right about that — it is a sweet deal for them. But neither you nor Gary want to address that question of whether we should feel grateful for the opportunity to pay so much more. And if not, then why not do what they do?
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Gary, you’ll have to prove to me that pharma co’s would somehow stop making drugs if the US government negotiated their profit margins down a bit. I don’t buy it.
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Who has the burden of proof?
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Me, arguing the time proven economic principal that price controls lower ROI which in turn causes Pharma to divert R&D to other investment opportunities? BTW, do you really think it’s a coincidence that most patents originate in the US?
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Or, you, who is suggesting that for some reason, you “feel” a basic Econ principal somehow doesn’t apply to pharmacuticals.
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Regardless, the first salvo: http://www.business….
The US government currently funds almost half of all medical research in this country. It is much more than half if you discount research that only exists to get around and effectively extend patents by modifying drugs just enough to have a new patent covering them rather than solving a new medical problem. Therefore, the burden of proof lies on your side. Prove that the US government would stop funding medical research if they lowered drug company profits. Prove that the wasted money on health insurance company profits is beneficial to the economy. Prove that we would actually have less money going towards medical research if we eliminated the waste in the health insurance/care system, or that there would be more waste if the government ran the health care system. Prove that for the current cost of health care, we would get less money going towards medical research if the private companies were socialized.
I must prove that IF the US cuts funding of medical research (which it won’t); and, US initiates drug price controls then the effect on innovative new drugs won’t be affected. Tall task.
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Alternatively, you ignore the fact that most new drug patents come from the US, not price-controlled Europe or Asia, and you don’t wonder that maybe a deregulated market encourages innovation? What do you suppose would happen if the US regulated the price of, say, computers?
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You do go on.
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Next, you seek that I show that insurance company profits are beneficial to the economy. Although, maybe you’d concede that automotive profits, tech, agribusiness, all other sectors are beneficial. Insurance profits are somehow different?
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And last, you seek that I prove that the US would have less money for medical research if the US adopted socialized medicine. That seems impossible to prove.
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But again, those advocating dramatic change must bear the burden, IMHO. Because wouldn’t it be a disaster if we adopted a socialized system that stifled innovation? You’d argue that such system won’t have a negative effect, but surely you’d agree that a negative effective is a possible outcome.
In other words, you can’t prove anything so you aren’t even going to try.
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The majority of medical advances have been funded by the government. It is only in the recent past that the US government has slowed down the rate at which it funds medicine. As recently as 10 years ago, more than half of all medical research funding in this country came from the US government. Regulating prices would free up enough money to more than cover any reduction in private funding. The US government wastes more money on useless earmarks than private companies spend on medical research.
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Most drug patents came from the US even when the government funded most of the medical research. Cutting government funding would have a much larger effect than cutting private funding. Most useful medical advances are funded by the government. The private companies spend a lot of their money circumventing the patent system and tweaking drugs that were developed under government funding.
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It is indeed impossible to prove that the US would have less money for medical research if we adopted socialized medicine. It is always impossible to prove false statements.
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Do you have any support for your claim that socializing medicine would stifle innovation? Or is it just supposed to be accepted blindly?
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When facing a religious zealot that claims The Holy Grail known as Single Payer with Price Controls is the Answer, I can’t prove it won’t.
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The burden of proof, plainly rests with you and related Disciple to prove that such a dramatic change will be beneficial.
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Much the same as the guy with the sandwich board claiming the end of the world is nigh. I can’t prove he’s wrong, but nor should I have to.
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Bold claims with potential dramatic effects, call for bold evidence.
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Yeah, like DVDs in China. They’re cheap! Let’s eliminate copyright protection in the US so Americans get the same deal. But, you know what? Creativity might be diminished.
Now, of course you know that no one is suggesting reducing the value of that intellectual property to zero. To my mind, the question is how much is enough? And since the federal government grants a monopoly for some time for new drugs (or “new” drugs, as raj points out), I think it’s certainly a legitimate question to ask how much benefit the developers need to continue innovating, not how much they want.
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It’s reasonable to not want to hardball a valuable industry out of business. It’s also reasonable to ask what the right level of support is. And the federal government supports it heavily, in many different ways.
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The question is ‘how much profit is enough’ for the drug companies. Second, who should answer the question, the marketplace or the politician?
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Take for example, the AIDS drugs innovated since the 1980s: Most of the protease inhibitors, the reverse transcriptase inhibitors, etc…are products of the US drug systems, a combination of NIH, NIC funding plus private funding.
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Now, maybe you’re right. Maybe, if the US capped the profit that a company would be allowed to earning on said drugs, the company would have still invented them (BTW, the US funds 36% of all medical research, which means private companies and investors fund 64%). Is that a chance you wish to take–the chance that a buearocrat would make a decision that would risk losing some part of the 64% funding.
It’s relevant that in your linked article, the OECD countries all engaged in price controls for the drugs.
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It is therefore no small coincidence that nearly all new pharmacuticals are invented and patented in the US (your link says so, but I can easily coroborate elsewhere), and not in those other countries.
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Admittedly, the other countries do benefit from the US free markets and innovation.
It is therefore no small coincidence that nearly all new pharmacuticals are invented and patented in the US…
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Perhaps, but you should be aware that many patents for pharmaceuticals are awarded in the US for minor variations of old products, for new uses of old products, or even dosage limitations, can get a patent (see 35 USC 101 et seq). And the US Patent & Trademark Office is very well known for being “patent friendly” in regards awarding patents for pharmaceuticals.
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As an aside, if the pharma companies only patent their “new” products, new uses or dosages in the US, they can’t really complain when companies in other countries start copying their products. It may surprise you to learn that patents are territorial: US patents only apply to the US and territories.
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Several other observations regarding pricing. There are more than a few pharmaceuticals that are based on out-of-patent chemicals. One is the pharmaceutical that my spouse takes as a prophylactic regarding his DVT (deep vein thrombosis). In the US, the drug is marketed under the trademark Coumadin. In Germany, the drug is marketed under the same trademark. Both are the blood thinner generic Warfarin, which was derived from the 1940s rat poison. Since the chemical was developed in the 1940s, it would obviously be out of patent. However, in the US, the usual retail price for 30 pills is on the order of US$50+* for the generic, whereas in Germany, you can buy 100 pills of the trademarked product Coumadin for on the order of US$25.
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Second example, digitalis. It is a derivative of the foxglove plant, which was known in the late 1700s for treatment of heart disease. Why should any pharmaceutical based on digitalis be sold in the US at a premium?
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Third example, regarding *, in our experience–we have pharma insurance–the amount that the insurance company pays is approximately the same, per dosage, as the price charged in Germany (yes, we have investigated the issue). That led us to conclude that the people in the US who were being screwed were those who were not able to get pharma insurance and have to pay full “suggested retail price”.
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Fourth example, you should be aware, but apparently aren’t, that European pharma is alive and well. I’m not familiar with France, but there are several companies in Germany (Bayer AG is one), Switzerland and Sweden (!) that are major inovators in the pharma industry. Some of them even have subsidiaries in the US.
I am of Ayn Rand. They were both nuttier than a fruitcake. As shown by the ravings of their disciples.
Personally I thought he did a pretty good job
… misunderstand that the guy they should be praising is Robert Rubin.
…Greenspan is and always has been nothing more than a politician–a Republican one, at that.
Nice misdirection attempt, however.
… people who live in socialist countries don’t consider themselves free at all and there deepest wish is to leave their country for the USA.
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After all, we’re the greatest country on earth. I can scarcely imagine why we we aren’t inundated with refugees from western socialist democracies.
You might check out:
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http://www.census.go…
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Where you could find that 13.7% of the US foreign born population came from Europe. (What subset came from your so called “socialist democracies” is not immediately obvious). By contrast, 36.9% came from (socialist democracies?) in Latin America and 25% came from (socialist tyrannies?) in Asia. On a population basis, these numbers don’t really seem too far off – maybe a bit high out of LA but hey you got proximity workin for ya if you are already in e.g. Mexico on the other side of no fence.
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What I can’t easily find is how many of us miserable underinsured Americans are actually emigrating to the socialist paradises in Europe, although I am under the impression that most or all of their population growth is streaming in from Africa and the Muslim world.
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Why aren’t more US socialists moving to Europe, or at least Canada? As a socialist could you offer an opinion?
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A completely unregulated market is a bigger threat to freedom than socialism is. With an unregulated market, large companies decide what happens in your life. In bad forms of socialism, the government decides what happens in your life. There is no difference in how little freedom you get. The only difference is that you have a better chance of doing something to change the government than you do of getting corporations to give up their power.
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Unregulated markets are not free markets. The economically important thing in free markets is that people decide how to allocate resources, rather than some cetnral planning group. In order for free markets to function properly, they need regulations to prevent people from cheating. Markets will work better when people (and companies) cannot externalize their costs. In order for a market to function well, people have to be free to decide how much they want to consume and how much they want to produce.
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There can never be a free market in anything that people need to survive. If your options are pay $x or die, most people will choose to pay $x, regardless of how large x is. You can’t just open up the supply side, because all of the suppliers know that they can charge any amount and people will still agree to pay. There is no free market solution to health care.
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Whenever I have gone to see a doctor, I haven’t even been told how much something is going to cost ahead of time. They have never asked me if I want some treatment that will cost some amount. When they have decided that treatment is necessary, they give it to me and then send me a bill. Once you decide that you are going to the hospital to have a problem taken care of, you have basically no choice in what happens or how much you are going to be billed for treatment. This is not a free market.
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You obviously don’t know anything about how medical research is funded. The government already pays a substantial fraction of the total research costs. When you consider how much of the private funding is wasted on patent manipulation (modifying a drug enough that it isn’t covered by an old patent and can be covered by a new patent), the government is providing the majority of funding for useful medical research. Why do you think that would change if the government was fully covering everybody’s health care costs? Where do conservatives get the crazy idea that the government does a bad job of funding science? If scientific exploration had always been left to the free market, we would still be using 18th century technology (and that’s being optimistic).
…Germany’s health care financing system was developed by Otto von Bismarck in the 3d quarter of the 19th century. I doubt that he did it out of the goodness of his heart. In fact, he did it to forestall the advance of the Social Democrats in the Reichstag.
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The US has a bastardized system that includes socialized medicine that is even more socialized than that in Germany (Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP, WIC, etc, etc, etc), an employer-based system that is a vestige of WWII’s wage and price controls (employers couldn’t increase wages directly, so they did it by paying for health insurance), private health insurance with so many holes it leaks like a sieve (when I had BCBS, they rarely paid for anything; I paid more for health insurance from BCBS than my mother in law, and she was a breast cancer survivor–and her private insurer even paid for eyeglasses), and tens of millions of uninsured, who are a burden on the entire system–providing that they get treated at all.
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To coin a phrase, eventually the shit is going to hit the fan in the US. Merely yelling “socialized medicine” isn’t going to stem the tide.
when your entire family was in a devestating car accident, almost dying… with no insurance. Luckily, at least the Frosts had some freedom from the semi-public “SCHIP” which actually isn’t public at all, and at least in most states requires families to contribute… all for private plans. So, um, ya… please remove head from ass, then try again.
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No, just health care.
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Most developed countries, and even many poorer ones, can manage health care… so I think it’s safe to say we can manage giving health care to all, as a basic human right in this country.
As preface, I think you know that the House won’t override the SCHIP veto. A friendly bet?
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So, should it be vetoed?
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To summarize a bit, SCHIP was passed by the ’97 Republican Congress, and now, Mr. Bush seeks to continue the program. Ms. Pelosi-corp seeks to expand it.
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The ultimate political question–for me–on the table is this: should US provide welfare, in the form of children’s health insurance, to families earning $60K and higher?
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Well, some of the biggest lobbyists in the industry think so: America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), the trade association for HMOs, supports the bill. Also, its biggest member, Blue Cross Blue Shield. They’re thinking of the
cashchildren, no doubt. The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturing Association (PhRMA), is also behind the expansion. You know, because PhRMA just looooves kids. So too, is the American Medical Association. You may wish to judge the quality of a Bill, by the company it keeps. YMMV.<
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Are the children of middle class america, who are currently uninsured, receiving inadequate healthcare? I’ve not seen this question addressed; intuitively believe the answer is “no”, and contend that politicians proposing expansion owe us this evidence — not video of doe-eyed kids reading a script prepared by Madison Avenue. The burden of showing why we need middle class welfare should fall on those proposing expansion.
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There are irrefutable statistics that most health care dollars are spent, the older we get. There is a reasonable presumption that parents make wise decisions for their kids.
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Except here: http://www.bluemassg…
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So now you question my use of the word pander for a bill that gives money to the states (pander to the Governors); gives welfare to families earning over $60K (pander to the middle class); gives money to the HMOs and Pharma (pander to Big Corp.)
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Nah, I’m being silly! How could I possibly oppose such a loving, caring Bill. For the Children.
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An alternative and their are many: opt for the Bush proposal that makes health insurance a tax deduction for everyone, and create policies that actually 1) create some awareness of how we’re spending our dollars; and 2) reduce the largess of Medicare.
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Absent some data to the contrary, SCHIP is just a partisan sideshow and creeping Single Payer in the healthcare debate.
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Sure. Why not? There are people in this country making in excess of $100,000 who get public education. We don’t means test for that. Health is just as vital a public concern as quality education.
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So what if a family makes $60K? I suppose you think that’s a big number. OK. I’ll agree that it’s a big number. There are bigger numbers out there, though, and they often come attached to medical bills. So if you want to ‘means’ test something you don’t get to decide the argument in a one-way fashion: since there is no cap on medical bills I’m not willing to cap welfare. If you’re bills exceed $60K, there you go: I’m all in favor of welfare for anybody who’s medical bills exceeds their ability to pay.
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And another thing: I think it morally repugnant to worry this issue in this manner. I’d much rather mistakenly, or even unfairly, pay a few too much while insuring that all are covered then to nickel-N-dime everybody out of some economic darwinism while missing the many that fall through the cracks created solely for the purpose of ‘means-testing’. Which one is a sin: letting someone suffer, perhaps even die, or playing ‘gotcha’ with the paycheck?
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It did not help her cause. She can talk about “filling the void” all she wants, there’s a reason why newspapers don’t stalk 12 year olds.
It’s creepy that bloggers are staking out the Frost home. Unfortunately, there is precedent for people to be suspicious of those who trot out their sick children for political purposes.
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It isn’t good practice to design policy based on anecdote, but let’s put that aside and see what else we can learn from the Frost case:
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– If you’re going to use children as spokespersons, at least respect them enough to not feed them lies such as “If it weren’t for CHIP, I might not be here today”. There is no evidence of Maryland residents being denied health care due to lack of insurance.
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– Maryland offers a plan that the self-employed, like the Frosts, can purchase. If they met income guidelines, they would qualify for rates subsidized by SCHIP.
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– The SCHIP portion of the program is administered by Care First. In their financial highlights, they state that “more than 83 cents of every premium dollar…goes directly to pay for medical care”. So, the remaining 17% goes for administration?
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For me, this case does not present a compelling reason to override the Bush veto.
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It’s just horrible isn’t it?
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This is a canard. I, personally, have never heard of anybody anywhere in the US ever being denied health care. Not the issue. People are given health care all the time. ALL TOO OFTEN that care is accompanied by a very large bill. Some people are denied insurance, (which is not the same thing as health care, though the cons wish it were…) for various reasons but mostly for economic ones. When this happens they are faced with a choice of asking for the health care (and almost always getting it) and taking the financial hit, or simply not asking and suffering.
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And your point is…?
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And your point is…? (perhaps you think 17% is excessive? You should do more homework then… )
You call the line “If it weren’t for CHIP, I might not be here today” a canard. I agree! These were the Frost’s words, not mine (taken from the text of his radio address). It does distract from the real issue of health insurance cost.
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So the question becomes is SCHIP the only way to address issues of health insurance cost. Point 1 is in the “no” column — here is an example of a state providing a mechanism by which the self-employed (and others) can form a pool and thereby bring premiums down.
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Point 2 was to counter what has been a common, but popular, misconception — that public health insurance admin costs are only 2%.
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I was not referring to Frosts words and that is not what I called a canard. I was referring to your words “there is no evidence that…” Either you are deliberately misleading or are decidedly moronic. I don’t think you are moronic.
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Now that’s a strawman. I’ve never heard that articulated anywhere. (BTW, what’s the difference between ‘common’ and ‘popular’ in this instance?)
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Not a strawman. Nearly every single payer argument starts with, “Medicare overhead is only …2%, 4%, 1.5%…
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http://www.google.co…
ARE very low (I can’t remember the exact #, but it’s way lower than 17%). So how is that a bad argument?
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I suspect the admin overhead of a CHIP program is largely the outreach, to let parents of children who are eligible know they qualify. Everyone assumes if you’re between “Medicaid” and “rich” there is no help coming to you…getting the word out that yes, indeed, your kids may well qualify even though you aren’t below poverty level is, I’m guessing, quite a marketing campaign.
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So until we know WHY CHIP has a 17% overhead (if indeed that’s true), you’re the one with the strawman.
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If we indeed went single-payer universal health care, there’d be a lot less marketing necessary, as everyone would know they qualify for the public insurance program, wouldn’t they?
Here is Ezra’s
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So far, all I hear is crickets…..
It’s coming to me… a vision from beyond!!
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A woman named… Tammy? NO! WAIT! TERRY! TERRI S… Terry.. S… Terri Shylow… SCHIAVO! TERRI SCHIAVO is speaking to me from beyond the grave…
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…She says Michelle Malkin is in a persistent vegetative state and can’t really help herself.
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… She says that you must go to her and tell her it’s alright to intervene before the 12 year old is brain dead…