Anti-Animal-Cruelty Leader Is Cruel to Animal
You hear people say, "Isn't it always the Mother Against Drunk Driving who gets busted driving drunk?" This is like that.
This fits a pattern we have seen in other domains.
RICHMOND, Virginia (AP) — An executive for an anti-animal cruelty group says her 16-year-old blind and deaf dog died after she accidentally left him in her hot car for four hours.
Robin Starr, the CEO of the Richmond Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, says she didn't realize "Louie" was in the car until noon. Starr's husband, Ed, told the Richmond Times-Dispatch he put the dog in her car as she got ready for work Aug. 19. She often took the dog to work with her.
Robin Starr took the dog to two clinics, but he died of kidney failure.
The National Weather Service says the temperature had reached 91 degrees by noon that day.
The board of the SPCA says it still supports Starr, who has been CEO since 1997 and does not plan to resign. It was unclear whether she would be charged. Anti-animal cruelty CEO's dog dies in hot car
This fits a pattern we have seen in other domains.
posted by JimK at 8:08 AM
38 Comments:
I think this is not quite the same as, say, pro-family advocates who commit adultery or teach-the-facts minions who aren't really interested in objective facts.
Hypocrisy is an equal opportunity failing and, really, few, if any humans ever avoid it.
Still, this seems like more of an honest mistake than willful negligence.
btw, I'd like to post some information here in response to past challenges about health care rationing under the current proposals.
Would that be "thread-jacking" under the blog rules?
Would that be "thread-jacking" under the blog rules?
There is only one "blog rule" at the moment: don't piss me off.
JimK
It appears it was a lack of communication between spouses that led to the accidental death of the family pet.
Richmond's WTVR reports:
NEW YORK - The ASPCA® (The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals®) issued a statement from President and CEO Ed Sayres prompted by the recent death of the Richmond SPCA CEO's dog:
"The ASPCA was deeply saddened to learn of the tragic death of Louie, Richmond SPCA CEO Robin Starr's beloved dog, who died after accidentally being left in Ms. Starr's car for several hours on a hot summer day. The ASPCA truly believes that this incident was a horrible and unfortunate accident.
"Robin has dedicated her professional life to saving animals' lives. An outspoken advocate for the prevention of animal cruelty, Robin has worked diligently with her staff for many years to increase the shelter's adoptions and decrease euthanasia since becoming a no-kill facility – a remarkable achievement for the animals at-risk in the Richmond area and a model for the entire nation. If a terrible tragedy like this could happen to someone like Robin, then it can truly happen to anyone.
"Certainly, the grief that Robin and her family must be going through right now is profound. Anytime you lose a pet, it's tantamount to losing a member of the family – but it is hard to imagine the pain that comes with losing a pet in such a tragic way.
"While some might unfortunately call for Robin's resignation as a result of this horrible accident, it is imperative that we focus on the thousands of animals' lives that she has saved through her work with the Richmond SPCA. Louie's death serves as a tragic lesson – animals should never be left alone in a parked vehicle, and pet parents must stay vigilant when it comes to their pets' safety."
There are more local reports about the incident here.
Jim.
I am just shocked that your site would be so in support of a program that will ration health care to seniors... so clearly, by the presidents own words. 500 billion cut from medicare to pay for this thing.
Doesn't that bother you ? this article is enlightening, it quotes obama's speeches and the speeches clearly point to how he plans to drastically change the face of health care in this country.
I thought you all were in favor of helping the little guy. this plan will socialize medicine like they have in the UK and like they have in Canada. Worse, even if you are willing to pay out of pocket for services YOU CAN'T (that happens in Canada NOW).
Doesn't this bother you ? I know you are an extreme liberal, but something I would have thought we could agree on is that our parents should be taken care of....
Are your parents still around ? Don't you understand how this is going to affect them immediately (500 billion from medicare and a govt rationing body to determine whether they have enough value left in their lives to be worth taking care of ?)
don't you care about your parents ?
Theresa
An article here :
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2009/08/25/kevin-mccullough-obama-doctors-health/
Quotes Obama's own speeches. I have paraphrased.
Aren't you paying attention ?
Theresa
Roughly one month ago President Obama said this at a White House press conference:
"So if you come in, and you've got a bad sore throat, or your child has a bad sore throat, or has repeated sore throats. The doctor may look at the reimbursement system, and say to himself, 'You know what, I make a heck of a lot more money if I take this kid's tonsils out.' Now that may be the right thing to do but I'd rather have that doctor making those decisions, just based on whether you really need your kids tonsils out, or whether it make just make more sense just to huh... change... huh... maybe they have allergies, maybe they have something else that would make a difference."
Right there, in just one swipe, the president has slandered thousands of the very best pediatricians, not to mention ear, nose and throat specialists. He does so with an assumption that those who practice medicine are driven by greed, and not the welfare of their patients.
Roughly two weeks ago, at a town hall meeting, President Obama said,
"Let's take the example of something like diabetes, one of uh... A disease that's sky-rocketing, partly because of huh... obesity. Partly because it is not treated... huh... as effectively... as it could be. Right now if we paid a family... If a family care physician, works with his or her patient, to help them lose weight, modify diet, monitors whether they are taking their medication in a timely fashion. They might get reimbursed a pittance. But if that same diabetic ends up getting their foot amputated, that's $30,000, $40,000, $50,000, immediately the surgeon is reimbursed."
There he was again with the profit motive. Only this time he was actually making the argument that the doctor would be so malevolent as to allow the diabetic in question to purposefully worsen the condition, just to cash in.
........
And then there was, of course, the case of his own grandmother, whose very hip replacement surgery (fully covered under her insurance plan) he questioned. He wondered about whether it was necessary or not, because of her pre-existing condition: "I don't know how much that hip replacement cost," Obama said in the interview. "I would have paid out of pocket for that hip replacement just because she's my grandmother." Obama said, "You just get into some very difficult moral issues when considering whether to give my grandmother, or everybody else's aging grandparents or parents, a hip replacement when they're terminally ill. That's where I think you just get into some very difficult moral issues."
So by his own thinking, and now admission, had it been left to a public option or single-payer government-run plan, there is a strong possibility she would have been denied coverage for her hip replacement because of her pre-existing condition. But wasn't that one of the massively huge problems his public option plan was supposed to prevent?
Is this the utopia that Obama's health care plan is supposed to usher in?
Does anyone besides me feel the least bit queasy that in order to convince us to support his plan for health care reform the president has to resort to examples of unnecessary amputations to justify this need?
Does his confusion about the difference between $500 and $50,000 leave anyone who is struggling with all their might to pay their bills to shudder at his lack of clarity about the numbers in a system he wants to spend $3,000,000,000,000 on?
These are important questions, and I desperately hope that while he's living it up on Martha's Vineyard this week that he works in a little time to consider them, you know, in between the wine and cheese events...
And for Bea :
http://www.mydd.com/story/2009/8/17/154740/709
http://blog.heritage.org/2009/07/29/obamacare-does-cut-your-medicare-benefits/
"We’ve got to eliminate programs that don’t work, and I’ll give you an example in the health care area. We are spending a lot of money subsidizing the insurance companies around something called Medicare Advantage, a program that gives them subsidies to accept Medicare recipients but doesn’t necessarily make people on Medicare healthier. And if we eliminate that and other programs, we can potentially save $200 billion out of the health care system." President Obama.
http://www.pressreleasepoint.com/16-billion-medicare-cuts-over-10-years-cms-final-rule-will-hurt-jobs-amp-seniors%E2%80%99-care%C2%A0
there are articles all over the place about the upcoming medicare cuts.... starting in January 2010.
cancer centers
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/159071.php
do you think they are all lying ?
here's the comparative rationing funding in the stimulus bill :
http://www.medpagetoday.com/Washington-Watch/Washington-Watch/12963
here's the funding for continuing rationing effectiveness studies :
http://www.cprights.org/coreofRevenueProvisionsofHouseTri-ComBillH.R.32007.14.09.pdf
theresa
People complain about the cost of health care in America but it's worth it because we have the best health care in the world.
According to an August 2009 report from the National Bureau of Economic Research, patients diagnosed with cancer in the U.S. have a better chance of surviving the disease than anywhere else.
The World Health Organization also rates the U.S. No. 1 out of 191 countries for responsiveness to the needs and choices of the individual patient.
Theresa is quite right about the Medicare cuts. The amounts to be cut are not administrative costs.
They are funds for Medicare Advantage, a program that allows seniors to buy supplemental coverage for all the things that Medicare doesn't cover.
An estimated 10.2 million seniors—one out of five in America—have enrolled in Medicare Advantage.
Mr. Obama is proposing to cut the program by nearly 20% and thus reduce the amount of money each will have to buy insurance.
This will likely force most of them to lose the insurance they have now.
As far as rationing, everyone in America should be creeped by one Ezekiel Emanuel who Obama has appointed advisor on health care finances at OMB and a member of the Federal Council on Comparative Effectiveness Research, Obama's multi-billion dollar group created by the stimulus package in February.
People like him will decide what insurance plans cover, how much leeway your doctor will have, and what seniors get under Medicare.
Emanuel has written extensively over the years about how America spends too much on health care and that talking about efficiency savings is just "lipstick" on the real problem.
He says we need to only spend money healing people who have a chance to become "productive citizens".
He says the Hippocratic Oath should be focused toward the welfare of society as a whole and that doctors shouldn't consider only the needs of their patient but whether society would benefit by their healing.
While this sounds like only senior citizens should be worried, he also says resources shouldn't be routinely allocated to infants because their parents haven't yet invested too many financial resources in them.
btw, he's the brother of Obama's equally creepy chief of staff.
Expect to hear more about this as Congress returns to Washington in a couple of weeks.
While Sarah Palin has been ridiculed, America owes her a debt for bringing this whole debate to the front burner.
Democrats thought this bill was a slam dunk until she came along and showed she can be of greater service to the country, including Alaskans, if she didn't remain governor.
Once again she has proven to be the one American politician able to bring Obama down to Earth.
Look for her to finish the job in 2012.
OK Theresa, let's take a peek, shall we?
there are articles all over the place about the upcoming medicare cuts.... starting in January 2010.
cancer centers
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/159071.php
This article is based on results of a survey conducted by American Society for Radiation Oncology. They're trying to scare cancer patients but IMHO they're really concerned about their own pocketbooks. The article discusses "a new proposal from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services" that this group of radiation oncologists fears "would cause many cancer centers to close, stop accepting Medicare patients, lay off support staff and reduce services to cancer patients" according to their survey. This article has exactly NOTHING to do with the healthcare proposal in Congress. It's just hysterics from radiation oncologists who fear their taxpayer funded payments might get reduced.
I have a message for these fearful radiation oncologists: Most all of us are getting by with less these days.
Next up, this one:
http://www.medpagetoday.com/Washington-Watch/Washington-Watch/12963
This article has nothing to do with the healthcare bill being discussed in Congress either. It's about the stimulus bill that has been signed into law and provides a billion dollars "for head-to-head research to determine which drugs, devices, and procedures are most effective and carry the lowest risk.
The money will be split between the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality."
I prefer to buy a car when I know it's estimated MPG and I prefer to use medical treatments that show evidence of being effective at what they say they'll do. Maybe you think it's controversial to study and learn that for example, something like chemotherapy cures more cancer than laetrile and so it's wise to advise patients with cancer to try chemotherapy and avoid laetrile. Modern medicine would not exist if not for scientific inquiry. That's how we learned laetrile, despite it's claims, was not effective at curing cancer.
Most Americans are proud that our medical and scientific government agencies are the best in the world and rely on their findings.
But hey, if you think people want products like laetrile on the market without the government warning them that it doesn't work because that's "freedom," well, good luck. I will not join you in that effort.
The World Health Organization also rates the U.S. No. 1 out of 191 countries for responsiveness to the needs and choices of the individual patient.
If you have health insurance or some other way to pay for your *choices,* sure, but many with health insurance coverage will be told by their health insurance company what will and will not be covered. That's the rationing that's happening now. Listen to this tape of this woman at Tom Coburn's town hall describe for you what her private health insurance company's RATIONING has done for her and her brain injured husband.
Private health insurance companies make decisions to deny payment for necessary treatments like they did for Tom Coburn's constituent, thousands of times every day. Private health insurers are making decisions to deny coverage for thousands of people at this very moment and you're here wasting my time, trying to scare people with articles about items that aren't even in the reform bill.
Wyatt, go hail Palin and demonize Dr. Emanuel someplace else.
This Vigilance reader and perhaps others are not interested in your obsessions.
convincing argument
Palin's own actions hail her and Emanuel's own words demonize him
"I prefer to buy a car when I know it's estimated MPG and I prefer to use medical treatments that show evidence of being effective at what they say they'll do."
Yeah, but the government isn't guaranteeing an entitlement to cars.
No one is naive enough to think that the government will be letting us make our own decisions.
This isn't being studied to provide information to the public. It's being done to decide what the government will cover.
Bea.
At least when the insurance companies deny care (and I FULLY agree with you that reform and oversight is necessary).... you can sue them !
You can't sue the government health care panel who will make decisions about who lives and dies...
and actually, if you are under the poverty line now you are eligible for medicaid, if you are over 65 you are eligible for medicare, so I guess I am not sure who you are referring to when you say that folks don't have insurance....
Insurance companies STINK, at least Blue cross blue shield does as I will be the first to admit from personal experience... but you do have recourse. you can get an attorney and sue them. as the lady at coburns meeting most definitely should.
what happens when it is the govt denying care ? can you still sue if the care is denied by the new all powerful oversight board who will regulate the insurance exchanges and what care will be covered ?
and though investigating the effectiveness of various care is on it's face a good thing, it is a very slippery slope. what treatment to use should be determined by the physicians, whom I trust a lot more than the govt to advise me on what treatments will have the best outcomes. sure it would be nice to have the govt's report as a resource, but ultimately it should be the doctor and patient that makes the choice on what the treatment should be.. do you really trust the govt more than your doctor to determine what care you should receive ?
and what about the doctors who graduate with 400K worth of schooling to pay off ? they need to make a salary that will allow them to pay it off. sure, lots of people want to be doctors to help other people, but if they have to live in poverty all their life after giving up their early adult years to medical school and residency... how many people will continue to choose that profession ?
http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/medicarehealthinsurance/a/insurancestats.htm
and of the 47 million uninsured, 10 million are not here legally, 14 million are youth that could afford the insurance but choose not get it and of the other 20, 15 million are eligible for medicare or medicaid or an existing program.
So, while we all agree that health care needs to be reformed, and that insurance companies need to be brought into check, we vehemently disagree that this plan which fundamentally changes the US health care system is the way to do it.
this silly bill doesn't even have tort reform. You do agree that there should be tort refort, don't you ?
why not just a govt appeals board when power to penalize the insurance companies when they misbehave... like a seperate court system for health insurance issues with expedited processing and standard penalities (high enough to make the insurance companies care) for denial of insurance benefits...
Or you can still go to the courts, but this would be a standard mediated system...
you don't have to kill the entire free market health care system to tweak it some.
theresa
one problem is that Obama has completely lost credibility with the American people
he still keeps saying we need his bill to bring down costs but independent analysis, such as the CBO, keep saying his bill doesn't pay for itself- by a trillion
he keeps saying we can keep our present insurance but the reduction of Medicare Advantage guarantees that senior citizens won't
he keeps saying he will just tax rich people but doesn't say who's going to pay for the other 9 trillion in new debt he's planning
and he keeps waffling about whether there will be a public option
so, when he says the Federal Council on Comparative Effectiveness Research is just to provide a resource, people doubt his veracity
especially when it's part of a bill to reduce costs that requires doctors to offer end-of-life counseling and requires them to mention hospices and living wills to turn off treatment in that counseling
they have an agency with a similar title in England whose job is to ration care
to top off everything else, the bill is so large (over 1,000 pages) that it will be the subject of eons of new litigation just to interpret its meaning
you think that will bring down costs?
btw, remember the hay made by TTFers when george Bush said he was going to read a book by Camus over vacation? You all said he must be lying.
Now, Obama lists the books he's going to read and includes one book he said he read when he went on sabbatical right after the election in November.
Could we get some equal time derision?
maybe we should ask him what newspapers he reads
Here's some eerie historical comparison for Barack:
"Alexandria, VA, August 26, 2009 – New national survey data released today by Public Opinion Strategies shows the country’s opinion of President Obama’s health care plan is virtually the same as that measured for President Clinton’s plan in 1994.
“This data is highly problematic for the President and clearly demonstrates the struggle President Obama faces as he tries to sell his health care plan to Americans.” said Bill McInturff, co‑founder and partner of Public Opinion Strategies.
The survey, conducted August 11‑13, provides some revealing points of comparison for public opinion today versus June of 1994:
President Clinton’s Plan (June 1994)
67% Familiar with the plan
23% Favor the plan
35% Oppose the plan
42% Have no opinion
52% "The more I hear about the plan the less I like it"
34% "The more I hear about the plan the more I like it"
President Obama’s Plan (August 2009)
64% Familiar with the plan
25% Favor the plan
37% Oppose the plan
37% Have no opinion
49% "The more I hear about the plan the less I like it"
38% "The more I hear about the plan the more I like it"
McInturff stated, “This data is hauntingly similar to what we saw in 1994. President Obama is learning the same lesson that the Clintons learned: Too much government intervention in the health care system can alienate more voters than it attracts.”
Today more people are opposed to President Obama’s health care plan than at any point in 1993 or 1994 when Clinton was trying to pass his plan. Importantly, opposition does not just run along partisan lines. Key swing voter groups, such as seniors, women, and Independents express the same level of opposition or more to Obama’s plan as they did to Clinton’s plan fifteen years ago.
The findings are from a national survey of 800 registered voters paid for by Public Opinion Strategies"
That's not all Mr. McInturff said:
"Republican strategist Bill McInturff had mixed tidings Thursday for President Obama and his drive for health reform. People are so nervous about the idea of losing some of their own care that Obama may have to "rebrand" the effort, McInturff said. But he also predicted that if Obama ultimately signs a bill, the president will get credit for surviving the process.
McInturff suggested that five to eight Republican senators could be lured to vote for the right kind of health bill -- one that doesn't include "a very large public option" run by the government but might include "some experimental (public) program in Vermont" or some type of health insurance co-operative. "There are a lot of different ways" to get to more than 60 votes, he said.
McInturff has polled on health issues for years for candidates, media organizations, the GOP and health care players, including hospitals and insurers. He released new results this week that show public opinion on Obama's proposal is pretty much where it was just before President Clinton's health care plans turned to dust in 1994. Very roughly, for then and now, about one-quarter favor and one-third oppose, with the rest having no opinion.
An adviser to John McCain's 2008 and 2000 presidential campaigns, McInturff had worked to kill the Clinton plan. On Wednesday, speaking at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast, he said he's not sorry about that, but he did not mean to stop health reform for 15 years. "The stunning thing about 1994 was that nothing got done at all," McInturff said. "I didn't think the Democratic caucus would walk away."
The Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial races this fall are "incredibly important" to the fate of Obama's plans, McInturff said. If Republicans win both, he said, it would be "very chilling" to moderate Democrats from swing House districts and make them less willing to risk support for Obama's big initiatives on health and energy.
McInturff predicted that after the 2010 midterm elections, Obama and congressional Democrats will make a concerted effort to try to tame deficit spending that could drive up the national debt to an estimated $9 trillion in 2019. He said Republicans should "jump on it" and help, because "that's what we ought to be for." He said they should support it even if it happens during 2010 -- in time for Democrats to reap some rewards in the midterms."
ho-ho
I didn't include that part because it's nothing new
Republicans will indeed support efforts to reduce the deficit just like they'll support a health reform bill that's fixed
as a matter of fact they may wind up doing both at the same time
if Obama is smart, he'll do a Bill Clinton and start implementing the Republican agenda
I pointed that out several days ago
you can sue them !
I see there's lots of disagreement on the right about what should be done.
Hey Anon, how do you like Theresa's idea and how would it fit in with your "solution" to the health care problem, namely tort reform?
so I guess I am not sure who you are referring to when you say that folks don't have insurance
The google can be your friend, Theresa. It won't take you long to find the tens of millions of Americans who do not have health insurance coverage or who have it, but the deductible is so high they still have to pay out of pocket for everything except hospitalizations.
can you still sue if the care is denied by the new all powerful oversight board who will regulate the insurance exchanges and what care will be covered ?
Theresa, you posed the question immediately above, shortly after you wrote:
"You can't sue the government health care panel who will make decisions about who lives and dies"
Your inconsistency indicates you have no idea what you're talking about.
but you do have recourse. you can get an attorney and sue them. as the lady at coburns meeting most definitely should.
You have no idea how people *without* two highly taxed incomes get by, do you?
Perhaps if Coburn's constituent was a woman who could afford to sit around naked with other naked ladies in the sauna at her upscale health club in Bethesda she could afford the time and money to sue her insurance company. Maybe she's even got enough money to not have to worry that her insurance company could drop coverage for her needs while she's suing them to cover her husband's needs. From the despair in her voice though, I imagine she's struggling to do it all herself -- feeding, bathing, dispensing medications, providing speech therapy and who knows what else might be required to assist her husband. All that home care she has to provide for him herself might make it tough to find the time and resources to sue her insurance company.
and though investigating the effectiveness of various care is on it's face a good thing, it is a very slippery slope. what treatment to use should be determined by the physicians, whom I trust a lot more than the govt to advise me on what treatments will have the best outcomes.
Tell us about this slippery slope you imagine, Theresa. Where in the bill does it say that gathering information about the effectiveness of various types of care will have any effect on what you and your doctor discuss or the advice your doctor gives you? I'll save you the trouble, it doesn't say it anywhere. That's why you have to use your imagination and call it a "slippery slope" and cannot say "This bill mandates your doctor **must** tell you X, Y or Z." If you think otherwise, prove it. Find the wording in the bill and show it to Vigilance readers.
10 million are not here legally
Not according to the source you cited, which says 10 million are non-U.S. citizens.
You do realize it's possible to reside legally in the United States and not be a US citizen, don't you? Applicants for naturalization acquire permanent resident status and are required to remain in the country at least half of the time for 5 years and meet several other legal standards in order to become citizens. Do we need to add xenophobia to your list of phobias?
14 million are youth that could afford the insurance but choose not get it
Do you read your sources? This one says "18.3 million of the uninsured are under age 34...14 million people without health insurance earned annual incomes of at least $50,000...[and] ...14 million uninsured Americans are already eligible for health insurance through Medicaid and State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP)" Nowhere does it say 14 million are "youth that could afford the insurance." What you've manufactured is a classic misconstrual.
of the other 20, 15 million are eligible for medicare or medicaid or an existing program.
According to the source you've cited: "A 2003 **Blue Cross/Blue Shield** Association study concluded that, "More than 14 million uninsured Americans are already eligible for health insurance through Medicaid and State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP).""
Aren't you the one who said "Insurance companies STINK, at least **Blue cross blue shield** does as I will be the first to admit from personal experience" and now you're citing their data as useful? So which is it, Theresa? Do they STINK or do they produce useful data?
this silly bill doesn't even have tort reform. You do agree that there should be tort refort, don't you ?
Do you? I'm not really sure since you are definitely the one who, a few paragraphs above, said "you do have recourse. you can get an attorney and sue them. as the lady at coburns meeting most definitely should."
Holy cow, Theresa! You have manufactured a lie about 14 million youths without health insurance through misconstrual, you said Blue Cross Blue Shield "STINK" before you cited their data as useful, and you were against tort reform (for "the lady at coburns meeting") before you were in favor of it, all within a single comment! We can all see who is slipping down the slope.
Your reply to Theresa is characteristically rude, Anon-B. I won't take time to go through each item because, honestly, the bill in Congress is dead.
Take out the public option, the death panels, eliminate the council to study effectiveness, resore the hundreds of billions cut in Medicare...
in other words, throw out the whole bill and start over.
The truth is that Americans don't really like change and when you put out something this complex, they get nervous and the status quo starts to look pretty good.
Keep it simple. A new bill should simply require insurance companies to take everyone without regard to pre-existing conditions and not to drop anyone. In exchange, require everyone to get insurance. This a compromise the insurance companies have already agreed to. Health insurance will become a public utility, like electricity.
The downside is that premiums will go through the roof and the deficit will go supernova from its current explosion.
But, the bill might pass.
After the bill is passed, we can start talking about how to bring costs down. Then, we can focus on the trial lawyers who are, like teacher unions, considered a protected class by the Democrats.
And in 2012, we'll have three years of data to judge the experiment.
oh, the Democrats would never be that smart
they don't have that high an average IQ
think Al Franken
That's right! think Al Franken who graduated cum laude from Harvard University in 1973 with a bachelor of arts degree in political science, has published six books, and was sworn in as US Senator after beating GOP incumbent Norm Coleman in his first political race ever.
well, it's too bad his lawyers were able to get him into the Senate
he would have been perfect for the upcoming Three Stooges movie
nyuck-nyuck-nyuck
don't forget Conan O'Brien and the Unabomber
they went to Harvard too!
I know they were cum somethin'
and how about those professors?
Louis Gates, who drinks so much Red Stripe he can't keep track of his ID
Lawrence Summers, who thinks girls are too stupid to do Math
Timothy O'Leary, who encouraged his students to drop out and take LSD
wonder if Al Franken took their classes?
Your reply to Theresa is characteristically rude, Anon-B.
Huh?
Did I call her a "deviant" or something?
No!
I helped her see some errors in her reasoning.
How rude!
I won't take time to go through each item because...
Excuses, excuses.
I wasn't talking to you, Sybil (Anon, IV, IV, Anon, Anon).
Theresa's a big girl.
She can answer for her own misconstruals and inconsistencies, or not.
Anon, FYI you are starting to get on my nerves. Please elevate the discourse, if you can.
JimK
"Excuses, excuses."
I don't need excuses. What I predicted about Obama's lack of experience has been proven correct.
Rejection of the health care bill has become a national state of mind.
Check out Emmett Tyrrell's analysis of the incompetence of Obama's staff and why he's in trouble on every front:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/08/28/obamas_carrousel_of_incompetence_98077.html
It only gets worse from here and we are living in dangerous times.
By year's end, look for people to start calling for Obama's resignation so we can see what Biden can do.
Hate to say it, but it might be what's best for the country.
Oh dream on Anon. You couldn't beat Obama at the ballot box, all those months of bogus birther lawsuits couldn't get him out of office, even armed citizens carrying signs about refreshing the Tree of Liberty with blood couldn't get rid of him, and now you are deluding yourself if you think he's going to resign.
It's you who needs to resign yourself to the fact the we elected African American Barack Hussein Obama President of the United States of America to bring change, and that change is coming. The GOP can sit by screaming NO until their faces turn blue, but they can't stop it.
Yes we can, and finally, yes we will.
that's funny because someone just overheard Barry sitting having a beer with Louis Gates at the Black Dog say:
Damn, I guess we can't!
A world of evidence surrounds you and you still believe.
That's touching, Anon-B.
Ok Bea.
Find your own source on the internet that you believe that quotes the number of uninsured. There are 47 million of them according to most sources. According to most source about a quarter of them are not US citizens and therefore not covered by Medicaid or Medicare. They can get emergency care at any hospital in the US. I see no reason to provide them with health insurance, sorry. And Obama care will.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Obamacare-wont-cover-illegal-immigrants--55021087.html
More people (about 80 million) will lose their current insurance and be forced onto the public option then will gain insurance under this plan.
It absolutely DOES establish a health care oversight board that will ration care, run by none other than Rahm Emanuels brother.
Check this out :
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203706604574374463280098676.html
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/08/hello_obamacare_goodbye_grandm_1.html
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/may/01/obamas-health-care-rationing/
this guy thinks doctors take the hippocratic oath too seriously. To see if we have any common ground Bea, do you think doctors shoudl make the choice about your health care or the govt ? because if you think like emmanual does, that old folks should die for the greater good of society, well we will never be able to find a middle ground. I don't. those old folks include my mom.
The government will determine which plans belong the health insurance exchange...and you MUST have health insurance purchased through the exchange to avoid the 8% penalty. Buy an insurance not on the exchange, and you still pay the penalty.
The govt will decide through the health insurance exchange what benefits are covered. You can't be a member of the health insurance exchange if you insurance package doesn't meet their guidelines, the guidelines will be determined by the Health Choices Commissoner. This article summarizes the new plan with page references to the bill (which I love). So the health choices commissioner (using guidance from what will be in the comparative effectiveness bill) will determine what the insurance packages can cover. and you have to buy an insurance package on the exchange OR pay a penalty. so guess what ? the govt will determine what treatments get covered... don't you see that connection ? It is pretty clear.
http://www.heritage.org/research/healthcare/bg2304.cfm
"The House Tri-Committee Bill. Under Section 201 of Title II of the America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009, Congress would create a national health insurance exchange.[12] This exchange would be administered by a powerful Health Choices Commissioner who would head a new federal agency called the Health Choices Administration. The commissioner would be appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. Among the commissioner's chief duties would be to establish a process for the enrollment of eligible individuals and employers, to negotiate contracts with congressionally defined "qualified health plans," and to enforce statutory requirements relating to federally defined health benefits."
Theresa
Wow, Theresa.
Thanks for doing that explanation.
There are dozens of scientific journals that do research on the effectiveness of treatment. We don't need to fund a Federal program.
President Obama's Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research is being sold as simply government helping doctors choose the best treatments. But the real purpose of such councils is ultimately to establish official criteria for denying reimbursement to less favored (because presumably less effective) treatments -- precisely the triage done by the NICE committee in Britain, the Orwellian body that once blocked access to a certain expensive anti-blindness drug until you went blind in one eye. (NICE: the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence.)
In addition to saying the lives of old people are not valuable, Emanuel has also made the same statement about younger children. He's said we should prioritize our allocation of resources toward people aged 15-40.
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Anon-B
You're in denial.
You should look at Tyrrell's article. He has begun to expose the inner workings of the White House and found the decision-making structure to be exactly the same as in the Carter White House.
I don't think I need to tell you how that story ended.
Similarly, at this point in the Carter presidency, Reagan was ridiculed and demonized in much the same manner as Palin is now.
Look for a new quarter century of Republican domination.
Remind me again: wasn't the topic under discussion in this thread "Anti-Animal-Cruelty Leader is Cruel to Animal"?
When I was teaching I always required and expected students, when writing essays, to stick to the given topic. If it happened to be: "Three characteristics of a winning Civil War General", I didn't accept an essay titled: "Cumquats: The Savior of the World Fruit". In this case, the student failed to meet the objectives of the assignment and received a failing grade.
Seems to me that a similar rule should apply here: STICK TO THE TOPIC OF THE THREAD! Simple request...easily achieved as an objective!
RT
A note for RT, Dio, and other Vigilance readers,
I appreciate and sympathize with your views on threadjacking, it's tiresome and often worse. And I"m sorry for my part in it, but like I did for my kids, sometimes I follow commenters off track in order to correct their stupid and misleading mistakes.
This healthcare bill means too much to me and my family to let their manufactured bullspit remain unanswered, so here I go working to expose the lies and teach the facts.
Aunt Bea
Theresa -- It's good you now realize that immigrants can be living in this country legally and still not yet be citizens. I hope you will no longer spread that nasty lie around the Internet. You say you see no reason to provide them with health insurance. But immigrants, even illegal immigrants pay sales tax, state and federal income taxes, and pay into the Medicare and Social Security programs same as you and I do.
USAToday recently reported "Many illegal immigrants pay up at tax time"
Illegal immigrants are paying taxes to Uncle Sam, experts agree. Just how much they pay is hard to determine because the federal government doesn't fully tally it. But the latest figures available indicate it will amount to billions of dollars in federal income, Social Security and Medicare taxes this year. One rough estimate puts the amount of Social Security taxes alone at around $9 billion per year.
Paycheck withholding collects much of the federal tax from illegal workers, just as it does for legal workers.
The Internal Revenue Service doesn't track a worker's immigration status, yet many illegal immigrants fearful of deportation won't risk the government attention that will come from filing a return even if they might qualify for a refund. Economist William Ford of Middle Tennessee State University says there are no firm figures on how many such taxpayers there are.
"The real question is how many of them pay more than they owe. There are undoubtedly hundreds of thousands of people in that situation," Ford said...
Permanent residents with green cards as well as immigrants in this country illegally pay taxes that fund Social Security and Medicare. It appears you would deny those with green cards coverage even when they pay into these programs like you and I do.
More people (about 80 million) will lose their current insurance and be forced onto the public option then will gain insurance under this plan.
The picture you right wingers like to paint here is that the public option will be so much less expensive than private insurance that employers will no longer purchase private insurance for their employees, but will purchase the cheaper publicly funded and managed health insurance instead. That means it would be employers who'd be *forcing* employees onto the plan, not the government. The government option will help business run more efficiently by lowering the cost of doing business. You still would not lose your doctor because the bill calls for individual rights to keep your doctors no matter which insurance plan you are covered by.
I find it amusing that the pro-business crowd fails to applaud the fact that this bill has the potential to greatly lower costs for businesses to operate while ensuring no one who has a preferred doctor will be forced to find a new one.
This lie about forcing people into the public option (which Anon assures us is dead) is a lie of misconstrual. If employers opt for any future public option plan to save costs and run their companies more efficiently, it would be the employer who offers employees a different plan, not the government. This bill will not force anyone's hand and gives employers cost saving options. And when it passes, this bill will mandate all insurance plans must allow you to keep your doctor even if you change plans.
It absolutely DOES establish a health care oversight board that will ration care, run by none other than Rahm Emanuels brother.
< eye roll >
Oh brother, Theresa. Cue the spooky music while you set up the smoke and mirrors, why don't you?
First of all, health care oversight boards exist at every private insurance company in some form or another right now. Every claim you file with your private insurer is reviewed by people who are employed by your insurer and have the power to decide if your claim will be paid or not. The current rules do not prevent insurance companies from ending payments for care like they did for Tom Coburn's constituent's brain-injured husband. Purchasing new insurance under current rules, if she could get it, would mean her husband's pre-existing condition would still not be covered. The proposed health care bill would change that and would permit her to obtain coverage from another insurer because they would not be able to deny coverage for his pre-existing condition.
Second, you expect us to buy the miscontruals about Ezekiel Emanuel manufactured by Betsy McCaughey. Ms. McCaughey, a health industry hack who quit her Director's job at Cantel Medical Corporation for appearance's sake the day she appeared on The Daily Show, is the same woman who concocted the 1994 web of lies entitled "No Exit," which has been thoroughly debunked as full of lies and mischaracterizations of what was in that plan here, here, here, and here.
Using out-of-context quotes, McCaughey has manufactured a series of lies about, Dr. Emanuel. The picture she paints of him is a stark contrast to what he is truly about. Dr. Emanuel is a Hastings Center Fellow and has long advocated against euthanasia and physician assisted suicide and yet McCaughey can only lie about him and mislabel him "Dr. Death." Oh it's a catchy title, but it's blatantly false. You should watch McCaughey's interview with Jon Stewart on The Daily Show. It's a real eye-opener to hear her read the text from the bill and then tell Jon "what that means" while saying absolutely *nothing* close to what she just read. It's pure fabrication.
For some facts about Dr. Emanuel, I suggest two pieces of reading here and here, in addition to his own works.
Bea, do you think doctors shoudl make the choice about your health care or the govt ?
Good heavens, Theresa. I should make decisions about my own health care and I should be able to get information about my options from any and all sources I want to get it from in order to make my decisions -- doctors, government sources like CDC and NIH, and independent sources like the AMA and my church, you know witchdoctors and shaman!
because if you think like emmanual does, that old folks should die for the greater good of society, well we will never be able to find a middle ground.
There you go again. He does not think old people should die, he's advocated against euthanasia and physician assisted suicideagainst. You are parroting what McCaughey spun, not what Emanuel said. If you believe Ms. McCaughey's lies about Dr. Emanuel, then you and I truly have nothing in common because you are content to believe the spin of a health industry hack rather than studying the subject directly yourself. Read Dr. Emanuel's papers, not just spun out of context quotes from them, and then tell us what you think about him yourself.
I don't. those old folks include my mom.
"Those old folks" include my 87 year old mother living here in Montgomery County too, Theresa. I want the best care to ensure her comfort just like you do for your mom. We all want that for our seniors. That's why I support this health care reform bill. My mom's too frail to travel across the nation's border to pick up medications at a fraction of the cost charged at her local pharmacy and she takes 14 medications every day for the infirmities old age have brought her. God bless your mother's good health. Fortunately, my mom doesn't have to cross the border for her medications because as an officer's wife, she is covered by one of America's best publicly funded and administered medical plans, the one for the military. She's met with all of her children, her doctors, and a lawyer who specializes in end of life issues and she's drawn up her medical directives so that all of us can work together to ensure her wishes are carried out to the end.
Theresa said The government will determine which plans belong the health insurance exchange... and cited http://www.heritage.org/research/healthcare/bg2304.cfm
That Heritage Foundation paper by Dr. Moffit speaks ominously about "a national health insurance exchange" saying while it is described as "...a nationwide pool of health insurance providers that would facilitate access to coverage for individuals and employers...", but claims it's really just "...a platform for a government-run public health plan that, using Medicare-style administrative pricing, would "compete" against private health insurance...".
Dr. Moffit goes on to tout vlountary state-based health insurance exchanges as preferable. He said: A state-based health insurance exchange can indeed be a sound way to achieve a level playing field and a statewide market for a variety of different private health plans to compete directly for the business of employers and employees, individuals, and self-employed persons.
Like Ms. McCaughey, I have to wonder if Dr. Moffit comprehends the bill he's talking about. Here's a link to H.R. 3200. The binocular icon allows you to search for any term you'd like, such as "health insurance exchange." I've performed that search and learned that HR 3200 does exactly what Dr. Moffit prefers; it calls for what he called "state-based"and "voluntary health insurance exchanges" in Section 208, which begins on Page 111. H.R. 3200 says such optional exchanges may be set up for individual states or for groups of states.
Thanks for posting Moffit's paper, Theresa. It's good to know a writer for the Heritage Foundation supports voluntary state-based health insurance exchanges, which are called for in the health care bill. I agree with him on that point, among his many questionable claims. And if it'd be helpful to pool together on an individual or multi-state level, it will also be helpful to pool together on a UNITED STATES level too.
Tell us, Theresa, what do you know about the Levin Group, the source that Dr. Moffit relied on in his piece to make the claim that "103.9 million Americans would be covered under the public plan, and 83.4 million people would no longer be covered by private health insurance."?
According to their website, the Levin Group's work on Healthcare is as follows:
We are a premier consulting group to Healthcare companies. We deeply understand the issues that CEOs and senior executives face in balancing complex missions of patient care, providing specialty services, creating innovation, and operating profitability. We specialize in creating that remarkable teamwork needed to manage those complex alliances between physicians, community, and academia.
Got that? They freely admit they work with CEOs and senior executives, not senior citizens. And they freely admit they are concerned with these health care companies' "operating profitability" that enables these ridiculously high CEO compensations in the health care industry.
Did you keep up with the Washington Post last month, Theresa? They reported about the Levin Group in an article called Research Firm Cited by GOP Is Owned by Health Insurer:
The political battle over health-care reform is waged largely with numbers, and few number-crunchers have shaped the debate as much as the Lewin Group, a consulting firm whose research has been widely cited by opponents of a public insurance option.
To Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, the House Republican whip, it is "the nonpartisan Lewin Group." To Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee, it is an "independent research firm." To Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, the second-ranking Republican on the pivotal Finance Committee, it is "well known as one of the most nonpartisan groups in the country."
Generally left unsaid amid all the citations is that the Lewin Group is wholly owned by UnitedHealth Group, one of the nation's largest insurers...
Whose bottom line do you think they are working to improve, seniors like our moms and Coburn's constituent or "CEOs and senior executives" at health insurance companies?
bottom line is, if the current bill passes is:
-premiums will go up
-taxes will go up
-Medicare will be cut
-quality will decline
-government will make decisions on what needs to be covered
-our taxes will go to fund abortions
of course, there could be many other negative consquences
it's hard to say for sure because the whole bill is so huge and ambiguous that no one is sure what all it says
if Obama wants to say he reformed health care, he needs to transform himself from a spectator in the process to a President
he needs to devise a bill that will have bipartisan support and is simple
he needs to present to Congress and make a case for it
he's come to Bill Clinton's 1994 moment much earlier
taking a cue from Clinton, he must enact the agenda of America's center-right majority
otherwise, he's just like Elphaba in the tornado
on his bicycle without a helmet, one hand waving free
and circling the drain
glub-glub-glub
-premiums will go up
No they won't. They will go down, that's why the health insurance industry is fighting against this reform so hard. They like the double digit premium hikes.
-taxes will go up
Only for the very richest among us, who got tons of tax cuts during the Bush/Cheney reign of terror and error. Tax rates for the rich will still be far lower than they paid under Reagan.
-Medicare will be cut
Before he was against cutting Medicare, Michael Steele was for considering it:
MR. RUSSERT: Your Web site, Mr. Steele, says you want to control runaway federal spending.
LT. GOV. STEELE: Mm-hmm.
MR. RUSSERT: What programs would you cut?
LT. GOV. STEELE: Well, what I would like to do is something that we did in Maryland. We — Governor Ehrlich and I came into office, we had a $2.2 billion deficit staring us in the face and a bloated government to contend with. And so we stepped back and evaluated exactly what the priorities of our government should be. Seventy-eight percent of our spending is in two areas: education and health care.
MR. RUSSERT: It’s the same in the federal government.
LT. GOV. STEELE: It’s the same. And my point...
MR. RUSSERT: Seventy percent is Social Security, Medicare and Defense.
LT. GOV. STEELE: Absolutely. Absolutely.
MR. RUSSERT: Would you touch those?
LT. GOV. STEELE: Abso — Tim, everything has...
MR. RUSSERT: Everything’s on the table.
-quality will decline
No it won't. In recent years, the number of patients served by the medical system of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has increased substantially. At the same time, VA’s ratings for the quality of care and customer satisfaction have apparently improved. Many people both within and outside the department have pointed to several factors as being key to achieving those results:
■ Organizational restructuring designed to share decisionmaking authority between officials in the central office, regional managers, and key personnel at dispersed medical facilities;
■ Performance measurement targeted toward improving the quality of care; and
■ Extensive use of health information technology (health IT).
-government will make decisions on what needs to be covered
Instead of health insurance bureaucrats who overrule doctors decisions every day, leaving the insured without coverage for treatments their doctors recommend like Tom Coburn's constitutent.
he needs to devise a bill that will have bipartisan support and is simple
There is no such bill. The GOP has dug in its heels and will JUST SAY NO to anything that changes the status quo.
That's why the Democrats will pass this legislation alone while the GOP continues to do nothing but complain.
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