Healthcare Amateur Hour
Organizing for America farmed out their propaganda creation to America. They asked Americans to make some 30-second commercials to distort the health care debate and they’ve narrowed their submissions down to twenty for the judges to choose from. Who will be judges?
The top 20 ads will also be voted on by our panel of experts and artists, including Black Eyed Peas frontman will.i.am, animator and director Seth MacFarlane, actress Kate Walsh, Obama for America campaign manager David Plouffe, and Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine.
Yeah, Family Guy just fell off my list of programs. Anyway, I watched all 20 videos and all I learned is that the submitters don’t understand what’s at stake here and they don’t understand economics…and they don’t understand that there are no do overs after they inflict this mess on America.
Take this one, for example. It’s supposed to tug at your heart strings with a bunch of potentially sick kids whose parents are too irresponsible to buy them healthcare – so they want you to buy it for them;
Videos below the jump;
It’s the healthcare lobbyists that are the problem – because we’re not smart enough to see how stupid this single payer shit is all by ourselves;
Cartoons are the best way to scare people;
The “straw man” method works on the truly ignorant, too.
Might as well drag out the boogeyman to scare the sheep, too;
We all know how stupid college students are, so let’s scare them into thinking health care is a right;
If these are the finalists, you can imagine what they tossed out.
Category: Health Care debate
It’s the something for nothing mentality that is becoming pervasive in this country…
You don’t have to be responsible for yourself, that’s somebody elses job, after all you’re entitled to free stuff from the government because they work for you!
Only they don’t work, they mooch off of the taxpayers and give away that money, not their own…
It’s going to be the demise of this nation if we can’t turn this around…
How would you feel if Velo had died from leukemia because he couldn’t afford treatment?
Joe, you ignorant slut, you.
A little different when the shoe is on the other foot, huh….
Joe, I didn’t answer because I thought maybe you’d be a little ashamed of your callous, ill-considered comment and I thought I’d let it die a natural death in the archives without embarrassing you further. Apparently, I was wrong – you’re a fucking moron right to the bone.
One of the things I discussed with Velo’s father before he married my daughter was health insurance – if it’s any of your stupid business – so your moronic scenario is moot.
Jonn wrote: No, Joe this isn’t a public website – it’s MY website.
Doesn’t Joe even comprehend that one Velo is worth more than 10,000 a**holes like him? If Jonn will be gracious enough to allow me to answer your hyperthetical question Joe,it is a simple no brainer!We would just harvest your pitiful organs and sell them on the Elbonian blackmarket and use the proceeds to pay any insurance premiums, and then it will be a win-win situation for everybody involved from Velo,to the pygmy ground squirrels who get your organs,and to the human gene pool…..any questions you f**ktard?
Note: John has blocked my response to his eloquent “fucking moron” posting, probably because it hit too close to home. But oh, I get it now A Heros Friend. It’s OK for someone else’s anonymous kid to die through no fault of their own, but when it’s your own flesh and blood, that’s a different story. What cruel, narrow-minded, self-centered, selfish people. I don’t know if you’re that way before you join the military, or if the military makes you all so heartless…..
I’ll explain it so even YOU can understand it, Joe. My point is that we take care of our families and we don’t feel it is our responsibility to take care of yours. However you feel the need to drag us all down to your emotional level.
Your hypothetical question was about as ignorant as anything I’ve ever seen. A cursory glance at the discussion we’ve had here over the last three years would have prevented you from beclowning yourself. But like every idiot leftist, you need to be spoonfed information and can’t be bothered with a minute of research.
I’m ashamed to say that if you had asked me that question in person, you’d have a big red mark on your forehead right now and another in the back from where you’d hit the ground. And the nurse would be asking you how many fingers you see. And you get that wrong, too.
Joe…In response to your comment…NO one wants to see innocents die,HOWEVER…it is a fact of life/nature,people WILL die regardless of what is done…Peter Pan is make believe but death is not! We all start dying at the moment of conception and we cannot change that fact…as for not being able to afford treatment, where there is a will there is a way…not to mention the many charities who assist with or provide treatment.But the fact is ,why should my children and grandchildren suffer because someone else can’t or won’t provide for their children…time to smell the coffee Joey boy and pick up a cause that HELPS EVERYONE!
A Heros Friend,
Thank you for the posting without any profanity – I will try and maintain that high standard. In answer to your question, “Why why should my children and grandchildren suffer because someone else can’t or won’t provide for their children”, well, for one thing even hard working people who play by the rules can be destroyed by one random illness or accident. It could be you, it could be me. Right now it’s a lottery in which people who play by the rules often get screwed. And as for the freeloaders, and yes there will always be freeloaders, I guess I like to think that as a people we’re bigger than that, that in order to accomplish the greater good, we can tolerate a few freeloaders. They are the cost of doing business. Furthermore, there are concrete procedural steps that could be implemented to reduce the number of freeloaders. I fully support a stringent verification procedures, and ideally that would exclude illegal immigrants, etc. As for charities, that takes time, and in the case of many illnesses, the people involved may not have the time to shop around for charities, they may have a ticking clock.
And Jonn, why is my scenario, which you blocked out, so “ignorant”? It happens to straight-up families every day, dozens of them, scores of them. I feel like because your family has the good fortune to not to have been bankrupted by medical bills, you consider it some remote, abstract possibility. But, and I hope not, you could be next. A lot of “insurance hawks” have felt the same way you do, until one illness rocked their world. Now they’re on the other side of the aisle.
While I am new to this particular blog, I am not new to assinine and intellectually weak arguments like Joe is spouting off. Let me give you “just the facts” Joe…it has recently come out that while folks like you want to portray insurance companies as evil profiteers, fact of the matter is that, on average, they only produce a profit of 4 percent…doesn’t seem like a huge margin to me considering grocery chains post about the same profit margins (yet we don’t hear cries that they should provide us all with free food). Fact of the matter is the healthcare system ran better when the market decided everything, not government. When we introduced medicare into the market sliding scale services went bye-bye, free charitable hospital care said adios (because most hospitals changed from being for-profit companies to not-for-profit one) and what happened to the doctor that would do in-home visits? Nah that’s gone too because now he or she spends his extra time running uneccessary tests to avoid lawsuits or buried in bureaucratic paperwork now required since papa government got involved…I know the phrase universal health care sound all utopian and shit and I’ll admit sometimes I wanna sing kumbaya when I utter it but I digress…If not of the facts disuade you Joe try this one…your retirement funds (401K’s IRA’s whatever) look deep into your portfolio there Joey…how much is tied up in investments into those health insurance companies? And how much will you lose and how many more years will you have to work when the givernment (intentional misspell) drives those companies to bankruptcy???
CJ,
Portfolio or no portfolio, I will be the first one to cheer when the last parasitic insurance company is out of business. That’s the difference – you see everything as dollars and cents, I see actual human beings. You see people as a resource to exploit for monetary gain, I see tragic stories….
I’m at a loss for words, concerning your communist bs, Joe. You are an anti-capitalist that reaps the benefits of capitalism and you have weiner envy. I tell you what; why don’t you give every hard earned dime of yours to charity, or better yet, give it to me, because I am smarter and will spend your money better than you can. It’s for humanity’s sake that I will force you to give me as much of your money as I see fit in order to provide for those less priviledged.
You want to talk about parasitic? Let’s talk college tuition; shall we? It’s increasing at a very fast rate, yet I don’t hear a peep out of any of you leftist a-holes about the greed of the professors and the universities that scream that they need more and more of our tax dollars? Affordable education!!!!! That should be the mantra. We need to cut costs on education!!!! Everyone has the right to an affordable college education!!!! It should be free!!!!!! It’s a right!!!(ok, I made that last part up, just as leftist a-holes made up that healthcare is a right)
Old Trooper I bet that Joe comes back with something about a straw man argument.
There are so many different ways that this “health care crisis” can be fixed.
1)Allow Drs. and hospitals to write off all free medical care that they provide. Oh wait that would mean that the govt would have less control and less money.
2)Go to a loser pays legal system. This would make fewer frivilious lawsuits. Oh wait how much money have trial lawyers donated to congress?
3)Allow more competetion between states for insurance.
These are just a few ways that involve little govt. involvement, but I just think they are too simple for some people to see.
JPJ: I like your thinking.
You’re right, it’s all about control and money. They could allow insurance companies to cover anyone in any state, which would make it a competitive marketplace, which will help bring down costs. Couple that with your ideas and it would help bring down costs immensely.
People don’t realize that the government impedes the market place and drives up costs. For instance, the child immunization law of 1993 (remember who was in the WH and controlled congress back then) made the government the largest purchaser of flu shots. They told the companies how much they would pay them per dose (price controls to keep costs down) and at the time the law was passed, there were 25 companies that provided flu vaccine. Fast forward to now, due to government involvement, there are 5 and they wonder why there is a shortage of flu vaccine?? Next time someone bitches about the shortage and the eeeevil pharma companies, tell them to thank the government for the shortage.
Yet people like Joe want the government to screw up the rest of the healthcare industry.
I have said it before and I will say it again regarding health care. There is a perfectly valid path already in place that will allow one to earn health care for life in the United States. It’s called serving your country.
Of course, I am not sure that the current health care reform should be called Communist. In the USSR, military service was mandatory.
And great point on college expenses. College expenses are getting damn near ridiculous. Not to mention that truly investing in the education of Americans would actually make sense and probably make the government money back on what it spends.
Joe….or should I call you Uncle Joe Stalin…did you actually read and DIGEST what I fucking said??? Or are you too wrapped up in Dear Leader’s rhetoric that you blindly follow along dreaming of unicorns and puppies…Everyone HAS ACCESS TO HC NOW…we had better and more affordable care before government ever came along claiming to be our new savior….Claiming that the insurance industry is parasitic proves to me what I originally thought…you are intellectually weak and have allowed the flawed and un-principled ideas of Trotsky, Lenin and Mao to infiltrate that brain of yours…stop drinking the damned kool-aid and smoking pot drink some water…it will purify you to a point you might actually be able to think for yourself…and go back and re-read what I actually said and refute me with fact instead of BS…thanks and have a GRRRREAT day!
A number of you have been drinking too much of the corporate kool-aid and buying into their scare tactics. We are the only industrialized country that doesn’t have universal coverage. Somehow other countries have made universal coverage work. And even you thick-skinned guys and girls guys can’t be immune to all the tragic horror stories out there. It doesn’t have to be government controlled health care, just government insurance. The doctors would still be in private practice and doing what they do best – honoring their hippocratic oath. Go up to Hartford, CT, and look at all that forest of shiny glass office buildings with tens of thousands of paper pushers – all paid for by your premimums. Riddle me this Batman – how come our system is so terrific and efficient if 31% – yes, 31% – of every health dollar you spend goes into administrative costs – those big shiny bulidings and all the people who work in them. In Canada for example they spend 1% of their health care dollars on administrative costs. 31%! Talk about waste and parasitism…
Joe, you’ve been drinking too much of the leftist/socialist koolaid. Yeah, those eeeeevil corporations that happen to employ people that pay taxes and contribute to the country. You talk about those big shiny buildings with all those paper pushers in them; yet what do you think about all those buildings around the country that say Federal Government on them, that are filled with paper pushers where much more of my money goes??? You spout the leftist mantra about cost. Guess what; the government raises the cost to all of us, when it takes something over. You fail to mention that we spend 2-3 times more money on education than the rest of the industrialized world, more on medicare/medicaid, welfare, social security, etc., yet not a peep out of you about that. I wonder why? We have SCHIP that covers more and more children and now families, because the program needed expansion, according to democrats, so it now covers many that don’t fit the income model, but are above it. Medicaid covers the poor, already. Why the hell would I want to be forced into a system I don’t want? That’s what will happen, because the government option may be “voluntary”, however, when the increase in premiums for private insurance hits employers, they will dump the employees into the public option, so I really won’t have a choice; will I? You are a socailist/communist/anti-capitalist that is infatuated with class envy. That you are a cheerleader for everything that sticks it to those eeeeevil corporations shows you have no fricken clue who pays the tax bill; do you? The term “social justice” is a euphamism used by the left in order to push government control of every aspect of our lives. Maybe if you worked for a living you would understand that those of us that do, don’t like having more of our hard earned money stolen by control freaks to give to some person that doesn’t get up at 4 am every day and doesn’t go to work for me. Once you get a job, well, if you can get one,… Read more »
OldTrooper…please forgive Joe for his ignorance,he is a product of a liberal,public education system and they never took the time to ‘splain to him that the “Government” has NO money whatsoever, weather it is Federal,State, or Local! EVERY PENNY the government has is from taxpayers like us… Joe…I truly think that you fell out of the top of the stupid tree and ate EVERY damn apple on the way down…SHEESH!!!
You’re a funny guy, OldTrooper. Take about jumping to conclusions…. Not that it’s any of your business, but I work hard and long for a living, and contribute much. To me you seem to be a jealous, selfish person who is so worried about someone taking advantage of them that they are afraid to move forward, paralyzed with fear. In Canada the people will tell you that their system of universal health care has a tremendous unifying effect, pulls them together as a nation. They are not afraid to help their fellow citizens, even if it might mean a few bucks out of their pocket. They realize there is more to life, an citizenship, than a few dollars here or there. They see the big picture, the entire system known as a nation, whereas you are fixated on the pennies in your pocket, terrified that someone might steal one. In your world, our country would be reduced to a crazy quilt of feudal fiefdoms, each one obsessed with their own material possesions. I am against what you stand for, and I feel sorry for you.
Joe, you are so full of shit your eyes are brown. You know nothing of me, or what I do, so I guess you like to jump to conclusions, also. As for Canada, I have relatives in the healthcare industry that work with expat Canadians, who came here to practice medicine, because they don’t share the unifying effect that you seem to think all Canadians share. Plus, I live in a border state that sees many Canadian license plates in the parking lots of hospitals and clinics on this side, because the people come here for healthcare they can’t get in their country. What you fail, as usual, to understand is that it’s not about giving up my hard earned pennies, but who I give them to should be up to me, not you, or any other dumbass. There are several on this site that know me and know what I do; you aren’t one of them. If I want to contribute time and money to charity, then that should be my decision. it’s called freedom, something that you wouldn’t understand in your bubble world of utopia. Once you grow up, then come and talk to me. I would like to see a ROI for my money. In case it was lost on you, that’s Return On Investment. I would rather spend money on something that works, instead of throwing down the government shithole where there is never “efficiency” and always higher costs for what you get. As a true liberal, you feel instead of think. Don’t “feel” anything for me, I did not ask for, nor do I want, anything from you (that’s called independence), and I especially don’t want your pity. I’m doing just fine as long as the government leaves me the hell alone. I’m not afraid, just angry. Anger brought on by a bunch of busy-bodies that think they should be able to dip into my pocket, or life, because they think they need to know what I’m doing, or to tell me how to live my life. I have a two word response for people… Read more »
OldTrooper,
You seem very angry – have you stopped taking your meds? Almost everything you said in your last post supports what I mentioned – it’s all about you and your money, screw the people in need. Dog-eat-dog, us agianst them. So how does that wasted 31% that we spend on administrative costs fit into your ROI? I guess you’re glad we have this wasteful system so we can keep all those paper pushers gainfully employed instead of doing, what, something constructive?
When I read your posts, OldTrooper, I am reminded what journalist Sandy Leon Vest recently wrote:
In America — in my country — I fear we are losing the battle for our humanity. Some say we have already lost it.
Deep down I think they may be right.
Yeah, it’s terrible that we take care of our own families and have no sympathy for people who won’t.
You know what’s worse? People like you who think that you have a right to tell us how we should spend our earnings. People like you who think we should take money from our own lives and families to pay for irresponsible knuckleheads who make bad choices and think the rest of us should pay for their mulligans.
It’s got nothing to do with “humanity”. America never had that kind of “humanity” – so we can’t lose what we never had. I think it’s inhumane to take what I earn for my family to give it to someone else without my permission. Where’s your humanity?
Joe, you just don’t get it; do ya? Unfortunately, no matter how many times i spell it out for you, you just default back to your long worn out leftist talking points. But, since I like you, I’ll try one more time: The government is the most inefficent of entities on the planet, yet you put full faith and allegiance into having an enterprise that has shown time and again that it can’t manage the peoples money. Every “estimate” that they throw out on a government endeavor somehow becomes at least twice as costly, and in most cases more than that, than “estimated”, with a concurrent drop in quality and availability of whatever it is they want to take over. Government is not a business and wasn’t designed to be, at least in this country, and it doesn’t have the capacity to be one. Aren’t you a little curious how this country managed to make it 230 years without national halthcare? Now, I understand that in the leftist/socialist/progressive/communist world in which you live, it may seem like government is the do all to end all for taking care of us. That is not what this country was founded on. In fact, the very things that leftists bitch about i.e. social security, medicare, etc. are government programs!!! Yet, here you are, to espouse the virtues of the government, the same government that messed up the other programs, to take over healtcare, too. It doesn’t matter which political party is in charge, they all seem to follow the same path, because that’s what government does. We have enough programs out there already that waste billions of our tax dollars, especially in healthcare, which I already covered and you have ignored. Medicare will have to borrow money starting next year. Social security the year after. And yet here you are with wanting more of it. Now, if you would care to address the other points I made about “costs” versus the rest of Europe, feel free. You may think that I have no heart, or that I’m selfish, blah, blah, blah. Charity cmes… Read more »
Well said,OldTrooper…giving freely IS charity…being forced is Subjugation…do you get it now Joe?
Subjugation, A Heros Freind? Is paying for roads and highways “subjugation”? Is paying for police and fire protection subjugation? Is paying for city water and sewer subjugation? In fact the reason “this country managed to make it 230 years without national healthcare” OldTrooper is that the concept of healthcare didn’t exist until the 20’s and 30’s when they actually started being able to cure the occasional illness. The founding fathers never envisioned modern healthcare. I would like to think we can evolve as a country, that the idea of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” can evolve as society and technology evolve. Many other civilized countries believe health care has become a human right, and I tend to agree…
“Is paying for roads and highways “subjugation”? Is paying for police and fire protection subjugation? Is paying for city water and sewer subjugation?”
Is that what we’re talking about? You people always drag out that line to defend taxes – but always in unrelated discussions. Those are things that government should do, but it doesn’t buy votes, so government spends the money on bells and whistles instead. And then those are the things they threaten to cut when the citizenry demand tax cuts.
Are you declaring that there were no doctors in the days of our founding? Are you willing to be just that obtuse?
Joe
There is already a perfectly valid path to life long health care in the United States. It’s called serving your country. The USSR had universal health care, but military service was mandatory there.
Besides, I actually use city roads, sewers, and police/fire protection. Health care on the other hand? I already have health care for life.
That and seeing that the Government is largely to blame for the current shitty insurance company situation, why should we suddenly trust them to run healthcare? They can’t manage wars, foreign policy and national security, responsibilities which have always belonged to them. Why should they be entrusted with more responsibilities?
Joe the stupidity of what you wrote befuddles me. You are talking about something you don’t understand. I am going to name a few poeple that contributed to medicine long before the 20s or 30s. I am going to start with one of the obvious ones, Hipocrates. He was taking care of people in the 5th century b.c. Have you ever heard of Fabiola or Pheobe? They practiced medicine in ancient Rome. In the 1800s there were a few people who contributed to medicine Florence Nightengale, Louis Pasteur, and Theodore Fliedner.
Quit being ignorant pick up a book and learn some history.
Joe, you say that healthcare is a human right, yet I haven’t seen the list of these “human rights”
The government is supposed to take care of roads, etc. from a states rights point, however, it is not the job of the government to provide every little thing in our day to day lives. You don’t get it and probably never will. Just because other countries feel that something should be provided by the government doesn’t make it right for us. We are not Europe. Granted, we have been there to clean up the messes that the enlightened Europeans get into, however, not everything that Europe thinks is a great idea is.
You touch on the founding fathers, yet you have no concept of what the Constitution actually means. The powers of the federal government are laid out quite specifically and healthcare is not one of them. In your little blurb you mention “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”. That’s preety plain to understand in that it says the pursuit of happiness, not the gaurantee of happiness. Why should you be able to infringe on my life and liberty for your own devices?? That isn’t liberty. Why should the government be able to over step their authority in order to force me into something I don’t want?
If you think that Europe has all the answers, please feel free to move there. No one would stop you (that’s that freedom thingy) and that way, we could keep a Constitutional government right here.
Joe, if healthINSURANCE (let’s not confuse it with healthcare, m’boy) is a RIGHT, then why the confiscatory nature upon others? If taxation is required to enforce this, doesn’t that infringe upon the RIGHTS of others, namely those footing the bill for those who cannot/will not? Only a statist would claim to have a “right” to the fruits of my labor, and a government which takes that from me without my consent is (drum roll please) tyrranical in its nature.
Before WWI, medicine was mainly a matter of controlling pain and attempting to lessen the symptoms while the disease or injury ran its course – actually curing a condition was very rare. The advent of health insurance mirrors the increased efficacy of medicine.
A number of postings mention people who cannot or will not take care of their own. If that was the issue, I probably wouldn’t support universal coverage either. In fact there are so, so many hard working, thrifty people who play by the rules and still suffer from a catastrophic illness that drains their resources and leaves them bankrupt. Unless you guys and girls have several million dollars in your bank account (I sure don’t) you could be in the same boat. In addition, the business model for health insurers is to collect your money up front, then deny, deny, deny your claims. That is the only way they can remain profitable, and that’s what it’s all about for them – profitability, not care. Have you seen the testimony by Dr. Linda Peeno? She was rewarded by a six figure salary as a medical director for her skill in denying claims. After suffering pangs of conscience, she herself testifies that she was responsible for the death of man, and no one has ever held her accountable. Watch it here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoqpPwvUoP0). Is this the kind of system you support?
Addendum to previous post: talk about “Death Panels”!
“the business model for health insurers is to collect your money up front, then deny, deny, deny your claims”
Uh, hate to bust your bubble, m’boy, but exactly WHO has the highest percentage of denied claims again?
Joe I can’t argue with your stupidity. You are probably one of those guys who dropped out of college after taking an intro to political science class and now think that you know it all. I have probably forgoten more about medical ethics, history of medicine, and how to practice medicine that you will ever know.