Leonard Pitts’ column of this past week caused me to do what I should have done two weeks ago. Listen to President Obama’s meeting with Congressional Republicans – held in Baltimore.
Pitts’ point was that Obama had very little to gain by meeting with Republicans. On that, I disagree. The President is trying to rescue a presidency on its way toward failure and he has to realize that the failure is in part due to his own failure to reach across the aisle. Obama has little to gain from the meeting except for control of his agenda and history.
Still…., I have frequently written that President Obama had publicly offered to meet with Republicans yet failed to hold that meeting. Now he has held that meeting.
As a frequent critic of the President I approve.
I would like to see Republicans respond to the President’s gesture by toning down their angry rhetoric. That doesn’t mean surrender their principles; it means explain them calmly and rationally to the President, Democrats, and the American people. I don’t know if anyone will listen to the Republicans. I don’t know from watching the President how much he listened to Republicans, but I can say that it is clear that some of what the President’s opponents have been saying is getting through to him.
Now is the time for Republicans to act aggressively and positively and as Pitts suggests, think about ‘country first.’ Can Republicans reach out to their Democratic colleagues by offering their agreement that our health care system needs to be fixed? Democrats will surely agree to that much, and from that point, victory is possible. Can Republicans get a handful of Democrats to agree that maybe, just maybe, that fix involves less government, not more?
An approach to compromise
Agreement here will be tricky. Democrats will be cautious, concerned about getting caught in a deadly sound bite moment. So maybe this is time for less, as opposed to more transparency in discussions. If the Republicans can win Democrats over on at least considering a non-government solution in the privacy of a closed door meeting they, Republicans could concede that some regulations on health care and some government support will be needed (in my political view there should be no government control but to provide a format for dealing with breach of contract but I am attempting to be realistic).
A solution involving minimalist regulations
Republicans could offer to work in bipartisan teams to develop minimalist regulations for one small area of health care. By minimalist, I mean free of special interests and favors, and written in simple English. Regulations need to be designed to free the market to provide health care, but….and this is my concession to Democrats, use the force of law to force insurers and health care providers to simple, straight forward products. You buy health insurance, you get health care coverage for when you are sick or hurt.
Combine health care savings accounts to use for the routine care and sell insurance to cover accidents and illness. Innovative thinking can be applied. For example, a young couple wants to have a baby but their health care savings hasn’t built up enough to cover the cost. What to do? Enroll them in a plan where they pay that cost back a little bit at a time as part of their contribution to their health care savings account.
Sound too expensive? Lots of people today have very low cost life insurance that their parents bought for them when they were younger. Why not create the same structure for health care savings accounts? Most people buy their life insurance themselves, not through work like we do health insurance (yes, I know that many benefit plans do offer life insurance in addition to health care). Why not allow people to buy their health care plan themselves so that they carry it with them like they do their life insurance. This way you avoid the problems that come with changing jobs and the insurance provider has a longer term customers.
Each of these ideas and more can be worked out if both parties focus on the goal of fixing health care. Country first, as Pitts says.
Can Obama really listen to Republicans? Can Republicans really talk rationally, thoughtfully, and avoid the temptation to attack?
Country first.
{ 35 comments }
The notion of buying health insurance at a young age as a cost-saver is almost comically naive. Insurers are not stupid, and they are aware that risk increases as the insured ages. They will not sell such a policy unless there is a mechanism for increasing premiums, co-pays and deductibles as their risk increases or for front-loading premiums to make up the difference. So we are back in exactly the same situation we have now.
As McCain and other Republicans acknowledged during the 2008 campaign, there is no private sector solution to the problem of universal coverage. Leaving health insurance up to the private sector means that millions will not be able to afford to buy coverage – unless government pays for them. I assume this blog is too intelligent to offer the usual idiotic answer one hears from the Right: emergency rooms. Emergency rooms provide care for emergent conditions only, and only until the patient is stable. You can’t get an organ transplant or chemotherapy or dialysis in an emergency room. And emergency rooms are not free. They bill all patients for care whether insured or not, and if the bills are not paid they pass the cost along to those who are insured, which drives up insurance premiums for everyone.
Face it: there is no private sector solution to this problem.
The problems with the concept of government health care are numerous. The first issue is finding the money. The idea of simply taxing the wealthy ignores the fact that the money taken through taxes would have gone to some other use somewhere; be it an investment in stock or the purchase of a luxury item, each of these uses generates economic activity – jobs. Until you are willing to look someone in the eye and tell them that they shouldn’t have their job providing luxury to the wealthy because you want that money for a government program, I am unconvinced. In fact, until you are willing to give up your job so that the money can go to health care I am unconvinced.
The other great problem is that proponents of government health care have yet to provide a convincing example of a program that is more efficient under the government than it would be in the private sector. The military is not an acceptable answer because that is one of the few jobs that government is supposed to handle. Our military is excellent but there are too many examples of inefficiency. Medicare? Social Security? How about the Post Office?
To claim that we have tried free markets in health care is also false. The health care industry is loaded with regulation and special tax privileges – that is why it is cheaper to buy through work – the company has tax incentives that we do not have. The are many more examples – there used to be restrictions on doctors and hospitals advertising. Our drug approval process is slow, etc etc….
Overall, the biggest issue that government health care proponents fail to recognize, and this failure still amazes me (and opponents often miss this as well) is that we have to increase the number of people paying into health insurance, not figure out ways to give people free rides on other people’s dollar. Yeah, I know the Obama plan is supposed to force young people to buy insurance, and that just might work but one only needs to look at the mess we call Social Security to see the potential flaws.
Sorry, but until someone comes up with a convincing plan for an economically viable, health care improving, government plan, that manages to leave us free and protects us under future government leaders that we may not like (see former president W or future president Palin) I oppose government plans. And please, don’t try to convince me that the plans on the table meet those requirements. I am not an automatic naysayer but if you want my approval you have to come up with viable plans, not the partisan complaints and dubious stories and stats to date.
I suggest reading through this blog and many past post to see some of my other comments around health care. You will find that I am no more a fan of Republican efforts than I am of Democratic efforts.
To Ichabod CRANE
‘course there is a private sector solution to this here healthCare problem, you dumb socialist…
Look below, ’bout 3 commenters spell it out … you don’t wanna see nothing because you think someone else should pay yo way….I think not….You don’t like it here, go live in f**kin’Canada….
Now get some stone, grow TFU, and learn/understand Americans LIKE their insurance and know a few simple structural tweeks will improve the current system.
I don’t see that your reply moves the conversation anywhere – it is the rhetorical equivalent of throwing up your hands and saying “I quit.” You can afford to do that because you have no responsibility in the matter, but someone who is actually supposed to govern cannot.
Where do we find the money to fund government subsidies for people who cannot afford private insurance? The money is already being spent. Those of us who have insurance are already spending the money by paying inflated premiums, deductibles and co-pays. Those charges from our insurers are inflated because the bills health care providers send to our insurers are inflated to compensate them for the care they provide those who are uninsured or under-insured. Millions of people file bankruptcy each year because they have medical bills they can’t pay. That means the bills don’t get paid – by them. The bills do get paid – by us. Providers simply inflate the bills they send to our insurers to make up the difference. Your income and mine are already being redistributed to pay for the health care of others – not redistributed by government but by health care providers and insurers. Are you happy about that? I’m not.
You may not know of any solution to this – but until one is found your income will continue to be redistributed in this manner, and it is only going to get worse as the cost of care rises and the population of the country ages.
Regarding your comments about the health reform summit Obama has called, it’s clearly a political move. Republicans have been winning the political battle on this issue for one simple reason – the conversation so far has consisted of Democrats putting concrete proposals on the table and Republicans taking shots at them. But as David Plouffe recently said in an interview, politics is a comparative process. If Obama forces Republicans to lay out and defend their proposals instead of just taking shots at Democrats’ ideas, we will find that the voters like those proposals just as little – perhaps even less. If you’ve read what the “Republican Roadmap for the Future” has to say about changing Medicare, for example, then you know that there is not a single senior in this country who would be likely to support it.
Arguing about whether government or the private sector does a better job at complex tasks is ridiculous. There are government agencies that are well managed and private companies that are poorly managed and vice versa. Medicare is a government success story. It was created to deal with the problem that seniors were having trouble finding private insurance and it has dealt with that problem successfully for several generations of Americans. It is in financial trouble now for the same reason that the government as a whole is in financial trouble. Our leaders keep adding new services and benefits without raising taxes and fees to pay for them. There is no private company that could provide additional services to customers without charging someone more, and it is absurd to fault Medicare because it cannot do so either.
No one has proposed a plan that achieves universal or near universal coverage simply by relying on the private sector. The State of Hawaii has come close by requiring all employers to provide all employees who work more than 20 hours per week with a generous package of health benefits. Last year The Times published an interview with a physician who divides his time between California and Hawaii. According to him, the California hospital where we works has an emergency room crowded with uninsured people seeking basic medical care. In Hawaii, the emergency room is usually empty because few people need to go there to get basic medical care. If this system were made universal would it discourage job creation by making employment more expensive? Probably. But it would also reduce the cost of insurance by greatly expanding the pool of people participating in the system. Food for thought.
I’ll try to be brief…
Calif emergency rooms are full of illegals from Mexico, a problem Hawaii does not have…Not yet, anyway…
Here’s the problem as I see it…As long as someone else is paying the bill, (InsCo or govt), as is the case for most people, the costs will never come under control.
When YOU, are paying out of your own pocket or Medical Savings Account (MSA), YOU keep an eye on the costs.
Until all consumers of healthcare get this concept thru their heads, the costs will only increase.
Responsibility is the order of the day, I like the idea of forcing everyone to buy some kind of minimum policy, with a high deductible…Instead of buying a Toyota Camry, you buy a Toyota Corolla…The difference in payment should cover your health insurance policy…
It’s only right so we can continue to be a great innovative nation…..
I’m sorry to see the same worn-out argument the Right always uses – it’s all the fault of the consumer, never the fault of the big businesses that actually run the system. Patients don’t “shop around” for the most cost effective treatment because someone else is paying the bill. What nonsense.
If you get health insurance through your employer, it is YOU who are paying the bill. You are working in return for the benefits that you get. Anyone who does not understand that is not in touch with reality. Employees who see the co-pays and deductibles on their health plans go up year after year are not in any doubt about who is paying for what.
Suppose you need bypass surgery. One clinic tells you they can do the procedure for one price. Another offers you a much lower price which they say they can provide with no reduction in quality. How do you figure out whether the lower price is really accompolished without a reduction in quality or is accomplished by cutting corners? Answer: you can’t. Just one example showing why it’s ridiculous to put the burden of selecting providers on the patient.
Totally agree with comment by P. Cass that it is ridiculous to try to put the burden of choosing cost effective care on the patient.
Choosing cost effective care and weeding out waste was supposed to be the purpose of HMO’s when they became popular in the 90s. Those who do not have amnesia will have no trouble remembering that HMO’s were supposed to solve the problem of escalating medical costs once and for all. The theory was that if your HMO primary care physician decided you needed expensive treatment or testing, the HMO would select the most cost effective provider because if the provider charged more than was necessary it was the HMO that paid more, not you. Well, why didn’t that work?
It didn’t work because HMO’s were constantly getting caught trying to maximize their profits by denying treatment. Remember the “gag rules” in which HMO’s ordered their primary care physicians NOT to tell patients about certain treatment options because the HMO considered them too expensive? Remember the HMO doctors who complained that they were paid so little per patient that they had to see an unmanageable number of patients in order to make enough money to pay their office rent? The methods HMO’s used to reduce costs stirred up so much opposition that federal and state lawmakers banned them. So much for that idea.
Now that HMO’s have failed to solve the problem conservatives are trying to put the burden on the patient instead. Millions of people with little or no education are supposed to figure out which MRI provider or which surgeon is the most cost effective? And they are supposed to figure this out when they are seriously ill, since that is when people actually need expensive treatments? Is there really anyone stupid enough to take that seriously?
You last two dudes (Paul/Hesh) are way out to lunch. Of course the costs can be held down if each individual be watchin’ out for what things cost.
Let a Black lady here in the Motor City break it down it simple for you two economic-illiterates. Pretend, you need a new transmission for your Volvo/Saab/Prius, and you gots to pay yourself, that is , out of your own pocket, you for sure gonna shop ’round for the best price from a place that do a good job. You, bein’ a conscientious consumer, negotiate a price of $2500.
But say you got “car repair insurance”. You take the same car in to the same place fo the same repair. But you don’t have to pay, so you don’t care WTF the price is. The repair shop just bills the insurance company fo $3200. This is what goin’ on all the time wit everybody involved. 10% here 10% there…Soon the cost doubles.
Bottom line …When you be involved in the price, the price goes down…I think it’s known as COMPETITION…somethin you two metro fairies missed out on in junior hi..
You’re not very likely to end up dead of a bad transmission, but you still don’t go around the corner to Bubba’s Garage where they’re cheap, but they forgot to tighten the plug on the oil pan and caused you to blow an engine last time…
I’ll pass over the stupid insults directed at me in the last post. They say a lot more about the intelligence and character of the person who made them than they do about me.
I’ll just ask a simple question. If you know nothing about cars (or about bypass surgery, as the case may be), then how exactly do you figure out whether the garage (or surgeon) offering the lower price is also the one that can do the better job?
I read in my morning paper that a senior member of Congress just died after surgery, probably as a result of a medical error. How does someone who knows nothing about medicine figure out which care provider is the most cost effective? That is one of the stumbling blocks that anyone who proposes this individual payment idea has to get over. Well, what is the answer?
Another stumbling block for this individual payment idea is the millions and millions of people who don’t make enough money to put anything much into one of these medical savings accounts in a given year. If people like that have no insurance either, what do we do about them? Let them die in the street? Obviously that is not something any Christian (or Jew) could agree with.
Hesh
I read the post from Shinequa in Detroit…Obviously a joke…But I think there is a good point there…
When we bought health insurance last year, we purchased a policy with a $5000. deductable. It costs us $195.00 mo.
In exchange for the low mo rate, we shop with our own money for the basic everyday healthcare, so far we’ve spent $695.00 out of pocket for 2 physicals (with full blood and treadmill), and one yearly woman’s check-ups.
We inquired with our regular doctor how much a complete physical would be if we paid cash and thought it seemed like about half price from charges we’ve seen from him having to bill the insurance company.
Prior, we had a policy with a $500 . deductable, $5. perscriptions, and $20.00 office visits and the price for both of us was $565.00 mo. I think you can do the math. This year we will save approx $3000.00
In conclusion, everyone is different and has unique conditions, but taking responsibility for a” limited set amount” in exchange for covered benefits in case of something catastrophic, is a great deal. This is doable by any thinking person, and to do otherwise will result in expensive rationed care.
There is no reason to believe the people who bring us Medicare/Medicad/VetHospitals/DMV/PostOffice/etc would do a good job doing SinglePayerHealthCare…I hope you’ll just think about it…
Oh. and JUNO, you got way too much patience for these two freeloadin’ blockheads..
Yes, and you should shop around to get the best deals under the system you have. But those of us who are insured through our employers (and forfeit some other type of compensation in return) will pick up the rest of the tab if the providers give you a deal. We also pick up the rest of the tab for people on Medicare and Medicaid (in addition to the taxes we pay into the system). Medicare is a good system, although it doesn’t reimburse quite at the market rate, so people have difficulty finding doctors. There’s less waste there than in other insurance companies.
And why are we do down on the post office? The reason they’re not profitable like UPS or FEDEX is that they have to provide daily service to everyone (just as AMTRAK has to sustain less profitable routes as a public service). We should be willing to pay as a society so that even postal customers who are not profitable can get mail–and the analogy applies to healthcare. There are some things that benefit us all, and I would argue that enhancing the health of our citizens is in that category.
Juno, you may regard it as a “joke” when racists portray African Americans as stupid. If so, you’d probably enjoy the 19th century minstrel shows, in which almost all of the humor was about making African Americans seem brainless. That would make you just as much a racist as the lout who posted the drivel you’re referring to. I hope you teach your children not to regard such things as funny. If not, they’re going to have a tough time living in this country when they grow up.
Hey, A**hole, Hesh
When you grow -up check ‘dis out…
Speaking of racist Democrat Socialists, ever hear of General Nathan Bedford Forrest?
A fine Democrat, credited with starting the KKK, after the War of Northern Aggression. A distant kin to Bobby Byrd and Al Gore Sr…They didn’t like Blacks who spoke with any accent or whether they was “light skinned or dark skinned”..I think Harry “Pit Yorkie” Reed said that…
You boys really are ignorrant…
To Hesh and Sparky
Let me tell you ’bout character and intelligence..Yo had any intelligence you would not be wantin’ what these f**kin’ moronic characters in Washington be pedeling yo way…That bein’ said..
You can’t make me believe you 2 dumba**s are so completly dense and illiterate that you fail to get the point about shoping around and chiseling doctors for the best deal on everyday health care. and we not talkin’ here ‘bou no f**kin’ bypass surgery, yo mamas really raised two idiots..
Get rid of yo’ iphone and cable TV if you so hurtin’. You can’t afford high deductable health policy, maybe you get a cheap car. All kinds o’way to fit it in, if you want to…But don’t make me live with poor quality health care gov’ment rationing. I got Diabetes now, they’d jus’ let me die…
I am a poor, under educated Black woman here in the Motor City, and I can see the point of what that other man was sayin’.
Why TF can’t you? this mind set among you white metro-fairies is gonna bankrupt this country. Then us Black folk really be in a bind.
Smart people never gonna go for no gov’ment health system. These people been runnin’ medicare for 50 years…you idiots think that’s good…?
Get f**kin used to paying yo own way, this ain’t no f**kin’ charity ward. Other peoples should not have to to pay for your proctological exam to remove yo’ head from yo’ ass.
Shinequa,
That is friggin’ brillant and poetic.
I wonder if they will take your advice or even read it.
My grandfather used to say “Son, you’re entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts”.
Fact is the government has had no success in giving good service or lowering costs. and that is not an opinion..To think differently is, well, diluded by liberal Kool-Aid…What flavor you boys drinking ?
I am not very impressed by the brilliance of Americans who haven’t yet mastered English sufficiently to spell simple words like “shopping,” “deductible” and “deluded.” People who can’t even type a few sentences without making such mistakes should not be criticizing anyone’s intelligence.
People who insist that the private sector is better at everything really need to explain why during the last two years some of the biggest private sector financial institutions in America – like Washington Mutual, Wachovia and Lehman Brothers, for example – went out of business due to a series of bad decisions made by their managers. They should also explain why other major private institutions like Bank of America, Citigroup, General Motors and Chrysler got themselves in such trouble that they had to crawl to Washington to beg the government to bail them out. Do you want to entrust your health care decisions to the same brilliant folks who ran those giant companies into a ditch? If so, do your loved ones a favor and make sure your will is ready now.
Finally, I’m still waiting for an answer to the question I asked. If you know nothing about medicine (like 99% of our fellow Americans), then how do you figure out which is the most cost effective provider for any given treatment or test? About 400,000 bypass surgeries are performed in America each year. How many of those patients are capable of doing a comparative analysis of surgical procedures to figure out whether a quote they get is or is not reasonable? Well?
Hash..
You really be pathetic….I’m just an uneducated Black woman here in Detroit, but I can see corrupt rats when they show their snouts on the TV and Utube…
I be talkin’ bout Chris Dodd, Barney Frank, all the BigUnion leaders…They the corrupt motherf**kers that made all the banks and car companies fail…You had an ounze of curiosity in you head you could see the rats in action for yo self…
Now, I’ve had enough of all you lazy socialists…you worry ’bout yoselves and yo families and dont be frettin’ ’bout everybody else…
Remember, no thinking American will get onboard with Obama and his socialist cronies.. It’s really just that simple..Come November 2010, there won’t be but a handful of Dims left in the House, so this SinglePayerGovernmentHealthCareDisaster is thankfully dead….
See I can spell..
HESH
Yea ..you the f**kin’ gold standard for intelligence…GrowTFU and pay yo’ own way, you cheap motherf**ker…
You a**holes need to listen more and talk a whole lot less…I never seen such pathetic babblin’ in my life…
Now I gots to go to work so I can make money to pay the fuckin’ taxes. that pays fo’ you cheap bastards medicaid..( that healthcare for the irresponsible, indigent and uneducated)
Hope you fools be happy…
Juno, unlike the two dolts who insist they are very, very smart but who can’t spell simple words in their own native language, you deserve a serious response.
Like you, a lot of Americans have a high-deductible policy. I happen to be one of them. They work well – as long as you have nothing serious wrong with your health. If you do, you have to find $5,000.00 to pay medical bills before your insurer will pay a dime. In our country the median household income is about $50,000.00. That means half the households in America have incomes below that number.
20% have annual incomes less than $20,000.00. 20% of American households is more than 60 million people. How do you expect those folks to come up with $5,000.00 to pay medical bills in any given year? The answer is, they can’t. I’d love to hear you explain how we make sure they have the care they need WITHOUT involving any government agency. Go ahead.
I believe my point was that when paying CASH or COD to the medical professionals, all kinds of discounts are available, and I know( simple Econ101) that cost will come down if more people pay their own way for the deductables no matter what the size.
I don’t think most Americans who can afford insurance, would want to be involved in a Medicare-type system. All who like that type of service are welcome to it and should have access.
Juno, I hope you do not have amnesia due to a head injury or a brain tumor. If you don’t, then you must remember that the argument you are making now is the exact same one we were given in the 90s to “prove” that HMO’s would solve the problem of skyrocketing medical costs. HMO’s would seek out the most cost-effective provider for every treatment and test. HMO’s would negotiate volume discounts on behalf of patients with providers and thus squeeze all the excess costs out of the system.
As you know, it didn’t work. So why do you think the same approach will work now? Individual patients have a lot less bargaining power with providers than HMO’s who enroll hundreds of thousands, so why will individuals succeed in doing this when the mighty HMO’s failed? Well?
Unlike most on this page, this discussion is about something real instead of Rush’s Limbaugh’s lies.
My only contribution is to ask why people who are currently paying an arm and a leg for health insurance (no pun intended) and are seeing their cost go up every year with no end in sight would NOT want to enroll in a Medicare-type system instead. Medicare is the only system in this country I know of that puts a lid on what providers can charge AND on what members have to pay, AND does so without increasing members’ contributions every year. Juno, your high deductible policy costs you a certain amount this year. You have no idea what the company is going to charge you next year or what the coverage limits will be next year, isn’t that right? Why does that seem better to you than a system that does not have those disadvantages. Please explain if you can.
You dumb ass, we ain’t livin in the ’90′s…An I got Kaiser in Detroit…It be fine …
I go when necessary…Not like you, whenever you got PMS or rectal damage..
Hesh, you are never going to get an answer to the two very sensible questions you asked:
How does the average American figure out on his own which is the most cost-effective provider when it comes to the most complex and expensive treatments?
How do tens of millions of Americans with small incomes buy enough health coverage from private insurers to avoid going bankrupt if they have a major illness or injury?
You are never going to get an answer to either question because there IS no answer.
Right wing nitwits who demand the government stay out of health care never answer such questions because they know there is no private sector solution to these problems and they are too dishonest to admit it. Liars.
*Hesh and Paul***2 Pillars of HealthCare Minutia
To be honest, “an under educated Black woman from Detroit”, makes alot more sense then you two very rude, know-it-all Obama-lite, “Intellectuals” do…
You post alot of supposedly factual stats, never taking into account free market economics and the effects the 3rd party payers have on the entire system
You both write and spell well, but neither one of you has any common economic sense.
QueenBee Arianna(HuffPO) called, and asked if we’d seen her two missing drones..
I told her they left but had to stop for Kool-Aid at 7/11….
Hash/Paul and any other lazy good fo nothin’ Socialists postin here…
I told you two dumbmotherf****rs what to do …You just dont want to do nothin for yourselves…Want a free ride from the gov’ment..That means me and everybody else here has to pay for you? That’s just sick..
If folk can’t take care of theirselves, they need to develop some marketable skills, sell the f**kin’ car, ride a f**kin’ bike, when all else fails there be Medicaid, which I’m sure you two metro fairies will make good use of..At the expense of all other working Americans…You all need to grow TFup and be responsible little socialists..
That’s just great, WTF be next? We gotta buy yo food too…I hope when ObambaCare comes you two a**holes be first in line for vasectomies…or euthanasia
There is no “undereducated black woman” posting on this page, just another Right wing racist jerk who likes to throw dirt at African Americans by pretending they are all foul-mouthed illiterates who speak like a cross between P. Diddy and Aunt Jemima. When the Democrats purged the Southern racists from their party in the 60s and 70s, they all migrated to the Republican party, and there they remain to this very day.
Hesh and Cass are the only people posting on this page who make much sense. I don’t see anyone who has come up with an answer to the questions they’ve posed. Getting discounts on routine procedures and tests doesn’t solve the problems of those who are seriously ill, and neither will crappy, high-deductible insurance policies that have more holes in them than a Swiss cheese.
As for Medicare, anyone who claims it doesn’t work has to explain why a higher percentage of its members rate themselves satisfied than is true of employer-provided insurance. http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-05/cf-emb050809.php
But the Right wing nitwits here will not let facts get in the way of their prejudices. If Limbaugh tells them rain is dry and sand is wet, they’ll nod their heads like bobblehead dolls.
Atthur D./Hesh/Paul Crane/Cryopinhead
You 4 dumda**hole really be polin’ on now.
I’m jus gonna say this one last time. You cheap, lazy fools want to act completly dense and illiterate … Fine..
You fail to get the point about shoping around and chisling doctors fo the best deal on everyday health care. Fine…
‘Cause we not talkin’ here ‘bou no f**kin’ bypass surgery, only routine stuff….YOU GET ‘DA???????? Yo’ mamas must be sooo proud …Raisin’ 4 econ 101 flunkies…
I am a poor, under educated Black woman here in the Motor City, and I can see the point of what that other man was sayin’. Why TF can’t you? This here mind set among you white metro-fairys is gonna bankrupt this country. Then us Black folk really be in a bind.
Smart people never gonna go for no gov’ment health system. These people been runnin’ medicare for 50 years…I know now you idiots think that’s good..
And we don’t nothin’ bout no Rush Limbough ditto peoples, we don’t got TV and no time to hear no radio…We gets our marchin’ orders from God and the US Constitution…
You 4 dumb mothrtf**kers should try readin’ it…
I’m glad to hear it’s the last time you’ll be saying that, Rafi – oh, sorry, I forgot you’re pretending to be the “under-educated black woman” in the post I’m replying to.
What I’d like to say, not for the last time, is that racist, homophobic scum like you are a dying breed. We’ve already reached the point at which you can only spread your poison on an anonymous message board. That’s because if your neighbors and co-workers found out what a rancid bigot you are, you’d have to leave town. The time is not far off when your hatemongering against blacks and gays won’t even be possible hiding behind a fake name on the Web. That’s something the rest of us are really looking forward to.
Hey, Art D head A**hole
We here hopin’, you a dyin’ breed…When you grow -up check ‘dis out…
Speaking of racist Democrat Socialists, ever hear of General Nathan Bedford Forrest?
A fine Democrat, credited with starting the KKK, after the War Civil War.
A distant kin to Bobby Byrd and Al Gore Sr…They didn’t like Blacks who spoke with any accent or whether they was “light skinned or dark skinned”..
I think Harry “Pit Yorkie” Reed said that…
You boys really are ignorrant…and arrogant.. Treating a poor under educated Black woman from Detriot, this way…
F**kin’ shameful..
Arthur
I knew you and all your “nom de plumes” was gay…Any bunch o fools that wants somboby/everbody else to pay his way is a f**kin’ moma’s boy…
That be all of you…Including the lamest bi-itch here, that dense “Lynn”, hope she gots no kids…
And furthermore, if you live near Detroit, look me up, maybe we can do coffee, after I pull your head out of yo ass…