Health care, again, some more

Thank you, Mendacious D and Another Kiwi, for giving us your take on health care coverage in Canada and New Zealand in the comments on the previous post.

The fact that other countries provide better health care for half of what we pay here in the U.S. is a secret that can not be told by serious people. The proles might find out, and that would be revolting.

It's like Iraq's WMD...only dirty hippies question the official propaganda. And dirty hippies don't get hired by the Washington Post. Dirty hippies dont get invited to Katharine Weymouth's parties.

No matter how incompetent a hack you are, as long as you hack for the tycoon class, you have a job at the Washington Post.

The tycoon class isn't shy when it needs to send a message, either. So sorry, Dan Froomkin, you're fired. Michael Gerson and William Kristol, hired. Because Charles Krauthammer, George Will, Jim Hoagland, and Robert Kagan (etc., etc.) were so lonely.

Another Kiwi provided a link in those comments, and I think every person/zombie/meese/bird should click on it.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Medical bills are behind more than 60 percent of U.S. personal bankruptcies, U.S. researchers reported on Thursday in a report they said demonstrates that healthcare reform is on the wrong track.

More than 75 percent of these bankrupt families had health insurance but still were overwhelmed by their medical debts, the team at Harvard Law School, Harvard Medical School and Ohio University reported in the American Journal of Medicine.

"Unless you're Warren Buffett, your family is just one serious illness away from bankruptcy," Harvard's Dr. David Himmelstein, an advocate for a single-payer health insurance program for the United States, said in a statement.

The tycoon class wants even more of your dollars, and they don't care if you die while they're grabbing them. And they own the MSM.
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Health care, again

Steve Benen:

IN A WAY, IT IS STILL FRESH TODAY.... Over at "The Corner," Jonah Goldberg highlights this 1961 clip from Ronald Reagan, criticizing Medicare. Goldberg said Reagan's criticism of the landmark health care program is, nearly a half-century later, "still fresh today."
...
Reagan's misguided diatribe from 48 years ago also serves as a reminder that we hear the same arguments from conservatives, over and over again, every time real reform is on the table. Republicans, Fox News, and Limbaugh, for example, reflexively shout "socialized medicine" whenever the issue comes up -- just as the right has done for 75 years.

Lee-Anne Goodman (Canadian Press):

A Manitoba-born physician, David Gratzer of the Manhattan Institute thinktank, has been a Republican favourite, frequently appearing to assail the Canadian system.
...
Another observer from afar took aim at Republican fear-mongering about Canadian health care.

"I'm 82, and in excellent health," Art Finley, a West Virginia native now living in Vancouver, recently told the Huffington Post.

"It costs me all of $57 a month for health care, and it's excellent. I'm so tired of all the lies and bullshit I hear about the system up here in the U.S. media."


Thank you, Lee-Ann and Art. Needless to say, David Gratzer is full of crap.

Debunking Canadian Health Care Myths by Rhonda Hackett - The Denver Post:

Myth: Canada's health care system is a cumbersome bureaucracy.

The U.S. has the most bureaucratic health care system in the world. More than 31 percent of every dollar spent on health care in the U.S. goes to paperwork, overhead, CEO salaries, profits, etc. The provincial single-payer system in Canada operates with just a 1 percent overhead. Think about it. It is not necessary to spend a huge amount of money to decide who gets care and who doesn't when everybody is covered.

If we're going to get the public option we should have gotten long ago, we're going to have to let everyone know that Bill Kristol, Jonah Goldberg, and the rest of the wingnuts are full of it...as usual. And we're getting ripped off, and even dying, as a direct result.

Total health expenditures per capita, 2003

United States $5711
Australia $2886
Austria $2958
Belgium $3044
Canada $2998
Denmark $2743
Finland $2104
France $3048
Germany $2983
Ireland $2466
Italy $2314
Japan $2249
Netherlands $2909
Norway $3769
Sweden $2745
United Kingdom $2317

UPDATE: Let's tell the folks what we win for spending double on health care!

37 United States of America

WE'RE NUMBER 37! Wahoooo!
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Bon Appetit

Today (yesterday, technically), I had the chance to read the Columbus Dispatch while waiting for a lunch order on the ground floor of my orifice building.

Next to this editorial by Paul Krugman, our local fishwrap chose to place this jonanism: Left wing likes to play connect the dots.

...or to ponder whether a militant pro-life extremist really needed a talk-show host to tell him anything he didn't already know about one of less than a dozen doctors in the country who still performed third-trimester abortions.

But, never mind. Such details don't matter when you're trying to delegitimize people.

Not to mention, deligitmize murdered people, eh Jonah?

But now there's some history to slaughter.

Again, just as Hitler did, he hails socialism as the solution to the West's problems.

Is it too much to hope for a footnote?

P.S. On the same day: Bill Kristol

Wingnut welfare - the gift that keeps on taking.

UPDATE:

Dear Mr. Goldberg,

I read your column, "Left wing likes to play connect the dots", in the Columbus Dispatch (June 15, 2009).

You wrote "Again, just as Hitler did, he hails socialism as the solution to the West's problems."

I've read about World War II and Nazi Germany extensively. I highly recommend William L. Shirer's "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich".

I do not recall any instance of Hitler hailing socialism, let alone as the solution to the West's problems.

Could you provide a citation?

Thank you,

ifthethunderdontgetya

UPDATE The 2nd:

Glenn Greenwald weighed in on the Doughy Pantload on June 12.

And then, finally, we have Jonah Goldberg actually anointing himself as the leading opponent of affirmative action on the ground that it unfairly penalizes and victimizes his group and allows achievement for reasons other than merit. This is someone who might be the single most compelling poster child for the ability of white males to advance in America for reasons having to do with everything except merit.

That's what I meant to say!

Also, here's RB.

P.S. The Pantload never responded to my email. Pfft!
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