A Look At Sarah Palin

You are hopeless. Believe what you want.

[ghoulslime]

Does anybody want to have their taxes raised? Raise your hand if you do! No hands? Alrighty, then we're all on the same page!

The government gets more than enough of our money, especially if we live in California. The federal government is worse than a high maintenance wife. You get fucked on a regular basis, and the price tag is way too high. Living in the State of California is like trying to get satisfaction from a crack whore. It takes your money, steals the shit from your house, and doesn't even deliver on the lip service.

The problem is not that the government does not steal enough of our money. The problem is how it is allocated.

Here's a graph that shows how our pennies are used:



Liller cow doesn't mind spending most of the money to kill people. She just can't stand the thought of ending the suffering of those who are sick. Notice how the Lillers always gets the fucking logic backwards? Did the polarity get reversed in her thinkuretor or what?

Why wouldn't we shrink military spending to 25-30% of present spending? Triple the budget for the EPA, quadruple it for Education, and increase NASA's budget by about 700%! Then with the rest of the money we could make a health care system that is not a total farce like we have now.

[Victus]

Irreligious wrote

The basic aim is to ensure that everyone is insured, just like they do in other relatively wealthy, industrialized nations of the world.

Here in Canada, we're having quite a chuckle at the debate. It's awesome when they troll out a Canadian that had a non-life threatening condition on a 6 month wait list for treatment (damn those people in genuine, immediate need!!!) that sold everything she had to get treatment in the states, or when they claim we kill our old people.

I thought our politicians were childish, but you guys take the cake.

Oh? Dr. Scott Atlas, Professor of Radiology and Chief of Neuroradiology at Stanford University Medical School has this to say:

1. Americans have better survival rates than Europeans for common cancers. Breast cancer mortality is 52 percent higher in Germany than in the United States and 88 percent higher in the United Kingdom. Prostate cancer mortality is 604 percent higher in the United Kingdom and 457 percent higher in Norway. The mortality rate for colorectal cancer among British men and women is about 40 percent higher.

2. Americans have lower cancer mortality rates than Canadians. Breast cancer mortality in Canada is 9 percent higher than in the United States, prostate cancer is 184 percent higher, and colon cancer among men is about 10 percent higher.

3. Americans have better access to treatment for chronic diseases than patients in other developed countries. Some 56 percent of Americans who could benefit from statin drugs, which reduce cholesterol and protect against heart disease, are taking them. By comparison, of those patients who could benefit from these drugs, only 36 percent of the Dutch, 29 percent of the Swiss, 26 percent of Germans, 23 percent of Britons, and 17 percent of Italians receive them.

4. Americans have better access to preventive cancer screening than Canadians. Take the proportion of the appropriate-age population groups who have received recommended tests for breast, cervical, prostate, and colon cancer:

• Nine out of ten middle-aged American women (89 percent) have had a mammogram, compared to fewer than three-fourths of Canadians (72 percent).
  
• Nearly all American women (96 percent) have had a Pap smear, compared to fewer than 90 percent of Canadians.
  
• More than half of American men (54 percent) have had a prostatespecific antigen (PSA) test, compared to fewer than one in six Canadians (16 percent).
  
• Nearly one-third of Americans (30 percent) have had a colonoscopy, compared with fewer than one in twenty Canadians (5 percent).

He has 6 more comparisons to offer. None of them would make a sane person want Canadian or any other government run health care.

[Kate]

Can anyone here tell me the percentage of uninsured Americans who get/have access to/can afford preventive care/screening/tests?

Victus wrote

Here in Canada, we're having quite a chuckle at the debate. It's awesome when they troll out a Canadian that had a non-life threatening condition on a 6 month wait list for treatment (damn those people in genuine, immediate need!!!) that sold everything she had to get treatment in the states, or when they claim we kill our old people.

Oh yeah. Shirley was a real hoot-- I couldn't stop chuckling:

Businessman Rick Baker makes money from Canadian rationing. People stuck on waiting lists like Shirley Healy pay him to get them to America for treatment. Healy had a blocked artery that kept her from digesting her food.

RICK BAKER, CANADIAN BUSINESSMAN: She was starving to death. She’d lost 50 pounds.
STOSSEL: She hired Rick to help her get to this hospital in Washington state where she saw an American doctor.

HEALY: The doctor said that I would have had only a very few weeks to live.

STOSSEL: Yet the Canadian government calls her surgery elective.

HEALY: The only thing elective about this surgery was I elected to live.

6 month waits for MRIs, year long waits for hip replacements. I just can't stop chuckling!

[dogpet]

Lily wrote

Why do you think that people pull their own teeth in Britain?

Fuck Me!

Lily, I asked you b4 to identify the British newspapers you claim to read.

[ghoulslime]

Life expectancy in the good old we're number one USA is right under Jordan and Bosnia!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...ife_expectancy

[ghoulslime]

Victus wrote

Here in Canada, we're having quite a chuckle at the debate. It's awesome when they troll out a Canadian that had a non-life threatening condition on a 6 month wait list for treatment (damn those people in genuine, immediate need!!!) that sold everything she had to get treatment in the states, or when they claim we kill our old people.

I thought our politicians were childish, but you guys take the cake.

Those goddamn Canadians can't get medical care! That's why they are so angry and violent! Homeless people roam their cities. They kill the old people. People live in slums. 45 million of them don't have medical insurance. What an awful place! I'm happy that we are blessed with Jesus and no medical insurance in the USA.

[ghoulslime]

I have medical insurance and dental insurance. If I need to have dental work, my dental insurance saves me something like $5 bucks off the bill! Wow! What a bonus! I've already bought a ticket for Thailand in December. While I am there, I plan to have some dental work done. (My dentist was educated at Baltimore College of Dental Surgery. Should I be concerned that he studied in the USA?) I've never seen a clinic as modern or clean here in Los Angeles. 15 cents on the dollar, motherfuckers!

[ghoulslime]

It appears that medical boo boos are a leading cause of death in the U.S.A!

Could you help us find statistics on this, Lily?

Is this the best we can do, my fellow Merkins?

[dogpet]

Lily wrote

Oh? Dr. Scott Atlas, Professor of Radiology and Chief of Neuroradiology at Stanford University Medical School has this to say:

1. Americans have better survival rates than Europeans for common cancers. Breast cancer mortality is 52 percent higher in Germany than in the United States and 88 percent higher in the United Kingdom. Prostate cancer mortality is 604 percent higher in the United Kingdom and 457 percent higher in Norway. The mortality rate for colorectal cancer among British men and women is about 40 percent higher.

2. Americans have lower cancer mortality rates than Canadians. Breast cancer mortality in Canada is 9 percent higher than in the United States, prostate cancer is 184 percent higher, and colon cancer among men is about 10 percent higher.

3. Americans have better access to treatment for chronic diseases than patients in other developed countries. Some 56 percent of Americans who could benefit from statin drugs, which reduce cholesterol and protect against heart disease, are taking them. By comparison, of those patients who could benefit from these drugs, only 36 percent of the Dutch, 29 percent of the Swiss, 26 percent of Germans, 23 percent of Britons, and 17 percent of Italians receive them.

4. Americans have better access to preventive cancer screening than Canadians. Take the proportion of the appropriate-age population groups who have received recommended tests for breast, cervical, prostate, and colon cancer:

• Nine out of ten middle-aged American women (89 percent) have had a mammogram, compared to fewer than three-fourths of Canadians (72 percent).
• Nearly all American women (96 percent) have had a Pap smear, compared to fewer than 90 percent of Canadians.
• More than half of American men (54 percent) have had a prostatespecific antigen (PSA) test, compared to fewer than one in six Canadians (16 percent).
• Nearly one-third of Americans (30 percent) have had a colonoscopy, compared with fewer than one in twenty Canadians (5 percent).

He has 6 more comparisons to offer. None of them would make a sane person want Canadian or any other government run health care.

This is why it costs so much, paranoid screening. Everybody dies.

[Kate]

[Irreligious]

I'd still like to know what your solution is for those who can't afford health insurance, Lily.

It's one thing to bitch about Obama's plan, but where the fuck is the Republican plan? Your precious Christian charity-spouting party of Jesus had 8 years to try to come up with a solution. Well? Where is it? I'll take even a semblance of a plan. Anything?

Or do y'all think our working poor ought to have "medical" care comparable to what Mother Teresa was offering to her wards in Calcutta?

Irreligious wrote

I'd still like to know what your solution is for those who can't afford health insurance, Lily.

It's one thing to bitch about Obama's plan, but where the fuck is the Republican plan? Your precious Christian charity-spouting party of Jesus had 8 years to try to come up with a solution. Well? Where is it? I'll take even a semblance of a plan. Anything?

When are you going to wrap your head around the fact that there is no blessed difference between the Republicans and the Democrats? When? When are you going to wrap your head around the fact that neither party is "Christian"? When? That is a stupid, untrue, catch-all accusation which you like to hurl in the belief that it is somehow meaningful. It isn't. When are you going to grow up and realize that no political party will save you? When are you going to man up and take your very real portion of responsibility for what politics has become in this country? There are no free lunches and there is no free medical care. Why are you content to sit back and worship that thin-skinned socialist instead of doing your part to become informed? Why are you so passive?

We already know what would make a *huge* difference-- tort reform and sensibly unregulating insurance so that companies can compete across state lines. Quit forcing people to pay for coverage they don't need-- the article I linked to talked about that but, of course, you didn't read it. Beyond that there are lots of things that could be done. There could be state and/or multi state pools that would have the buying power to cover the uninsured poor (as opposed to the uninsured well-off who are the majority, from everything I have read).

But you know what? I don't have to have a clue how to design a good system to know bunkum and snake oil when I see it. There are plenty of knowledgeable experts who do have the necessary ideas and abilities. We just need Congress, Obama and their cronies to get the hell out of the way.