Conservatives and Empathy

[Bfgrn]

Sorry but I WAS working in the industry when Medicare went into effect and saw first hand the results of that. I KNOW how we handled the poor and indigent at that time because it was my job. Nobody was turned away from necessary care, but they were expected to pay what they could to get it even if they could pay no more than $1/week. $10/month payments for a hospital stay to have a baby was quite common. But knowing there would be a bill prevented people from using the emergency room instead of a personal physician who would charge much less. That was the free market at work.

And if somebody needed an expensive operation and couldn't afford it, the local community took up collections or held fund raisers, the surgeon took a discount, the hospital set up time payments for any unpaid portion of the bill, and it was taken care of. That was America at its best at work.

Government healthcare has resulted in making insurance unaffordable for many and healthcare impossible for many unless it is provided to them free which costs everybody else much more. That is not the way it should be.

A pregnancy and hospitalization to have a baby before Medicare involved three or four days of hospitalization for mom and baby and ran about $2,200 total. My husband recently had some minor outpatient surgery utilizing the hospital for about six hours and his bill was almost $12,000. Medicare paid most of it, but that was ridiculous.

THAT is what government interference in the free market does for us.

WTF is wrong with you? I didn't just fall off the back of a turnip truck, I've been around since Harry Truman was President.

In 1965 doctors were middle class practitioners who came to your house. In 1965 a house cost $15,000, a car cost $2,500, a gallon of gas was 31 cents and a pound of ground beef was 35 cents.

You need to join reality and stop spreading your ideology driven ditzy boloney...

Here is some REAL external forces that can help explain skyrocketing medical costs.

Medical care costs in the U.S. have not always been this excessive. This year, we will spend more than $2.5 trillion on medical care. But in 1950, five years before Ray Kroc opened the first franchised McDonald's restaurant, Americans only spent $8.4 billion ($70 billion in today's dollars). Even after adjusting for inflation, we now spend as much on health care every 10 days as we did in the entire year of 1950.

Has this enormous increase in spending made us healthier? Earlier this year, when the World Health Organization assessed the overall health outcomes of different nations, it placed 36 other nations ahead of the United States.

Today, we have an epidemic of largely preventable diseases. To these illnesses, Americans are losing not only their health but also their life savings. Meanwhile, the evidence keeps growing that the path to improved health lies in eating more vegetables, fruits, whole grains and legumes, and eating far less processed foods, sugars and animal products.

So with all this wonderful government healthcare, free to the poor, subsidized by the government for the elderly and low income folks, etc. etc. etc., the USA spends the most on healthcare and ranks 37th in effectivenes? Doesn't that at least give you pause for thought??????????

Yes everything was cheaper in the 1950s and 60s, but healthcare was also affordable then and available to pretty much everybody. And I'm pretty sure the USA was also ranked in at least the top two to five nations in the world in quality of healthcare.

Before Medicare, 56% of people 65 and older had no health insurance. Most couldn't afford it. Before Medicare, the elderly were among the most likely to be forced into poverty. Medicare alone lifted millions of elderly Americans out of poverty, and removed the ominous threat of being one diagnosis away from losing everything they worked their whole lives for. And it gave the elderly the dignity to sustain their life without begging for help. Today, nearly all seniors have access to affordable health care and only about 14 percent of seniors are below the poverty line.

It is the BEST of what this nation stands for.

You shall rise up before the gray-headed and honor the aged, and you shall revere your God; I am the Lord.
Leviticus 19:32

 

[Foxfyre]

WTF is wrong with you? I didn't just fall off the back of a turnip truck, I've been around since Harry Truman was President.

In 1965 doctors were middle class practitioners who came to your house. In 1965 a house cost $15,000, a car cost $2,500, a gallon of gas was 31 cents and a pound of ground beef was 35 cents.

You need to join reality and stop spreading your ideology driven ditzy boloney...

Here is some REAL external forces that can help explain skyrocketing medical costs.

Medical care costs in the U.S. have not always been this excessive. This year, we will spend more than $2.5 trillion on medical care. But in 1950, five years before Ray Kroc opened the first franchised McDonald's restaurant, Americans only spent $8.4 billion ($70 billion in today's dollars). Even after adjusting for inflation, we now spend as much on health care every 10 days as we did in the entire year of 1950.

Has this enormous increase in spending made us healthier? Earlier this year, when the World Health Organization assessed the overall health outcomes of different nations, it placed 36 other nations ahead of the United States.

Today, we have an epidemic of largely preventable diseases. To these illnesses, Americans are losing not only their health but also their life savings. Meanwhile, the evidence keeps growing that the path to improved health lies in eating more vegetables, fruits, whole grains and legumes, and eating far less processed foods, sugars and animal products.

So with all this wonderful government healthcare, free to the poor, subsidized by the government for the elderly and low income folks, etc. etc. etc., the USA spends the most on healthcare and ranks 37th in effectivenes? Doesn't that at least give you pause for thought??????????

Yes everything was cheaper in the 1950s and 60s, but healthcare was also affordable then and available to pretty much everybody. And I'm pretty sure the USA was also ranked in at least the top two to five nations in the world in quality of healthcare.

Before Medicare, 56% of people 65 and older had no health insurance. Most couldn't afford it. Before Medicare, the elderly were among the most likely to be forced into poverty. Medicare alone lifted millions of elderly Americans out of poverty, and removed the ominous threat of being one diagnosis away from losing everything they worked their whole lives for. And it gave the elderly the dignity to sustain their life without begging for help. Today, nearly all seniors have access to affordable health care and only about 14 percent of seniors are below the poverty line.

It is the BEST of what this nation stands for.

You shall rise up before the gray-headed and honor the aged, and you shall revere your God; I am the Lord.
Leviticus 19:32

It does not honor the aged to enslave them into a program that crowds out all other options; it does not honor the aged to make things so expensive they have to be enslaved to the government or die. It does not honor the aged to keep pushing an insolvent program with ever escalating costs (and premiums) that threaten to bankrupt the country. It does not honor the aged to terrify them with the threat of losing their healthcare if they don't vote a certain way.

 

[Bfgrn]

So with all this wonderful government healthcare, free to the poor, subsidized by the government for the elderly and low income folks, etc. etc. etc., the USA spends the most on healthcare and ranks 37th in effectivenes? Doesn't that at least give you pause for thought??????????

Yes everything was cheaper in the 1950s and 60s, but healthcare was also affordable then and available to pretty much everybody. And I'm pretty sure the USA was also ranked in at least the top two to five nations in the world in quality of healthcare.

Before Medicare, 56% of people 65 and older had no health insurance. Most couldn't afford it. Before Medicare, the elderly were among the most likely to be forced into poverty. Medicare alone lifted millions of elderly Americans out of poverty, and removed the ominous threat of being one diagnosis away from losing everything they worked their whole lives for. And it gave the elderly the dignity to sustain their life without begging for help. Today, nearly all seniors have access to affordable health care and only about 14 percent of seniors are below the poverty line.

It is the BEST of what this nation stands for.

You shall rise up before the gray-headed and honor the aged, and you shall revere your God; I am the Lord.
Leviticus 19:32

It does not honor the aged to enslave them into a program that crowds out all other options; it does not honor the aged to make things so expensive they have to be enslaved to the government or die. It does not honor the aged to keep pushing an insolvent program with ever escalating costs (and premiums) that threaten to bankrupt the country. It does not honor the aged to terrify them with the threat of losing their healthcare if they don't vote a certain way.

HERE are the FACTS:

We tried a charity only approach...it FAILED. Maybe conservatives feel the elderly and poor need to beg.

Medicare has lifted millions of elderly Americans out of poverty. It has increased life expectancies and given our ancestors who worked, fought wars and built a better America for our benefit a dignified end of life.

Not only is Medicare a HUGE success for the elderly in America, it is MORE cost effective that private insurance. This comes from a CONSERVATIVE...Here is a market-driven entrepreneur admitting that Medicare is MORE cost effective than private insurance.

Is Medicare Cost Effective?

2003

I recently spent a half-day in a meeting discussing a number of issues regarding Medicare. Most of us on the provider side of the street view Medicare as this multiheaded bureaucracy with more pages of regulations than the Internal Revenue Service's tax code. However, I came away from the meeting with some (to me at least) shocking revelations:

* Medicare beneficiaries are overwhelmingly satisfied with their Medicare coverage, except for the absence of prescription drug benefits;

* The administrative costs of Medicare are lower than any other large health plan.

In fact, Medicare is very efficient by any objective means:

According to the Urban Institute's Marilyn Moon, who testified before the Senate Committee on Aging, Medicare expenditures between 1970 and 2000 grew more slowly than those of the private sector. Initially, from 1965 through the 1980s, Medicare and private insurance costs doubled in tandem. Then Medicare tightened up, and per capita expenditures grew more slowly than private insurance, creating a significant gap. In the 1990s, private insurers got more serious about controlling their costs, and the gap narrowed. But by 2000, Medicare per capita expenditures remained significantly lower than the private sector.

* The average income of Medicare beneficiaries is closer to the poverty line than many of us working folks would like to believe: According to government statistics Moon cites, more than 90 percent of retirees covered by Medicare earn less than $32,000 per year for individuals or $40,000 for couples. In 2003, Medicare beneficiaries will spend an average of 23 percent of their income on health care!

Moon argues somewhat convincingly that Medicare has been a success. While not necessarily denying that certain reforms might be needed, she stresses the importance of preserving three essential tenets of the program:

1. Its universal coverage nature creates the ability to redistribute benefits to those who are neediest.


2. It pools risk in order to share the burdens of health care among the healthy and the sick.

3. Through Medicare, the government protects the rights of all beneficiaries to essential health care.

It has been argued that, in part, Medicare's cost effectiveness arises from the fact that it does not need to expend funds on marketing and sales-functions that are obligatory for the success of competitive, private-sector health plans. Moreover, some argue that the competitive model for health insurance has not been successful. In a market-driven economy, the healthy can and will change health plans for savings of only a few dollars a month, while the sick must remain in their existing plan in order to retain their physicians. Such behaviors lead to asymmetric risk pools and cost inequities.

This was all sobering news to a market-driven entrepreneur such as yours truly. However, given the perverse incentives that frequently drive behavior in health care, my take-home lesson is that there are examples in the success of Medicare we can apply to other sectors of our population.

William Ralph Brody

Is Medicare Cost Effective?

 

[Foxfyre]

If Medicare is so cost effective, how come so many doctors are refusing to take Medicare patients? Do you honestly think the government lowballing Medicare payments does not result in higher insurance premiums and costs for everybody else?

 

[Bfgrn]

If Medicare is so cost effective, how come so many doctors are refusing to take Medicare patients? Do you honestly think the government lowballing Medicare payments does not result in higher insurance premiums and costs for everybody else?

Your dogma keeps failing the fact test.

We already pay far more than any other industrialized nation for health care. Why? Because too much of our health system is run by private insurers who take a profit for themselves and have no real incentive to control costs or improve quality.

Most of our best cost and quality initiatives come from Medicare and Medicaid. The less medical care they manage, the more overall costs are likely to rise.

 

[Foxfyre]

If Medicare is so cost effective, how come so many doctors are refusing to take Medicare patients? Do you honestly think the government lowballing Medicare payments does not result in higher insurance premiums and costs for everybody else?

Your dogma keeps failing the fact test.

We already pay far more than any other industrialized nation for health care. Why? Because too much of our health system is run by private insurers who take a profit for themselves and have no real incentive to control costs or improve quality.

Most of our best cost and quality initiatives come from Medicare and Medicaid. The less medical care they manage, the more overall costs are likely to rise.

I thought we already established that and we rank 37th in effectiveness according to your list posted just a few posts above. I remember when we were in at least the top five if not No. 1 in healthcare excellence and that was when the government wasn't involved in anything other than the V.A. which, being government run, was some of the worst healthcare provided.

There are many things the government can do to help the free market work and succeed in healthcare. But the government running the show is not the way to go.

 

[Bfgrn]

The options are to sue for breach of contract if the policy specified coverage and the insurance company refused to pay. The options are to appeal for help from a benevolent organization. I have a friend who, through no fault of her own, was fairly indigent and received all her cancer treatment free at Bellevue in NYC--a state run hospital. That is the alternative if the people support it--set up a state or city hospital to serve the very poor and indigent.

Alternatively, if the government takes over and controls all healthcare in the country and they decide your mother isn't worth the cancer treatment and send her home to die, THEN what would your options be? Our fearless leader actually suggested that scenario would be possible when he was selling his healthcare overhaul.

Proof???

Here's just one of several statements he made along these lines:

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-dQfb8WQvo]Obama to Jane Sturm: Hey, take a pill - YouTube[/ame]

Note he did suggest that families would participate in the decision, but the obvious intent was that ultimately it would be the government who would decide. The point is, if I want to buy additional coverage for catastophic insurance now, I have that option and I or my loved one decides whether it is worth going through the treatment. Once the government is in control of who gets paid and how much, however, that option is no longer mine. The government decides for me.

And I'm sorry. But I prefer to make that choice myself and, based on its track record over many decades now, I do not trust government to have the best interests of anybody at heart.

Medicare has been in existence since 1965. NO American citizens have been euthanized or just allowed to die without it being the patients request or the family's request (i.e. - DNR) You are spewing right wing paranoia.

What the President is referring to is this comprehensive study:


U.S. Health System Performance: A National Scorecard

Substantial Room for Improvement

A central goal of the health care system is its capacity to contribute to long, healthy, and productive lives. In the Scorecard, this goal is measured by a series of indicators on health outcomes like preventable mortality, life expectancy, and certain health-related limitations faced by adults and children. The U.S. scored 69 out of 100 in this area, with wide variations in performance seen across the country.

Among 19 industrialized countries, the U.S. ranked 15th on "mortality from conditions amenable to health care," or deaths before age 75 that are potentially preventable with timely, effective care. The U.S. rate was more than 30 percent worse than the benchmark—the top three countries. The U.S. also ranks at the bottom for healthy life expectancy and last on infant mortality.

In terms of access to care, including health system participation and affordability of care, the Scorecard revealed generally poor performance. The authors say this is primarily a result of rising rates of uninsured and "underinsured" Americans, as well as health care costs that are outstripping growth in median income.

In the area of health system efficiency, the U.S. scored only 51. Efficiency indicators illustrate that quality, access, and costs are interconnected: poor quality often contributes to higher costs (through higher hospital readmission rates, for example), and poor access undermines quality, while simultaneously contributing to less-efficient care. Efficiency scores also reflect the nation's low use of electronic medical records and relatively high insurance administrative costs.


Performance Widely Variable

Across indicators, there was often a substantial spread between the top and bottom group of states, hospitals, or health plans, with those at the bottom well below the leaders and the national average. For instance, patients discharged from the hospital with congestive heart failure receive written discharge instructions—a measure of well-coordinated care—only 50 percent of the time, on average. There is an 80-percentage-point spread between the top and bottom 10 percent of hospitals, with the top group at 87 percent and the lowest-performers at 9 percent. On certain indicators, simply raising the bottom of the distribution to average performance would yield substantial net national gains, the authors say.


Improving Quality and Saving Lives

Overall, the Scorecard makes a compelling case for fundamental change in the nation's health care system. In addition to saving lives and reducing preventable complications, a better coordinated, more accessible system of care could achieve substantial savings with a net gain in value. The Scorecard provides evidence that quality and efficiency can be improved together: more efficient use of expensive resources can produce the same or better quality care at lower cost.

Moving forward, however, requires policies that address the interaction of access, quality, and cost and take a strategic, whole-system view—rather than a fragmented approach to change. The authors conclude that investment in information capacity as well as guaranteeing affordable health insurance will be essential to progress. With cost and coverage vital signs moving in the wrong direction, say the authors, the nation's health system is in urgent need of transformation.

 

[Foxfyre]

What has happened up until now is irrelevent except when observing what has not worked well, the corruption involved, and the unsustainable costs.

But our current fearless leader wants the government to have the power to decide whether somebody will receive treatment or whether that person just isn't worth it and should be kept comfortable but allowed to die.

As a freedom loving America, I do NOT want the government having that kind of power over law abiding citizens. I do NOT want Obama to get his way in that matter.

 

[Bfgrn]

If Medicare is so cost effective, how come so many doctors are refusing to take Medicare patients? Do you honestly think the government lowballing Medicare payments does not result in higher insurance premiums and costs for everybody else?

Your dogma keeps failing the fact test.

We already pay far more than any other industrialized nation for health care. Why? Because too much of our health system is run by private insurers who take a profit for themselves and have no real incentive to control costs or improve quality.

Most of our best cost and quality initiatives come from Medicare and Medicaid. The less medical care they manage, the more overall costs are likely to rise.

I thought we already established that and we rank 37th in effectiveness according to your list posted just a few posts above. I remember when we were in at least the top five if not No. 1 in healthcare excellence and that was when the government wasn't involved in anything other than the V.A. which, being government run, was some of the worst healthcare provided.

There are many things the government can do to help the free market work and succeed in healthcare. But the government running the show is not the way to go.

The study by the WHO was done in 2000. It was the FIRST study done by that organization. So you are just emoting again.

 

[Bfgrn]

What has happened up until now is irrelevent except when observing what has not worked well, the corruption involved, and the unsustainable costs.

But our current fearless leader wants the government to have the power to decide whether somebody will receive treatment or whether that person just isn't worth it and should be kept comfortable but allowed to die.

As a freedom loving America, I do NOT want the government having that kind of power over law abiding citizens. I do NOT want Obama to get his way in that matter.

Oh, so our president is a murderer? I wouldn't even accuse George Bush of being that evil. You folks on the right are wacky. What has happened in the past DOES matter. We don't off grandma. The President is NOT advocating for government 'deciding whether somebody will receive treatment or whether that person just isn't worth it and should be kept comfortable but allowed to die.'

Maybe you are referring to the phony 'death panels', which was a TOTALLY false representation of advanced directives by Republicans who made a collective effort to undermine reform for political gain?

Promoting advanced directives puts decisions in proper hands

It’s hard to imagine how a compassionate, family-friendly measure — a measure that ultimately respects individual rights — could be twisted so grossly into the erroneous phrase “death panels.”

But, prepare yourself for more lies and more nonsense, because President Barack Obama has decided to do the right thing — and his critics already have resorted to fear-mongering and name-calling.

The concept of advanced directives was pioneered in La Crosse, thanks to our two first-class health care institutions.

It’s a simple concept: An individual, with the help of family, should have the ultimate say in the type of end-of-life care the individual receives. The best way to do that is through a careful consultation, with family and physician, before there is a health crisis — while the individual is still capable of having a rational voice in the decision.

Too often, those decisions are made when it’s too late for the individual to make the decisions. Instead, grieving family members are left to make the decision — and at times it’s nothing more than a guess.

Would the individual want extraordinary measures taken when the end is near? Why wouldn’t we trust the individual — in advance and when thinking clearly — to make that decision?

For those who crusade for the rights of the individual, here’s the question: Why are you so opposed to the individual being able to set down on paper, with help from family and physician, the standards and wishes for end-of-life care?

The issue of death panels became so hot during this year’s debate on health-care reform legislation that Democrats decided to pull that provision from the bill.

Read more: Our view: Promoting advanced directives puts decisions in proper hands

 

[waltky]

Granny says don't try to get her to feel sorry for dem lefty lib'rals...

... `cause it ain't gonna happen.

 

[Greenbeard]

Those who sanctimoniously say that the free market doesn't work in insurance as it does in everything else simply have never lived at a time in which it did.

Do you honestly think the government lowballing Medicare payments does not result in higher insurance premiums and costs for everybody else?

These are irreconciliable propositions. You can't simultaneously argue that all we need is a more competitive health insurance market and suggest that the private health insurance market is already diffuse enough relative to the market power of providers that providers can easily shift costs to private insurers at will.

But our current fearless leader wants the government to have the power to decide whether somebody will receive treatment or whether that person just isn't worth it and should be kept comfortable but allowed to die.

So you took a town hall response in which Obama explicitly said he didn't want bureaucracies making end-of-life decisions and concluded that "ultimately that's going to be between physicians and patients," and you came up with "our current fearless leader wants the government to have the power to decide whether somebody will receive treatment or whether that person just isn't worth it and should be kept comfortable but allowed to die"? Brilliant.

First of all, I want to meet your mom and I want to find out what she's eating. But look, the first thing for all of us to understand is that we actually have some choices to make about how we want to deal with our own end-of-life care. That's one of the things I think we can all promote. And this is not a big government program, this is something that each of us individually can do--draft and sign a living will so we're very clear with our doctors about how we want to approach the end of life.

I don't think that we can make judgments based on people's spirit. That'd be a pretty subjective decision to be making, I think. I think we have to have rules that say that we are going to provide good, quality care for all people.

End-of-life care is one of the most difficult sets of decisions that we're going to have to make. I don't want bureaucracies making those decisions. But understand that those decisions are already being made in one way or another. If they're not being made under Medicare and Medicaid, they're being made by private insurers. We don't always make those decisions explicitly, we often make those decisions by just letting people run out of money or making the deductible so high or the out-of-pocket expenses so onerous that they just can't afford the care.

All we're suggesting--and we're not going to solve every difficult problem in terms of end-of-life care, a lot of that is going to have be we as a culture and as a society starting to make better decisions within our own families and for ourselves--but what we can do is make sure that at least some of the waste that exists in the system, that's not making anybody's mom better, that is loading up on additional tests or additional drugs that the evidence shows is not necessarily going to improve care, at least we can let doctors know and let your mom know that, you know what, maybe this isn't going to help. Maybe you're better off not having the surgery and taking the painkiller.

Those kinds of decisions between doctors and patients, and making sure that our incentives are not preventing those good decisions, and that doctors and hospitals all are aligned for patient care--that's something we can achieve. We're not going to solve every single one of these very difficult decisions about end-of-life and ultimately that's going to be between physicians and patients.

 

[Foxfyre]

Your dogma keeps failing the fact test.

We already pay far more than any other industrialized nation for health care. Why? Because too much of our health system is run by private insurers who take a profit for themselves and have no real incentive to control costs or improve quality.

Most of our best cost and quality initiatives come from Medicare and Medicaid. The less medical care they manage, the more overall costs are likely to rise.

I thought we already established that and we rank 37th in effectiveness according to your list posted just a few posts above. I remember when we were in at least the top five if not No. 1 in healthcare excellence and that was when the government wasn't involved in anything other than the V.A. which, being government run, was some of the worst healthcare provided.

There are many things the government can do to help the free market work and succeed in healthcare. But the government running the show is not the way to go.

The study by the WHO was done in 2000. It was the FIRST study done by that organization. So you are just emoting again.

If you think the study isn't valid you shouldn't have posted it to defend your argument.

I took it at face value as it actually sounded about right and wasn't much different than a lot of such statistics I've seen.

I haven't been emoting at all. I am simply of the conviction that the federal government should not be doing that which can be done more efficiently, effectively, and economically at more local levels or by the private sector. The Federal government should not be doing healthcare.

 

[Bfgrn]

I thought we already established that and we rank 37th in effectiveness according to your list posted just a few posts above. I remember when we were in at least the top five if not No. 1 in healthcare excellence and that was when the government wasn't involved in anything other than the V.A. which, being government run, was some of the worst healthcare provided.

There are many things the government can do to help the free market work and succeed in healthcare. But the government running the show is not the way to go.

The study by the WHO was done in 2000. It was the FIRST study done by that organization. So you are just emoting again.

If you think the study isn't valid you shouldn't have posted it to defend your argument.

I took it at face value as it actually sounded about right and wasn't much different than a lot of such statistics I've seen.

I haven't been emoting at all. I am simply of the conviction that the federal government should not be doing that which can be done more efficiently, effectively, and economically at more local levels or by the private sector. The Federal government should not be doing healthcare.

Hello??? The study is valid. What has no validity is YOUR claim that America used to be number one in these categories. You offer no proof, just opinion. I merely pointed out that this was the first time the WHO did this study.

You ARE emoting, because NOTHING you have argued holds up to the FACTS. You are parroting right wing dogma and ideology that we MUST cling to the failed Wall Street controlled 'for profit' health care system that puts America at the bottom of the list of all industrialized countries. It is handicapping all our industries in the marketplace and is literally KILLING America citizens who are dying from preventable diseases that are not being diagnosed and treated.

Again you emote about efficiency. The reason insurance cartels spent millions of dollars to kill a public option, is because they know they can't compete. Private 'for profit' insurance corporations have administrative expenses around 30%, Medicare has an administrative expense around 3%.

You really need to educate yourself to the FACTS. The only thing you've proven on this thread is the depth and scope of your ignorance.

 

[editec]

The only thing you've proven on this thread is the depth and scope of your ignorance.

And ~ man oh man! ~ is that proven here on a daily basis by a LOT of us, too.

 

[Listening]

There is absolutely no reason, none, nadda..that any American citizen should starve, be denied health care or live in squalor.

Sounds good to me.

Now please define "starve".

Please define "health care".

Please define "squalor".

 

[Meister]

Empathy comes from the heart, not from an edict from on high.

Then again, the left has shown themselves to be in possession of the tiniest hearts out there -as evidenced by the widely circulated annual lists of political types who give the most and least to private charities- so it's little surprise that they'd project their callousness onto everyone else.

You guys keep posting this crap like a badge of courage or something. Speaking as someone who's actually given to charity..and worked for charity..making sure all our citizens share in the wealth of the nation should be a given.

There is absolutely no reason, none, nadda..that any American citizen should starve, be denied health care or live in squalor.

This from a blue state:
Medicaid cuts target ER visits

The latest round of Medicaid cutbacks will begin Oct. 1, including efforts to curb repeated use of hospital emergency rooms and similar services at private clinics.
Especially worrisome, he said, is that two-thirds of Medicaid patients are children. After the third non-emergency visit to the ER, the state will send a letter to the patient and the family warning them they will be asked to pay for the next such visit. Some worry parents will be less likely to take their children for medical help for fear that they might be billed if the malady is not on the state’s list of emergency problems.
Medicaid cuts target ER visits - Spokesman.com - Sept. 3, 2011

 

[Bern80]

There is absolutely no reason, none, nadda..that any American citizen should starve, be denied health care or live in squalor.

Sounds good to me.

Now please define "starve".

Please define "health care".

Please define "squalor".

Since most any able bodied person is completely capable of exuding the minimal effort it takes to prevent that, I would agree completely. But we all know you didn't actually mean for everyone to provide those things for themselves, did you.

 

[Texanmike]

Empathy comes from the heart, not from an edict from on high.

Then again, the left has shown themselves to be in possession of the tiniest hearts out there -as evidenced by the widely circulated annual lists of political types who give the most and least to private charities- so it's little surprise that they'd project their callousness onto everyone else.

You guys keep posting this crap like a badge of courage or something. Speaking as someone who's actually given to charity..and worked for charity..making sure all our citizens share in the wealth of the nation should be a given.

There is absolutely no reason, none, nadda..that any American citizen should starve, be denied health care or live in squalor.

I love the high and mighty regard you hold yourself in. You have never seen poverty if you've never left this country. The poorest person in the entire country lives the life of a king in many countries. Where's your empathy for them? Or are all people equal only when it involves letting people come here? Until they get here though, they are vermin that are not worthy of your much lauded charity?

My charitable donations and actions are plenty and I'm not here to brag about what I've done but who the hell are you to tell another man he's not charitable? And sharing in the wealth of this nation? That's a joke. They should share in the work of the nation too.

And this "be denied health care". At who's expense? If you think that more needs to be done then why aren't you living a minimalist lifestyle and donating all of your money to charity beyond what is absolutely necessary to live above squalor? There is nothing more pathetic and disgusting than someone sitting on the other end of a conversation on a computer (I doubt your public library is open at midnight for you to make your posts) that at the least cost them a few hundred dollars lecturing someone on the other side of the fence about charity.

The fact is that your rant against the right for their lack of compassion and empathy is based solely on the fact that you disagree with them ideologically. You lack the empathy to see their point because you're too stuck up on your "high horse". Spare me the "you republicans..." bit of seventh grade political banter. I watch the two sides fight like cats and dogs about nothing. You think people should give more? Then give all that you have. Do you have a savings account? How about a car? Designer clothes? A cell phone? You pathetic hypocritical excuse for a liberal. Before you campaign for the "rich right" to be giving money you should be banging Hollywood's door down demanding that they turn over all of their money to the poor.
/7th grader rant.

"Speaking as someone who has..." Oh my God. Can you be more melodramatic? Why don't you stfu about your charity work and go do some more. In fact every minute you waste on here is a minute you could be donating to charity.

I don't care if you're on the left or the right. If you are pointing out that someone else doesn't do enough charity you're a joke. You should instead be doing it yourself. Neither the left or the right has a monopoly on empathy. For you guys to go back and forth is ridiculous. Sorry Sallow, you just happened to be the first one in the thread I heard refer to himself like he was some sort of martyr for going out and donating a little time at the local soup kitchen or the girls and boys club, other than your message there is nothing personal.

Mike

 

[editec]

I see most of you are STILL confusing empathy for sympathy.

Oh well... we tried to explain the difference (they have VASTLY different meanings, ya know?) but apparently some of you will never get it.

Empthy is NOT sympathy, folks.