Subscribe to Breaking NewsWithers: Ten random thoughts
1. Nothing wrong with being against health care reform but if you pimp out death panels talking points, you are either dumb, intellectually dishonest, or a combo of the two.
2. Anyone who is for health care reform should be reading Megan McArdle. She offers a fair, honest, and smart rebuttal.
3. Why is Rosie O’Donnell stoking her old feud with Elisabeth Hasselbeck?
4. No more Woodstock stories! Please. It was a freaking concert! That’s all.
5. Levi Johnston adores his gay fans. Hanging out with Kathy Griffin has done him wonders. Will Sarah Palin twitter (or is it tweet?) about this?
6. Anyone see MSNBC’a Rachel Maddow on Meet the Press yesterday? What do you think of her performance?
7. Buddy Guy equals cool.
8. Gay Division 1 football players! Get out! I’ll spare you a list of the ones I wish played for Dorothy.
9. George Michael just needs to hire a driver.
10. My fingers are too fat for texting.
Health care should be a concern for all of us. How often have we had statistics thrown at us about the Billions of dollars industry loses each year do to illnesses and many of these could have been prevented or the duration shortened had we had a good comprehensive health care system for everyone.
I would like to state that I personally don’t need health care reform although I support it. I get the best care available not counting the President and members of Congress. I am fortunate to be in the VA system.
People should be harangued night and day when they babble on about the inadequacies of government run programs.
Check out the Rand study
http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2009/08/17/veterans-public-plan/
You couldn’t pay me to change my health care.
>Nothing wrong with being against health care reform but if you pimp out death panels talking points, you are either dumb, intellectually dishonest, or a combo of the two.
Did you see the interview with the brunette woman featured in one town-hall video, saying in part that she doesn’t want America turning into Russia? They asked her what she thought of the response given by the person running the meeting. She replied, slightly dumbfounded, “Oh, I was so relieved at saying what I had to say…I didn’t hear the reply.”
DOH!
The Town Hall mobs are clearly America at it’s dumbest. Good job at being shills for the pharmaceutical companies, guys! Why don’t you just write them a check and hand your money over to them right now.
McArlde’s article is typical libertarian “above the fray” posturing. She does support some reform, and makes a good (abstract) case for them. But it’s clear that she has little firsthand, concrete knowledge of the many flaws and limitations in the U.S. healthcare system. Her knee-jerk suspicion of governmental programs is as shortsighted as her uncritical acceptance of the propaganda put forth by the greedy profiteers (the insurance cartels, doctors, drug companies) who have made the U.S. healthcare system so ineffective and pernicious.
Megan McArdle’s rebuttal may be fair and reasonably honest, but it’s not smart.
Minor rebuttal to some of her main points:
“Government intervention in markets tends to dampen competition”
That depends on the sort of intervention. Any intellectually honest economist would acknowledge that some government actions would actually increase competition, while others would decrease it.
The interventions proposed by the Obama administration are likely to increase competition by quite a bit. Since the health insurance industry is basically non-competitive right now as insurance is tied to employment, based on economic theory the health insurance exchange is a *fundamentally good* idea. Throwing in a public/private non-profit would also increase competition if the non-profit had lower overhead.
“Companies cut deals with government all the time, and they rarely, in my opinion, redound to the benefit of the American people.”
You’re an MBA, not an economist, and don’t have the theoretical background necessary to form a qualified opinion in that area.
Saw Rachel. She did fine, but couldn’t stop Armey’s fat fingers.