patrick.net

elliemae says

Or, shall I say, each time you post an opinion piece here, an angel loses a wing, smashes into a tree and can’t access the angel ER because of insurance issues.

You're funny Ellie. Angels don't have wings (unless they work for Victoria).

elliemae says

Each “article” you post from the “campaign for liberty” can be balanced with a real article from a real news source. You know the type - balanced, not an opinion piece from an anti-healthcare reform site.
Or, shall I say, each time you post an opinion piece here, an angel loses a wing, smashes into a tree and can’t access the angel ER because of insurance issues.

You are welcome to spread your "balanced" propaganda. And what is so wrong with opinion pieces? Every time you open your mouth, er type a post- you are spouting YOUR opinion that mine, and other people's opinions don't matter. Sure seems like you are trying to marginalize a growing movement of pro-liberty folk. Not very progressive of you.

And might I add that the "opinion" of the writer of this article is not just an opinion. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A FREE MAMMOGRAM. But if Congress wants to make them mandatory, it IS fair to make them first show how they are going to pay for it. Who is going to foot the bill? And is that what we want Congress to do? Find new/mandatory ways to spend money? I don't think Americans need any assistance in choosing how to spend our money.

Oh and one more thing. Ron Paul is PRO-HEALTH CARE REFORM. He introduced H.R. 1495, the Comprehensive Health Care Reform Act of 2009. And supports H.R. 2629 and H.R. 3217. All of which seek to restore liberty to the health care decisions of Americans and their doctors.

AdHominem says

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A FREE MAMMOGRAM

Sure there is. The mammogram itself is free. Whether someone chooses to charge for it or not is another story.

The problem that I have with your links is that you don't post links to hard news stories. You post links to opinion pieces that appear to have molded your opinions. There are many things upon which you & I will never agree - your insistance that you possess unique knowledge about medical issues is one of them. From what I can tell, your opinions come from stuff that you've read.

Talk to the people on the front lines. Those providing care, seeing it rationed due to payment source. Those who must hire people to insert the right code in the box in order to justify a lab order, procedure, or treatment. Those who have had to stand in front of a person & family and explain why it won't be done, knowing that person may very well die before he become eligible for the treatment.

The treatment for breast cancer costs far more than mammograms. Breast cancer, while not always fatal, is at the very least debilitating and a horrible thing to go through. Unlike prostate cancer, which in younger men often becomes encapsulated and remains a non-threat for many years, breast cancer is invasive and fast-growing. It can be detected earlier through the use of machines, such as mammograms.

Why anyone (anyone with the ability to actually reason, add & subtract, and who has any semblence of a heart) would want to withhold the possibility of early detection of a disease that could be treated with minimal treatment (lumpectomy) versus a radical mastectomy, chemo, radiation, reconstructive surgery, pain & trauma is beyond me.

IMHO the only people who would be so heartless either haven't experienced a cancer in their family or close friends - or they have no soul.
AdHominem says

Sure seems like you are trying to marginalize a growing movement of pro-liberty folk.

I'm not trying to marginalize anyone. Methinks thou dost protest too much.

elliemae says

The treatment for breast cancer costs far more than mammograms.

I have a comment stuck in moderation for some reason, but that was one of my points.

"An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure".

Another point was:

"We’re not going to let women walk around with cancers hanging out of their bodies, so in the end we as a society are going to have to bear the costs of treating this."

The libertarian ideal of everyone deciding how much insurance to buy up front, or to self-insure, just doesn't work in the real world (since we are all not millionaires). Here in J6P land, our monkey brains just can't discount future risks like that.

We could change the rules, send women to the front lines and have their breasts shot off in combat. The VA could refuse to reimburse for implants, citing "medical necessity" for vanity surgical procedures.

For those women whose breast cancer metasticizes, they'll die anyway. The best part is that the VA doesn't pay for funeral services but they do offer plots & guys in uniform. So we save lotsa dollars.
Problem solved.

elliemae says

We could change the rules, send women to the front lines and have their breasts shot off in combat. The VA could refuse to reimburse for implants, citing “medical necessity” for vanity surgical procedures.
The best part is that the VA doesn’t pay for funeral services but they do offer plots & guys in uniform. So we save lotsa dollars.
Problem solved.

Yes, wouldn't it be cheaper to just have all breasts removed after age 40/when a woman is done having children? At that point they are just needless sacks of fat waiting for cancer to grow. This is the kind of bean counter mentality that socialized medicine and central planning gives us. (keep your boobies at your own risk.)

YeaAdHominem says

This is the kind of bean counter mentality that socialized medicine and central planning gives us. (keep your boobies at your own risk.)

Right now, mammograms are regulated by insurance companies, and even women with high risk factors and/or lumps must receive pre-autorizations. Yes, this is the bean counter mentality of which you speak so highly.

Government empowered these companies. It was government regulation that made the insurance industry cartel/monopoly.

I say if you choose NOT to wear your seat belt and you get into an accident then you have no right to medical care (which will drive up my premiums). You chose to risk that level of injury, deal with it on your home. Maybe a charity run ambulance will come and scrape your sorry arse off the pavement and take you to a charity hospital.

But in all seriousness, there have been numerous studies that show if you are healthy you live longer which makes you a bigger burden on the system. So smoke away, eat away and die quickly so you don't use too many Medicare and SS dollars.

Plus screenings and vaccinations are expensive, think about research and development then marketing and distribution, etc. So you saved one life by screening 500,000 people (made up # but you get the point). So pretend there were no cancer screenings, instead you end up treating a few folks with late stage cancer (little chance of survival at that point). Plus, think of all the money pharmaceutical companies, etc make off of chronically ill people!

I'll search for some links. Here's one for starters.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobacco_smoking
By contrast, some non-scientific studies, including one conducted by Philip Morris in the Czech Republic[72] and another by the Cato Institute,[73] support the opposite position. Neither study was peer-reviewed nor published in a scientific journal, and the Cato Institute has received funding from tobacco companies in the past.[citation needed] Philip Morris has explicitly apologised for the former study, saying: "The funding and public release of this study which, among other things, detailed purported cost savings to the Czech Republic due to premature deaths of smokers, exhibited terrible judgment as well as a complete and unacceptable disregard of basic human values. For one of our tobacco companies to commission this study was not just a terrible mistake, it was wrong. All of us at Philip Morris, no matter where we work, are extremely sorry for this. No one benefits from the very real, serious and significant diseases caused by smoking."[72]

Preventative medicine, IMHO, is a moral and ethical issue, not so much a fiscal issue.

Oh, and for the record, I think it's BS that the guberment infringes on my right to let my kiddos sit freely in my car. What's up w/ carseats preventing my kids the freedom to move around, crawl over the seats..wth?! ;O)

Troy says

We’re not going to let women walk around with cancers hanging out of their bodies, so in the end we as a society are going to have to bear the costs of treating this.

What then are we going to "allow?"

People to smoke and drink themselves to death? with liberty and health care for all
People to eat and sloth themselves to death? with liberty and health care for all
People to spend themselves into bankruptcy/welfare for life? with liberty and welfare for all

We can't regulate morality any more than we can regulate illness or the weather. What we can do is see that we have a sound money system and a free market where good choices are rewarded, bad choices are penalized.

^ yes, I am familiar with your ideology, and admire the fact that it is no longer practice anywhere in the world worth living doesn't faze you.

Me, I prefer how things are done in Canada, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Germany, the UK, France, Japan, Singapore.

Being a left-libertarian in the mold of Chomsky, I believe the Jefferson's "pursuit of happiness" includes access to that which is required to become and remain a productive member of society.

The Founding Fathers didn't set out in the late 18th century to create libertopia, and experiments in this direction ended rather badly, while statism was showed to result in greater human progress.

Now, if we could rein in the rentiers raping our economy (by instituting targetted taxes that break their parasitical business models), I'd like to think minarchy would have a chance in this world, ie if everyone had fair access to the wealth of the land and its resources we'd all be able to bootstrap to some utopia.

But I think that given the distribution of IQ -- half this country is, let's admit it, f---ing stupid, this is a pipe dream.

Troy,
I think it is mainly the unsound monetary system that allows the "rentiers" to retain their power. They are adept at manipulating government to rule in their favor and they run the FED (control the money supply) to stack the deck in their favor as well.

Leigh says

But in all seriousness, there have been numerous studies that show if you are healthy you live longer which makes you a bigger burden on the system. So smoke away, eat away and die quickly so you don’t use too many Medicare and SS dollars.

Health care costs are irrelevant unless and until they push ground rents to zero. Here where I am, family apartments built in the 1950s still rent for $1500, and of course houses built back then sell for $700,000 or so. IMO if we instituted mandatory health insurance that actually covered the costs of health care, rents would just fall to $1000 and houses to $500,000, and we'd have a much healthier system. Win-win.

All Taxes Come Out of Rents --what the taxman doesn't take the landlord or mortgage banker will.

This of course doesn't address the cost side of the ledger, where medicine is still an obscenely well-paying racket.

elliemae says

Sure there is. The mammogram itself is free. Whether someone chooses to charge for it or not is another story.

that is pure genius. apples are free, oil is free, soup is free even the koolade is free. Wait a minute, what about electricity, oh yeah that is free too? WHEEE! everything is free!

In that case I'll take one of everything.... Ah, make it two.

AdHominem says

hey are adept at manipulating government to rule in their favor and they run the FED (control the money supply) to stack the deck in their favor as well.

My only disagreement with this is that rentiers ARE the government -- damn near every politician is also a landlord or lawyer, usually both.

When I speak of predatory rentiers, I am mostly thinking of "investors" buying up SFH and other euphemistically-described "income properties". This activity is generally entirely parasitical in nature and has nothing to do with the Fed, debased currency.

Wait, I struck that last because I do see the general inflation we saw in the 20th century empowering the buy & hold strategy of real estate investment. Real Estate, of course, is the gold standard inflation hedge, better than gold itself, since they ain't making no more land.

AdHominem says

Wait a minute, what about electricity, oh yeah that is free too?

Well, for one, the capital and labor costs of a mammogram are rather minimal. $20,000 or so capital outlay is $16/day of its five-year service life. Labor is the dominant expense, and of course it takes much less labor to slap a boob into a machine than major surgery down the road.

Troy says

My only disagreement with this is that rentiers ARE the government — damn near every politician is also a landlord or lawyer, usually both.

Pretty much.

Troy says

Real Estate, of course, is the gold standard inflation hedge, better than gold itself, since they ain’t making no more land.

No they aren't making more land (except in Dubai). So yes land is a finite resource. But it does in general require more maintenance to to protect and defend than does gold. Also, they aren't making more gold either. They find a bit more, but it costs a lot to reach and purify it. So for all intents and purposes it can be considered a finite resource.

Land is more valuable than gold, if you need a place to live and grow food. But there is so much land that it is hardly scarce. On the other hand, if you need to move, well, you can't move land.

Troy says

AdHominem says

Wait a minute, what about electricity, oh yeah that is free too?

Well, for one, the capital and labor costs of a mammogram are rather minimal. $20,000 or so capital outlay is $16/day of its five-year service life. Labor is the dominant expense, and of course it takes much less labor to slap a boob into a machine than major surgery down the road.

Hey man, just giving her a dose of her own medicine.

I am for preventative medicine. I just think the benefits and costs should be borne by the patient, and or anyone else who FREELY CHOOSES to do so.

Speaking of mammograms and diagnostic imagining in general, I cringe to think of the added expense competition adds to health care. What I see happening in the Portland area is that each hospital wants to be #1. #1 in cancer care, #1 in cardiac care #1 in diagnostic imagining, etc.

So what does it take to be #1?

1) state of the art, top of the line equipment
2) well trained, top notch doctors, RN's, technicians, etc
3) a beautiful hospital with lots of granite and marble and private rooms (no room mates)

Feel free to add to the list.

This is all very expensive. Diagnostic equipment is a lot like your PC, it's outdated after a year, needs routine upgrades and maintainance. And specialist doc's, your talking $500K/year. And don't get me started on how much some of local hospitals have spent on remodels and upgrades and new buildings. You feel like you are walking into a high end spa sometimes. Cha ching!

Who's paying for it? Is this what competition gets us in health care?

Leigh says

Speaking of mammograms and diagnostic imagining in general, I cringe to think of the added expense competition adds to health care. What I see happening in the Portland area is that each hospital wants to be #1. #1 in cancer care, #1 in cardiac care #1 in diagnostic imagining, etc.
So what does it take to be #1?
1) state of the art, top of the line equipment

2) well trained, top notch doctors, RN’s, technicians, etc

3) a beautiful hospital with lots of granite and marble and private rooms (no room mates)
Feel free to add to the list.
This is all very expensive. Diagnostic equipment is a lot like your PC, it’s outdated after a year, needs routine upgrades and maintainance. And specialist doc’s, your talking $500K/year. And don’t get me started on how much some of local hospitals have spent on remodels and upgrades and new buildings. You feel like you are walking into a high end spa sometimes. Cha ching!
Who’s paying for it? Is this what competition gets us in health care?

The problem here is not the competition for business (although there could be more of that too if we would encourage rather than discourage it). It is there is no competition in price. It is set by the insurance company/government. Set too high perhaps in some cases? Fee for service (with no or low copay) encourage over utilization? Patient has no incentive to find best value either.

AdHominem says

I just think the benefits and costs should be borne by the patient, and or anyone else who FREELY CHOOSES to do so.

yes, we are aware that your ideology hasn't changed since yesterday. What you fail to address to us or apparently yourself is that it lacks an example of successful practice in the modern world.

AdHominem says

The problem here is not the competition for business (although there could be more of that too if we would encourage rather than discourage it). It is there is no competition in price. It is set by the insurance company/government.

What the services providers are doing is providing two-tier service.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33863680/ns/health-health_care/

Make the insurance-level service shitty enough that the premium care is worth the price to people who can afford it.

Troy says

AdHominem says

The problem here is not the competition for business (although there could be more of that too if we would encourage rather than discourage it). It is there is no competition in price. It is set by the insurance company/government.

What the services providers are doing is providing two-tier service.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33863680/ns/health-health_care/
Make the insurance-level service shitty enough that the premium care is worth the price to people who can afford it.

That is true, this is happening in a relatively small scale. Don't know of too many places like this with two doors. But that is what you get when you rely on insurance companies and/or the government to regulate care. The bean counters dictate prices, what is and isn't "covered" etc... This will always be the case as long as we have a middle man who collects our money instead of the paying the provider directly ourselves.

End third party payer, please don't expand it. More of the same will just get us more of the same. Furthermore it stifles innovation and encourages the be the best clinic mentality like Leigh pointed out.

What we need is a truly free market where people can shop around, compare ratings and prices, make a bid. Like priceline.com.

AdHominem says

What we need is a truly free market where people can shop around, compare ratings and prices, make a bid. Like priceline.com.

yes, because major surgery or a chemo series is just like flying to Vegas.

Do you actually read the stuff you write???

Troy says

AdHominem says

What we need is a truly free market where people can shop around, compare ratings and prices, make a bid. Like priceline.com.

yes, because major surgery or a chemo series is just like flying to Vegas.
Do you actually read the stuff you write???

It is that kind of inside the box thinking that will get you more bureaucracy and less choice. Keep it up brother.

Government intervention did not create google, viagra, or PC's. Government intervention created HMO's, Medicare, and endless involvement in foreign wars.

AdHominem says

overnment intervention created HMO’s, Medicare, and endless involvement in foreign wars.

As well as the internet, the electric grid along with the dams that provide electricity to most of the west, interstate highways, and tang. Pc's were partially made possible by government funding in basic research by the way. What's your point?

Gummint also created the first web server at CERN and the first web browser at UIUC. These are salutory examples, since the free market (Peace be upon it) of the time was busy futzing around with walled gardens and subscription services.

Ad Hom's anti-government rants when it comes to medicine are completely baseless since I can rattle off a dozen countries with better healtcare for more people than the US's quasi-public system provides.

Now, there are issues involved with scaling up socialized systems so that they serve all 300M of us here in the US.

But the Eurosocialist approach is basically ensuring access to that which is necessary to become and remain a productive member of society. This is possible with high(er) taxes. As I've stated here numerous times, I don't fear high taxes since it's my thesis, which I basically cobbled from Georgists like Mason Gaffney, that all taxes come out of rents (and land values).

Double taxes, land values and rents would be halved. Win/win, as long as the government spending goes into wealth-accruing investments like public education, health, energy, water, internal security, national defense, and transportation.

Historically, free market fundamentalism fails due to the latifundialization of the lower classes on the model of the Irish estates of the 18~19th centuries. Wealth concentrates ever upwards. In a democratic society, trust busters may arrive and reset the system, as the Republican trust-busters did at the turn of the 20th century. Or you might have an enlightened despot like Bismarck or Hitler attempt to coopt the leftists by instituting the material parts of the leftist "social safety net" agenda.

There are critical flaws with Eurosocialism, namely making it too easy for people to check out of being productive members of society and coast on the safety net.

Speaking of which, I've got to go. Been fun, AH.

Troy says

There are critical flaws with Eurosocialism, namely making it too easy for people to check out of being productive members of society and coast on the safety net.

At least we agree on this.

Troy says

s long as the government spending goes into wealth-accruing investments like public education, health, energy, water, internal security, national defense, and transportation.

Thats a big IF. And when I look at public education the larger our budget has become the lower Americans have scored against international peers. When I look at health the more government has gotten involved the higher prices have soared. When I look at energy and environment I see higher prices and more pollution than ever before despite regulations and EPA. When I look at "internal security" I am appalled a the loss of freedom and see little improvement in actual security. When I look at "national defense" I see Americans fighting foreign wars, one of which bankrupted the Soviets. When I look at transportation I see gridlock traffic, government workers leaning on shovels and bridges collapsing.

Way to go federal government! Sure there are some "successes" we could cite, but most anything government can do, free market can do better. It is more efficient at allocating resources. What we need is a sound monetary system that will allow a free market to work properly. End the FED and we can start on the road to recovery.

AdHominem says

I see higher prices and more pollution than ever before despite regulations and EPA.

You see more pollution than ever before?? You need your eyes checked.

tatupu70 says

AdHominem says

I see higher prices and more pollution than ever before despite regulations and EPA.

You see more pollution than ever before?? You need your eyes checked.

You’re so right. That giant plastic mass in the middle of the pacific is getting smaller every decade. Our rivers and lakes are cleaner than ever before. Our drinking water has no contaminants like prescription drugs in it. Lake Tahoe is bluer than ever before. Wow, the epa is doing such a great job. But again this thread is about the fact there is no such thing as a free mammogram. Unless of course Ellie is performing it.

AdHominem says

tatupu70 says

AdHominem says

I see higher prices and more pollution than ever before despite regulations and EPA.

You see more pollution than ever before?? You need your eyes checked.

You’re so right. That giant plastic mass in the middle of the pacific is getting smaller every decade. Our rivers and lakes are cleaner than ever before. Our drinking water has no contaminants like prescription drugs in it. Lake Tahoe is bluer than ever before. Wow, the epa is doing such a great job. But again this thread is about the fact there is no such thing as a free mammogram. Unless of course Ellie is performing it.

I actually check my breasts for lumps often - and I have someone to help me in case I get tired. Sometimes it takes hours... He's a giver.
Sure, there's pollution now. But imagine how it might be without the EPA. Look at a list of environmental disasters, and the US is down the list of countries with disaster areas. Imagine what it would look like without the EPA.

EPA !!! lmao .... Mt. St. Helens ... or Penatubo ... or name-the-vocanic-explosion-of-choice ,,, will they be getting a visit from the EPA ?? lmao. More cubic tons of crap than all of the Otto engines ever made X 100,000,000. So, please, please, please .. do not suggest the EPS made any special changes. If ANYONE wanted cleaner air they would have not allowed all of the mexicans to come here. Many drive poor running cars that only pass smog illegally at their cusins shop, the population increase they have made requires more truck and rail and plane traffic, and they add to traffic congestion and that kills MPG. The EPA dreamed up cat converters are very bad. They made car exhaust poison with the gas additives and the cat converters.

The cars make less junk per gallon thanks entirly to fuel injection and better ignition. Both improvements are racecar based and were done for performance, not EPA.

by the way, for extra credit, 1) what does a cat converter have in it, 2) those balls rub against eachother and make dust, what does the dust of that stuff do to people/skin/lungs, 3) where do they put the used ones? Thanks EPA!! (R. Nadar too - that dork)

Bap33 says

If ANYONE wanted cleaner air they would have not allowed all of the mexicans to come here.

Do you have a bumpersticker that says "Racism Rules?"

no ... why? Do you have a bumpersticker that says "Borders? We no need no steeenking borders!!" lol

besides, what race is mexican? If you were born in Juares, Mx, then you too would be a mexican. Pretty simple. No need for race baiting, Ellie. Pretend I wrote "Canadians", and pretend we have a invasion problem from the north. That better? Geeze.

Did you have a nice CHRISTmas?

Bap33 says

Did you have a nice CHRISTmas?

Festivus was lovely, thank you. George was a little outta hand, but otherwise it was wonderful.

"they are real, and they are spectacular"
or
"Jerry, it moved. Is that "the sign"..?"
or
"The Big Salad"
or
"I was in the pool!!!"
or
"No Soup for You!!"
or .. the best ever ...
".... hmmm .... Mulva...?"

I mentioned the bisque.

Bap33 says

The cars make less junk per gallon thanks entirly to fuel injection and better ignition. Both improvements are racecar based and were done for performance, not EPA.

by the way, for extra credit, 1) what does a cat converter have in it, 2) those balls rub against eachother and make dust, what does the dust of that stuff do to people/skin/lungs, 3) where do they put the used ones? Thanks EPA!! (R. Nadar too - that dork)

Actually multipoint sefi fuel injection and electronic ignition did come about to meet EPA standards. There was no way to get enough control of fuel mixtures to meet the tightening standards with a carb. Car makers would have much preferred to stay with carbs which are simpler and a lot cheaper. Race cars of the mid 80's used carbs or mechanical injection.

Catalytic converters have a honeycomb of platinum in them, not loose balls. There is no dust and no reason they should not last the life of the car. That is the entire meaning of the word catalyst. The used ones are recycled. People actually steal them, they are worth money.

This past weekend I spoke with some visitors from London. Surprisingly they think we have the best health care in the world here in the USA. Imagine that!

They also spoke of how similar the US is to European systems when it comes to welfare. The harder you work, the more taxes you pay, the higher your housing, health care, and other expenses and costs are etc... but in England (and the USA I would add) if you just want to sit on your "dignity" all day long, you can live off someone else's dollar/sterling.

AdHominem says

This past weekend I spoke with some visitors from London. Surprisingly they think we have the best health care in the world here in the USA. Imagine that!

AdHominem says

The harder you work, the more taxes you pay, the higher your housing,

housing costs are taxes are something of a zero-sum thing.