These pictures, sent to me by a friend, seem to sum up what’s just happened to the American people:
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Picture worth a thousand words department . . .
December 21, 2009 - 4:53 am
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I hope the Senators arriving home late on Christmas Eve are greeted by constituents who present them with stockings (preferably unwashed and with holes) containing a lump of coal. Some appropriately adapted carols would be nice, as would posters asking questions about the bill the Senators haven’t had time to read. All on video, natch.
On the other hand I just read somewhere that the Copenhagen agreement and the Health Care Bill exemplify Obamas messy magic.
Maybe so, maybe so. Napoleon made it all the way to Moscow, a fairly magical achievement.
The mess, of course, came with the march back west. We will see. The End crowns the work. Or flushes it.
Ah, the light touch of right-wing humor.
Note to Jon Stewart: Your job is safe.
Hi, Zeke. No. 4 was left-wing humor. Have someone explain the difference to you sometime. (Then have him explain ‘humor.’)
Ah, yes. The light touch of John Stewart.
(Insert spit take here.)
Lefties think they’re the only funny ones–and that a sneer and a guffaw are winning political argument.
They think we don’t notice that all their entertainment is but a diversion from arguments of substance.
Glad to see these posted. Roger is of course being far to kind by posting them. Zeke reacts like most lefties, attacking the messenger rather than the message.
Note to Zeke… Mmm-Kay, tell us exactly why are these cartoons NOT accurate?
Terrible that those awful right wing militia extremists are using scare tactics.
With over five million people dying every day of no insurance, the President’s healthcare plan (whatever it is) is the only way to save us from those evil exploitive drug companies which are murdering people. And, as Guttfeld says, if you disagree with me, then you’re probably a racist.
Whatever happened to the lefts admonition: iDont trust anyone over 30/i?
#4 Zeke: Id rather be the party of NO (TAXES), than the party of NO MORALS and NO BRAINS.
We are the only advanced nation that puts $$$=Health. Were the only one that has corporations controlling our healthcare and accountants deciding if someone should or shouldnt get the care they need. And we have millions without any healthcare, including children, and yet we consider ourselves a great nation. With 400,000 people a month losing their jobs, and their healthcare (or COBRA which can break a bank account) people will find what it means to not have a public healthcare system.
The current plans are both jokes and dont go far enough. They try to placate the insurance companies to make sure they still can get profit somehow while people suffer. The Right and Left will spin their sides, their lies, and meanwhile people are going bankrupt due to healthcare, are suffering without it, and our nation is falling way, way behind other advanced countries instead of being a leader.
No scare tactics or fear mongering, facts. Try talking to people that dont make more than $100K a year, or who have lost their jobs, or who have suffered serious illness themselves or family and youll find out the truth about our failed healthcare system.
In my own case my mother became disabled at 54 years old, we moved to a better place for her health and while there the insurance company pulled out of the ENTIRE county because it wasnt profitable enough. That is exactly what the rep told me. Because she was not yet 65 she had to go off the state system, which was expensive, but the killer were the prescriptions which even with a pharmaceutical discount card nearly broke us each month. And doctors? Well unless their insurance would allow them to take such a patient forget about it.
Or my neighbor who the wife had two heart attacks, the husband has MS and she lost her job and he is cut down on hours. They can no longer afford any health insurance and cant get any new plans due to their pre-existing conditions. The companies have rejected them outright.
I can go on and on with examples of people screwed over because they are not profitable enough. My own insurance, through my company, has doubled in ten years, negating any raises I have received.
So something must be done and while the House bill is a step in the right direction (the Senate one is a compromised piece of junk) the fact is none of them come close to doing what the PEOPLE need, and doing what the insurance corporations definitely do not want.
Yes, there was a drug company last night moving through our community and hauling people out of their beds for interrogation. The only ones spared were those with Proud Democrat lawn signs. It didnt seem right to me but I didnt want to be pegged as a racist, and besides, I am not a nuanced person.
If anyone believes the Congressional critters actually want to improve health care provisions then I have some real valuable land to sell them. Its in Detroit.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hhJ_49leBw
I really dont know where to begin w/ people like Mike and Zeke. Over the past 10 years I have come to hate you people and what passes as thinking in your minds.
We have the drugs we have today b/c the drug companies made them. They have a right to whatever profits they take in return for developing those drugs. Doctors have a right to the money they earn treating people. Insurance companies have a right to make a profit. Remove the profit and what how quickly we no longer have drugs or doctors. That is exactly the road we are getting on.
Spend an hour studying economics and youll immediately understand why everything being talked about by this administration is simply a terrible idea for everybody.
To be clear: I have MS and ADD. So I live this shit first hand. And a nationalized health system is the very last thing I want. I have a friend that reciently died from cancer. Actually, he didnt die from cancer – they cured it. He died from HVGD b/c the stemcells never made any white cells to fight infection. In the system being dreamed up now he would have died 2 years sooner.
I cant stand this administration or our government. And I think they are the best thing that could have happened to this country. Until now I could have cared less what went on in D.C.. My only regret is that I wasnt paying attention before. If I new how to organize stuff Id be out to not just repeal this crap, but DMCA, the patriot act and most everything else that has been enacted sinse the 30s.
And dammit: I hate typos!
Maybe we can get a bailout to pay for internet proof readers while were at it.
Mike:
If you want something done to reduce the cost of healthcare, you should be advocating freeing the market and eliminating the government controls, rules, regulations and interferences that long ago destroyed the competitive market forces that normally drive innovation and cost reduction.
Instead, youve swallowed whole all of the leftist talking points that are designed to deflect attention from the real sources of inefficiency. Youve accepted that the problem is insurance company profits. Are you aware that those profits amount to only one-half of 1% of all healthcare spending? Thats right, one-half of 1%.
And the notion that we have millions without healthcare is preposterous. Anyone can walk into any hospital emergency room and get treatment for virtually anything and not have to pay for it — and millions do exactly that every year. Its a federal law. Its also just one example of the government controls, rules, regulations and interferences I mentioned in the first paragraph that have driven up the cost of healthcare in America.
But if you think things are bad now, just wait until government fixes them.
What happened to all the singing, mmm mmm mmm?
Mike 11, if you think this abortion of a health care bill will improve health care in any way, or lower costs, or make health care universally available you are a bigger fool than even you thought.
Mike: I am sorry to hear of your parents. That said, the problems they had are the result of government interference in the first place. The house and senate bills are steps in the WRONG direction; less government planning is needed–not more. Read the archives of the newspapers in the UK to see what you are really asking for.
The problem with government planning is that while well-meaning, it is invariably short-sighted and rife with unintended consequences. If you doubt me, take a look at Steve Crowders video of Detroit thats showing at PJTV right now. The politicians who created that mess were well-intentioned, too. And a mess it is. If they thought it would have ended like that, they would have cut off their hands before signing on to those policies. The communists who ended up murdering 100 million people in the 20th century had what they considered to be the best of intentions, too.
FYI: I have pre-existing conditions that preclude getting reasonably-priced healthcare, but Im not prepared to make my children and their posterity indentured servants of the government in order to get it. Freedom is too precious to throw away.
ANON…you talk about the right wing using scare tactics your statement of “With over five million people dying every day of no insurance, the President’s healthcare plan (whatever it is) is the only way to save us from those evil exploitive drug companies which are murdering people.” If 5 million people A DAY are dying because of no health insurance then in 70 days the entire US population would be gone. I guess that solves all of our healthcare, social security, unemployment and fake manmade global warming issues since the US would just be left to nature and new immigrants taking over the empty cities. With that type of epidemic that you describe I wonder why the US government is worried about H1N1?
So the logic is that because someone has a sob story we should all be forced into a freedom crushing government run system?
“Were the only one that has corporations controlling our healthcare and accountants deciding if someone should or shouldnt get the care they need”
———–
And we’re the only one rich people from all over the globe travel to when they are in need of life saving medical treatment.
You have nary a clue.
People like Mike and Zeke apparently think at the same level of sophistication and analysis that James Cameron does. Which explains a lot. Drug companies are evil. Profits are greedy. People are “entitled” to be taken care of by “the government.” Economic engines are driven by magic ponies that will always produce goods and services no matter what you do to them.
Every couple of generations we have to fight to learn the lessons of liberty and free markets again. When I was in High School I watched Jimmy Carter almost destroy this nation. Now I’m watching Obama one-up Carter. I am deeply fearful for the future of my children. It’s not just here in America, Europe is overrun with socialists who are busy squandering the great Western legacy through self-loathing and wishful thinking.
One thing I want to make sure everyone who is paying attention understands is this. Democrats did not elect Barack Obama. Soft-minded, feel-good, ignorant Republicans and Independents did. To see now that Independents disapprove of Obama by a 65/35 margin, when they voted for Obama by almost the identical margin just burns me up. We warned you freaking idiots. You called us racists, hate-mongers and religious zealots.
Now you are seeing what you did to this country. If anything good comes out of this I hope it is that those non-Democrat idiots who voted for Obama educate themselves enough not to pull a lever in a voting booth because it sends a thrill up their leg.
Idiots. Damn fools who sold this country down the river because they were too stupid to listen to common sense and bought into the unbelievably lame “hopey-changey” mantra that has lured the gullible to the slaughter for decades.
Thanks a lot. Try to use your brains in 2010 and 2012 if you still have any brains left when Obama/Pelosi/Reid get through with us.
#15: proofreaders
#20: Anon neglected to label his/her post, assuming all would recognize snark when they saw it.
I got CT. $100,000,000!! So DO NOT http://www.DumpChrisDodd.com
“Try talking to people that dont make more than $100K a year…”
I make less than $100k a year and oppose health care “reform”. Go peddle your class envy someplace else, m’kay?
It’s mostly been said here already, but let me add a bit to it:
It is not evil for insurance companies to make a profit. They’re a business, in business to make money, as all businesses are. They make money by providing a valuable public service: you invest money with them, and within certain restrictions, they’ll pay your medical bills for you. They work the statistics to make sure that they take in a little more than they pay out; you get the peace of mind to know that you won’t get hit with crushing hospital bills all at once. Win-win.
(Why can’t this be provided as a public service, without making a profit? Answer: why would anyone want to? Money is the universal symbol of value. You get a valuable service, you pay for it. You provide a valuable service, you get paid for it. Your company makes a profit, and uses that to provide even better service, thus outperforming the competition even more. Yes, the system can be abused, but it’s still a very good system.)
What happens if an insurance company gets greedy and tries to maximize profit while minimizing payouts? That’s not unheard of, naturally… but that means that premiums go up, and, with patients choosing the insurance they like best, the market hands out rewards and punishments appropriately. The greedy companies lose customers, and either make their rates competitive again or else go out of business. (This self-correcting market mechanism, by the way, is exactly what we WON’T have under a single-payer system, aka “the public option”. If you think the government-run health-insurance is cheating you, you’ll have nowhere else to go. And if you think that government-run health-insurance will be scrupulously fair, well, please show me the precedent; which departments of the Federal government are scrupulously fair today?)
Moreover, it is not — repeat, not — let’s put that in capital letters, NOT — wrong for an insurance company to deny coverage to pre-existing conditions! Let’s repeat that a few times, folks, because it’s important that people understand this. Remember, insurance companies are in business to make money. If they are REQUIRED, by law, to insure everybody — from the healthy-as-a-horse athlete to the centenarian on death’s door who just decided to get health insurance yesterday — then this will greatly influence their payouts. They will then have three unattractive choices: (a) charge obscenely high premiums to people with pre-existing conditions, (b) raise everyone’s premiums to pay for the few with high medical bills, or (c) go out of business.
Or, if you prefer, look at it from the point of view of incentives. If an insurance company is required to insure people with pre-existing conditions, I have no incentive to sign up with them until I have hospital bills. It’s in my best interest not to pay them anything until I need THEM to pay ME. How, exactly, can anyone stay in business this way?
Finally: let’s remember that the government cannot simply shoulder a burden like this, because the government has no money. People tend to forget that, but THE GOVERNMENT HAS NO MONEY, other than what it takes from you and me every April 15th. In short, THE GOVERNMENT HAS *YOUR* MONEY. People who advocate having the government pay for something mean that they want to force you, me, and everyone else to pay for it with our taxes. And since governments are very bad at conserving money, if you want the government to pay for something new, taxes must go up, meaning people keep less of what they earn, meaning they have less incentive to go out and be productive.
Please forgive the Capitalism 101, folks… but I really do believe that some people don’t know this, and urgently need to hear it.
thanks for listening,
Daniel in Brookline
Obamacare is not a done deal yet. Senators have to get 60 votes on other procedural matters before it can go to final passage. You should call your senators and raise the biggest outcry you’ve ever raised. If they hear from enough of us, at least a couple of them might chicken out and keep this thing from passing.
#11 Mike: Hey, amigo, look at LASIK to see what the free market can do for health care. It was $2000 per eye when it first came out. Now, with competition for patients’ out-of-pocket dollars, it’s not only much more available, but the price is down to $750 per eye (or lower). Was it government intervention that increased the availability AND lowered the price? (Answer: NO.) Now consider a government plan–fixed price (costs plus small profit margin). Same likely result? Price controls ALWAYS result in two things–shortages and black markets. Period.
This picture is worth several thousand words. It explains why left-wing women are ugly.
Here’s an interesting experiment to try. I’ve never seen it done. I’d love to see Obama’s approval/disapproval numbers broken down this way:
Net tax PAYERS vs. Net entitlement RECEIVERS
I’d love to see the same thing done for Obamacare, Bailouts, Cap and Trade etc.
I just think it would be interesting to see what the people who actually PAY FOR THIS STUFF think about what they are getting for their money.
I think it’s going to take a bunch of big turn-out Tea Parties with people holding signs that say we’re FED up with the FEDS and make it happen right outside the Senate building and the offices of their representatives. We need to start revolting NOW. These comments are nice but are our Senators and Congressmen and Women reading them???