Daily Topics - Tuesday - March 2 2010
By Louise
Quote: "If we doctors threw all our medicines into the sea, it would be that much better for our Patients and that much worse for the fishes." Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendel Holmes, MD
Hour One - Is taxing unhealthy food more effective than subsidizing healthy food? Matt Welch Editor in Chief, Reason Magazine www.reason.com
Hour Two - Larry Pratt Executive Director of Gun Owners of America www.gunowners.org
Hour Three - Shouldn’t our health care be about safety and security and not about some people getting rich and others getting screwed? Dr. Scott Barbour www.Docs4PatientCare.org
Comments
#2
Medicare is funded as a priority or not as a function of political choice.
#3
A caller to @Stephanie Miller Show this morning made this excellent point. If Republicans think the American People think health care/ heath care insurance is not watned, then they would just allow the Democratic Party to pass reforms believing that the Republicans will vote the Democrats out of office in the mid-terms.- but they won't do that, will they?
#4
Darn- I screwed up my post. HEre is revision:
A caller to @Stephanie Miller Show this morning made this excellent point. If Republicans think the American People do not want health care/ heath care, then they would just allow the Democratic Party to pass reforms believing that the American People will vote the Democrats out of office in the mid-terms.- but they won’t do that, will they?
PS- I'd like to know the age of that last guest, we certainly know his political slant.
#5
Where is the outrage in these countries that supposedly have bad healthcare? Look at the country where people are trying to change the system and you'll find the system that doesn't work.
#6
The problem with Medicare is not that fewer people are paying into it. The last time I checked our population was still growing. The problem is the wages of people paying into it have not kept pace with the skyrocketing cost of healthcare. The problem is the cap on wages that pay into medicare/caid. The problem is the taxes apply to payroll earnings only instead of all earnings.
#7
But our political choice is limited between, one from column "A" and two from column "B" we cannot change the menu.
The National Security State has replaced any vestige of democracy.
#8
Thanks for the spelling correction Zero G. Anyway you spell the Senator's name form Arizona it comes out JERK. It should be no surprise that Kyl is a shill for the wealthy retirees that live in Arizona. This was in the Seattle Times recently regarding Thomas Stewart, an estate tax fugitive that moved from Washington.
"Mr. Stewart, who died Sunday in a helicopter crash in Arizona, assembled Services Group of America (SGA) piece by piece until it became one of the state's largest privately held businesses. But four years ago, angered by the Washington Legislature's passage of a new inheritance tax, Mr. Stewart moved SGA's headquarters from West Seattle's Delridge neighborhood to Scottsdale, Ariz."
RIP ieces
#9
Why is it that folk talking to the prostitutes at www.Docs4PatientCare.org always get bogged down in their bogus claims about the USAian healthcare system being the best that they don’t grill them about their proposed list of ineffective, non-existent solutions.
#10
Dear Senator Bunning,
I've been an independent voter for nearly twenty years now, and I'm writing to let you that you and your party are about to lose any chance of winning my vote for the foreseeable future.
Why? Because your recent actions have made it apparent that it is you and your party, the Republicans, which are responsible for disrupting the vital and important functions of government that people like myself depend on during hard economic times.
Let me say it frankly, Senator Bunning, you've got some nerve to put a block on my unemployment benefits, benefits that I paid into and paid for out of my own hard earned paycheck.
I know it is a central article of faith within your party that government can do nothing right.
But I wonder if you realize that when you resort to sabotage from within to keep the government from doing its job properly, that you have at that very moment forfeited your argument.
You lose that argument because by your very actions you demonstrate that the thing that's dysfunctional is not the government itself, but rather your small gang of ideologues who have managed to infiltrate our government.
Indeed, the government was doing what it is supposed to, and doing it fairly well right up until the moment that you intervened to gum up the works.
What your actions reveal is that the dysfunction comes from a malevolent band of Quisling infiltrators who seek to subvert the government from within (i.e. dogmatic Republicans such as yourself).
Fortunately there is a way to remedy this problem, and next November, thanks to your prompting, I plan to invest as much of my spare time as I can volunteering to help the Democrats win the election.
In parting let me simply say thank you for helping to move me off of my long time perch on the independent fence.
You have helped me to see that our government will work much better once we have purged it of monkey-wrench millionaires like yourself.
Respectfully,
#11
Barbara! Great phrase!
If we don't take care of them at the front door, your going to see them at the back door.
Which costs more? We are paying for everyone's health care now - said Gavin Newsom when asked about how the San Francisco system would work.
#12
@ZeroG: It isn’t Kyl is “Pile”.
#13
So we send our soldiers to foreign lands to save American lives, only to allow them to die on domestic soil by forbidding them to see a doctor.
#14
Dem Primary Challenger Bill Halter Launches TV Ad In Arkansas Senate Race (VIDEO)
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/03/dem-primary-challenger-bill-h...
#15
Some people just hear "USA #1" and all critical thinking goes out the window. US bow down oliticians, even Obamacrats, (there really are so few Democrats left) have to the notion of United States exceptionalism. If another nation tortures, or acts aggressively, then it is prosecutable. If the US does it, yawn.
#16
*Schweizer Fernsehen (typo)
#17
Do NOT buy Dish Network!! They are scumbags! Ask me or Sen. Spector. I'd probably still be getting harassing phone calls from them, even tho I've never bought them, if it wasn't for the fact that they did the same to Sen Spector. Some sheep - dip used my phone number when buying Dish Network. She fell behind, so Dish started calling me. They wouldn't believe this wasn't her number, they wouldnt even tell me who the account was. When I said "I want to talk to your supervisor, they REFUSED and said "it wouldn't do any good.". Finally after a couple of months, I spoke to a woman who believed me and the calls stopped. However, this might have been after Spector raised hell. I found out later that there had been a successful class-action lawsuit against Dish Network.
Dont patronize Dish network!!
#18
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/03/casey-and-wyden-support-publi...
There are now 24 signatories to the letter to Senate leadership drafted by Senator Michael Bennet (D-CO) demanding a Public Option.
#19
OOOps, I've been having trouble with this keyboard, thought I'd caught the snafu...
US politcians, even Obamacrats, (there really are so few Democrats left) have bow down to the notion of United States exceptionalism.
#20
@ Ed in Redondo
Let me say it frankly, Senator Bunning, you’ve got some nerve to put a block on my unemployment benefits, benefits that I paid into and paid for out of my own hard earned paycheck.
I'm a former small business owner and find this statement to be inacurate. I don't know the tax policies of your state but in Michigan the employer is fully responsible for the unemployment tax. However, considering the circumstances, states may transfer funds from the general treasury to replenish depleted coffers.
#21
Tangled Up in Yoo - http://www.youtube.com/user/davidcnswanson
Video
#22
Caller Andy makes good point about our jingoistic attempts to clamour around our 'best healthcare system in the world' depends upon how lucky you are. This made me cringe to see both Democrats have to pacify the Republicans with such a grandiose claim. I only go to alternative health care doctors.
#23
Canadians buy supplemental insurance when traveling in the US.
#24
More Repug. Heartlessness with Healthcare:
Excellent opinion piece by Minneapolis Star Tribune columnist Nick Coleman re: Gov. (Prez. wannabee) Pawlenty's veto of MN bill funding state healthcare:
"God runs the show"
And he's just God's servant on Earth, except for that stuff about the poor.
http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentary/85562227.html?elr=KArksUUU...
#25
As to the claim that because some people come to our USA for medical care proves ANYTHING, just google "india medical tourism" -- and ponder!
#26
My wife pointed another needed statistic concerning the homicide rate. Were the victims male or female? The implication is that women becoming educated is a threat to machismo.
#27
Please read:
Spain: Investigating the Crimes of Franco Dictatorship
Fascist Falange Allowed to Join Prosecution of Judge Baltazar Garzón
by Vicky Short
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=17877
#28
@aka dancingbear - love your letter...and this phrase..".monkey-wrench millionaires like yourself."
#29
I've been hearing a lot of talk to the effect that one element of Health Care Reform should involve changing the "pay per procedure" model for a payment structure that is more results oriented. I wonder if that sort of system, if enacted, would have the unintended consequence of casing doctors to try to avoid treating the sickest of patients, for whom a positive outcome is less likely.
#30
@Charles in OH
I’m a former small business owner and find this statement to be inacurate. I don’t know the tax policies of your state but in Michigan the employer is fully responsible for the unemployment tax. However, considering the circumstances, states may transfer funds from the general treasury to replenish depleted coffers.
This is an unworthy semantics game. My employer did indeed act as the law requires, as the intermediary RESPONSIBLE for sending MY money to the government to pay MY unemployment taxes. He processed MY payment of unemployment as part of processing MY paycheck. The proof that it is MY money can be found on the line item contained on each of MY paycheck stubs that indicates how much was taken out of MY pay to go into the unemployment fund.
#31
PS - I'm a former small business owner too.
#32
It appears that McConnell (R-TN) screwed Bunning (R-TN) outta campaign funding so Bunning has to ‘retire’ AND BUNNING IS WORKING TO EMBARRASS THE REPUBLICANS.
#33
What I'd like to hear somebody ask Yoo or Bibey is whether a President from the Democratic Party is entitled to the same awesome powers as a Republican President. Somehow, I think I know what they'd answer - but I'd like to hear their explanation! :)
#34
@Richard L. Adlof - One wonders if Mr. Bunning could have maybe found a way to embarrass the Rethugs WITHOUT messing with people's unemployment benefits. That wouldn't have been enough fun, I guess.
#35
After we get rid of Jim Bunning in the Senate, can we petition MLB to have him removed from the Baseball Hall of Fame?
#36
@KMH
Thanks! The first draft was full of redundant uses of the words "sabotage" and "saboteur." So when I gave it the second pass I decided to expand the range of my soubriquets. "Monkey-wrench millionaires" was just a passing gift from the muse.
#37
@ED-- you have read The Monkey Wrench Gang - haven't you?
#38
@KMH
Edward Abbey has long been a favorite writer of mine, though it has been a while now since I've sat down to reread him. His fiction (including MWG) is often good, but his essays are where he really shines brightest.
#39
Is the "so-called" Obesity Epidemic in fact a "real" epidemic caused by specific pathogens? Something involving obesity changed dramatically around 1980; obesity rates started climbing, wile morbid obesity went from rarely seen to commonplace. As usual, conventional wisdom - based on extending previous experiences and refined by self-proclaimed experts - blamed the victims for being "weak" and making "bad choices" in diet, exercise, etc. and therefore deserving of any discrimination, health conditions, abuse, or ridicule they received from more "virtuous" members of society.
(BTW It appears to me that the RW puts most of the blame on the victims, while those on the left place more on the corporate "enablers". Not that it really matters. What really matters is the science needed to move beyond these type discussions.)
The CW on obesity was, and still is, that we inherit our basic body types, tendencies towards being thin or gaining weight, and "choices" about things like diet and exercise determine weight and fitness. It's a bit more complicated with a few conditions (e.g. those of the thyroid) able to cause weight gain, not just the usual problem of weight loss (wasting) caused by many conditions and diseases. Of course, lots of profit for those with solutions using medicine, diet, and exercise. And plenty of guilt. All while ignoring that obesity was increasing worldwide, even in societies barely aware of the USA, much less its fast food or soft drinks.
This hunt for those to blame for bad behavior extended to the enablers -- fast food, TV and computers, irresponsible parents -- much as HIV was blamed on the gay lifestyle and drug use, autism on bad parenting and later on parental decisions to vaccinate or take some other action, anorexia on fashion models and advertising (ignoring that in the Middle Ages anorexia in young women was viewed a symbol of extreme piety).
It is very hard for individuals and societies to recognize and respond to new problems, new realities, new causes, new risks, new diseases, and we usually make really bad decisions collectively for much too long. Tactical nuclear weapons are a really bad idea. So are naked credit default swaps. It took over twenty years after "scientific proof" that most ulcers were caused by a bacteria and were curable with common antibiotics before that started becoming common practice among doctors.
The Obesity Epidemic was harder to spot and more-prone to moralizing than most things. All of the obvious causal factors probably contribute some to the general problem of obesity, but mostly involving "traditional" obesity. But none of those factors can account for sudden onset or very large weight gains, even in spite of much increased exercise and 700 calorie diets.
After nearly 20 years of careful research in animals and humans, we now have almost enough "proof" for the most sceptical that one contributor to the rapid rise in morbid obesity are viral infections, most likely involving the adenovirus AD-36 which was first found in humans in the late 1970's after possibly jumping from birds to mammals a bit earlier.
We know that animals infected with AD-36 gain nearly double the weight of identical uninfected animals on the same rations. Antibodies to AD-36 are found in nearly one third of the obese and only about 10% of the non-obese. These results are being confirmed in samples taken in widely differing populations around the world.
In the last couple of months, new studies in cell biology are unraveling related topics about how the body responds to pathogens and other stresses and the interplay with inflamation, autoimmune responses and disease, stem cell differentiation, and regulation of cell metabolism and functions. Really exciting stuff.
So what should be our response if they prove that roughly 30% of all obesity and as much as 70% of the most severe cases were caused by a virus, a virus whose other symptoms resemble "pink eye" or a mild case of "sniffles"?
Just search on "adenovirus obesity" and you should have all the peer-reviewed science you need.
#40
@unc70
very interesting
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Thom - good on you for just coming out and calling that liar a liar.
And when it comes to future solvency, let's just Compare health insurance increases (10%-39%) to tax increases needed to keep Medicare working (3% or so).