Brodner's Cartoon du Jour: Got Stupid?
Got stupid? Do we!...and how!! This summer has taken our temperature as a nation and we have come up a walking basket case of stupid. So here it is, the conspiracy as a tumor: representing the medical industry, a monopoly, the only ones who want to keep this diseased system...along with their pols, who are their metastasis. And the biggest tumor of all, Betsy McCaughey, a thoroughbred liar of the first water, pumping out scary BS all season perfectly designed for the right-wing garbage news network to crank up people who don't get news, or don't want it. These people show up at town meetings proudly flaunting their stupidity: terrified about the death panels that don't exist while apparently having no problem with the monopoly-based ones in place right now. And a mainstream media too afraid of the right (for some reason) to call them what they are: stupid.
Tonight Obama must dispel the BS and give the monopolists hell. Let them and country know that there will be a public option and the jig is up. And the Democrats will do this with 51 votes through reconciliation. Do you think he will do that, or try to make nice with people whose vision for the country extends only in seeing Obama fail? It's a new season and we can only hope.
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Death Panels
Let's see now.
1. There is a shortage of doctors. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/27/health/policy/27care.html
2. You bring in a supposedly, 40 million more patients and immediately the supply of doctors becomes even scarcer.
3. So now you will have situations, emergency situations, where a doctor is needed but not enough doctors to tend to those situations.
What do you do? You will have to go through a process or triage. And what is a triage? A triage is a (1.) A process for sorting injured people into groups based on their need for or likely benefit from immediate medical treatment. Triage is used in hospital emergency rooms, on battlefields, and at disaster sites when limited medical resources must be allocated. Or more generically, (2.) A system used to allocate a scarce commodity, such as food, only to those capable of deriving the greatest benefit from it.
So...
If you have 100 young ditch diggers and 100 grandmas needing immediate attention, someone or someones will HAVE to assign priorities. And what will this panel suggest? Well, let's just say it doesn't look good for grandma.
But don't quote me. I'm just a stupid guy, spewing stupid facts.
OR....
perhaps 40 million more people with access to health care isn't the same as 40 million more people showing up at the ER. In fact, isn't it likely that people who would otherwise show up at an ER when they couldn't bear the pain anymore would instead seek treatment earlier on? And thereby:
- lower the costs for everyone.
- distribute the workload more broadly across the health care system.
Are you suggesting that triage by economic well-being/misfortune is a humane policy? Or the only one we can "afford"? I beg to differ. The suggestion that we would be reduced to a triage situation is overblown at best. Don't forget the majority of the uninsured are folks who would be quite insurable even by today's standards if they or their employer could afford it. So by and large, we're not talking about admitting a more risky population.
Yes, we have a shortage of doctors. But that would be true whether more people get access or not. Enabling health care access to more people will not change the rate at which people get sick. When people without insurance get sick they don't just roll-over and die. They still seek care. But they also go bankrupt, or cash-in their retirement or raid their kids' college fund or lose their house -- and then hope for the best. Where's the economic/societal upside to any of that?
2. You bring in a
2. You bring in a supposedly, 40 million more patients
Yikes Raul! You are saying upfront then, that there are 40 million people out there right now who are presently excluded from the healthcare system who should rightfully just f%#k off and die rather than compete with their presumed betters for scarce medical resources.
Yes, you are stupid. But that's OK, America loves stupid. Personally, I'm a bit more concerned that you and your ilk are so vicious.
Everything we've known and
Everything we've known and said about Max Baucus' handling of the health care bill and his related responsibilities as Senate Finance Committee chairman is out in the open: Listen to Chuck Todd tell it. When he came out with his blueprint yesterday, I had people at the White House say, (...) (Lire la suite) David Waldman.
