Good for you Mr. Grayson.

Washington DC., Live microphones, 1 dead

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-alan-grayson/how-the-republicans-faile_b_347237.html

can i douche this post if you don't mind.
Read this ^ link, alan grayson tells the story, story is better than the raw video IMHO.

Ohio districts 6, 9, 10, 11, 13, Oklahoma district 2, good fucking job.

Also, anyone feel that watching congress is like watching a 10 year old boys' club, where they're just making shit up as they go along but pretending like it's legitimate?

"The chair has not yet conferred recognition for that demand. Accordingly, there being no question pending before the house, the chair declares the house in recess, subject to the call of the chair, pursuant to clause 12A of rule 1."

He says it with pseudo-authority and looks around in a way like he's really hoping nobody calls him on having just made up the clause, the rule, and basically this entire branch of the government.

>> ^handmethekeysyou:
Ohio districts 6, 9, 10, 11, 13, Oklahoma district 2, good fucking job.
Also, anyone feel that watching congress is like watching a 10 year old boys' club, where they're just making shit up as they go along but pretending like it's legitimate?
"The chair has not yet conferred recognition for that demand. Accordingly, there being no question pending before the house, the chair declares the house in recess, subject to the call of the chair, pursuant to clause 12A of rule 1."
He says it with pseudo-authority and looks around in a way like he's really hoping nobody calls him on having just made up the clause, the rule, and basically this entire branch of the government.


"Alan: Ohio district 14..."

District 14: Hey! Shut up!

"Alan: No! You Shut up!"

I think he got EXACTLY what he wanted.

Deaths in Central Florida since Mr. Doofus took office...
H1N1: 12
Heart disease: 179
Malignant cancer neoplasms: 151
Cerebro vascular disease: 43
Chronic respiratory disease: 36
Accidents: 30
Motor vehicle accidents 12
Diabetes: 21
Alzheimers: 21
Influenza: 22
Nephrosis: 7

What's his point? People die. Is he trying to imply that these people would NOT have died if only his liberal Democrat health care plan was law? I don't stoop to profanity often, but what a dumbass.

Even if this lastest socialist abortion of a health care bill fails--and it better--long after this fat-faced histrionic clown is out of office we'll still already be paying for Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, all of which are out of money and rife with fraud and abuse apparently no one in DC cares about.

If government does such a spectacular job of keeping industries lean, efficient and prosperous, why stop with health care? The Russian people had "free" soviet health care for 80 years. whatever happened to those guys?

If the deaths for Mary Fallin's district seems high, that's because her district is one of the most densely populated areas in the state, and includes a high number of retirement communities.

I live in her district, actually, though I did not vote for her. She's running for governor of Oklahoma right now. I still won't vote for her; my vote is probably going to Drew Edmondson, if he makes it through the primaries.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
What's his point?

The numbers he's reading are of people who died because they didn't have access to healthcare. That is his point.

>> ^handmethekeysyou:
Also, anyone feel that watching congress is like watching a 10 year old boys' club, where they're just making shit up as they go along but pretending like it's legitimate?


Ah the grand system that is Parliamentary Procedure, the greatest way in the world to ensure that everyone who has something important to say can't and to make certain that nothing ever gets done.

>> ^quantumushroom:
Even if this lastest socialist abortion of a health care bill fails--and it better--long after this fat-faced histrionic clown is out of office we'll still already be paying for Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, all of which are out of money and rife with fraud and abuse apparently no one in DC cares about.


Out of money because your "Conservative" heroes have been robbing them blind for decades to pay for everything that can't be paid for because of all those lovely tax cuts for billionaires and corporate America.

How'd District 9 do..?

The numbers he's reading are of people who died because they didn't have access to healthcare.

In the US there is no such thing of people who have 'no access' to medical care. If you walk in to a clinic or a hospital, you get treated. And if you don't have money, you get the treatment gratis. To imply they wouldn't have died "if only" they had government subsidized insurance is beyond inaccurate. It is disingenous, manipulative propoganda of the worst sort. If that's his reasoning then Mr. Doofus is a rhetorical graverobber digging up corpses to parade around for political purposes. What a ghoul.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
The numbers he's reading are of people who died because they didn't have access to healthcare.
In the US there is no such thing of people who have 'no access' to medical care. If you walk in to a clinic or a hospital, you get treated. And if you don't have money, you get the treatment gratis. To imply they wouldn't have died "if only" they had government subsidized insurance is beyond inaccurate. It is disingenous, manipulative propoganda of the worst sort. If that's his reasoning then Mr. Doofus is a rhetorical graverobber digging up corpses to parade around for political purposes. What a ghoul.

There are other causes of death out there than what a simple visit to an ER can cure.

How did you get to a point that when someone states the fact that people die due to lack of medical care, he gets dubbed a "graverobber" and a "ghoul", but when a company denies health coverage due to absurd preexisting conditions, they're considered model businessmen?

>> ^gwiz665:
How'd District 9 do..?


Illegal aliens don't count.

Out of money because your "Conservative" heroes have been robbing them blind for decades to pay for everything that can't be paid for because of all those lovely tax cuts for billionaires and corporate America.

You're forgetting the 3 trillion spent on liberals' failed "war on poverty". Youse libs think that if only you could rob all of America's millionaires and billionaires of 90% of everything they have there'd suddenly be enough money to pay for all the socialist programs so dearly loved? That's total bunk, and even if it were true, the liberal spending spree knows no limits, with the conservative version not too far behind.

It's all a house of cards anyhoo. Obama and Douchebag Bernanke are printing money on toilet paper. Forget gold, buy canned goods and ammo!

There are other causes of death out there than what a simple visit to an ER can cure.

Yes - which is precisely why it is propoganda for Mr. Doofus to say they 'died of not having coverage' or to imply anything of the sort. All the people he's listing lived in the US - and had access to health care. To say they died for any reason except the simple vicissitudes of life is preposterious on its face. People die. It happens. He's trying to say "Pass Obamacare, and these deaths won't happen." Bull feathers.

How did you get to a point that when someone states the fact that people die due to lack of medical care

Because they didn't. His claim they 'died of lack of medical care' is a complete falsehood. It is leftist bilge that is being used to sucker the simple and stupid into giving government obsence amounts of money and power.

but when a company denies health coverage due to absurd preexisting conditions, they're considered model businessmen?

Let's not mince about it. Insurance tries to control costs. Human need is a bottomless, gaping maw that by definition cannot be filled no matter how generous and munificent the resource pool. Someone somewhere at some point has to say "No". There isn't an infinite pool of money, and medical care is not free (nor should it be). People need to be paid. Research needs to take place. Drugs need to be manufactured. Supplies have to be shipped. Facilities have to be built, maintained, and updated. It costs $$$$.

Government is right now in the process of slinging a huge lie that it will somehow be able to control these costs more efficiently than the private sector. It's total crap. They've never succeeded in this goal once with ANYTHING - especially not medical programs. Why should we believe they can now?

Social medicine costs are not proportionally less then private. Nor is coverage more generally widespread. Government run health care controls costs by denying services, lowering quality, not 'covering' standard tests, completely denying specialized tests, and on and on and on. SOcial medicine controls costs by denying and delaying care just as much (or more) than private coverage. At its very best, social medicine is a wash compared to private in terms of 'care'.

But it comes as an immense price in freedom, and accrued power to government. Such a path is historically fraught with peril. It isn't worth it. We're better off with freedom in a private system (however flawed) than with a public one. No doubts. No question. It's just a fact. Government can play a regulatory role and be helpful. But that's not what they want to do, so I'm not going to pretend. They're trying to become a provider. Blech.

The reason people die from "lack of medical care" is because getting treated without insurance is difficult and expensive. There are a numerous ways be uninsured negatively effects your life and health. I know this from personal experience. I will only mention here a few instances that I directly experienced.

When I was about 16, my mother was on leave from the post office after getting injured. My father worked at a school as maintenance. His insurance didn't cover me, and my mothers was suspended while she was out of work, so I was left uninsured. I was goofing off in the woods and tripped on some old lumber and get a rusy nail in my calf. Nothing serious, just a small wound that needed 3 stitches and a tetanus shot. We went down, waited several hours, and then was taken care of. (the wait time is due to the fact that my local hospital is terrible, not my lack of insurance) After a week, my mother got the outrageous bill for something around $1100. There were all kinds of insane fees tacked on. There was even a fee for it being a Sunday when I went to the emergency room. With my mother out of work at the time, money was pretty tight and this was a big problem for the family. I was supposed to return about 2 weeks later to have the stitches removed. This was going to cost another $200 or so, and we just couldn't afford it. My mother and I ended up waiting till I was supposed to return and have them taken out, and just did it ourselves. Now, removing 3 stitches from a healed up leg wound isn't a big deal. We did it no problem. However what if something had gone terribly wrong. Or what if it wasn't just 3 simple stitches but something much more intricate. Having to spend another $200 would have forced us to cut back on things like FOOD. These are the decisions uninsured people have to make. Getting treatment or paying rent. Getting your prescription filled or eating that week. I'm sorry, but those are not decisions people should have to make. I'd also like to point out, my family wasn't poor. We were lower middle class. There are a lot of people that were worse off than we were.
Another example was only a few years ago. My father was at work, he tends bar now, and randomly passed out. (No he was not drunk, his blood sugar was very low, and they told him he may be hypoglycemic) He woke up a few seconds later, but was put in an ambulance and taken to the ER. He was admitted, they drew some blood, did some tests, and told him to eat a candy bar and sent him home. Fast forward a week or so and he gets the bill. Over $5000. Roughly $700 of it was for the ambulance ride, from the volunteer ambulance core in our town to the hospital, about a 10 mile, all highway. Luckily for my father, he doesn't have a mortgage or rent to pay as the house he lives in is paid for. Never the less, he would send in a payment each month. As much as he could spare, and it still took him well over a year to pay if all off.
I understand that treatment costs money. I understand there are supplies, utilities, payroll, and other costs required to run a hospital or doctors office. I just feel, that people should be able to go to the doctor without having to worry about if and how they are going to pay for it. In a modern country, with all the money and power we have, no one should ever have to choose between food and care. It's insane.

LordOderus is right - the problem that Winstonfield_Pennypacker doesn't seem to realize is that in an ER, they cannot refuse you care, but that doesn't mean it's free. YOU HAVE TO PAY FOR IT (or declare bankruptcy). Now, a social worker (either gov't employed or working for the hospital) will reduce certain fees and setup a payment plan, but it can be an astronomical debt.

My brother lives in a rural area, is a self-employed small business owner, and cannot afford health insurance. A few years ago, he had a cyst in his throat that required surgery, otherwise he would suffocate and die within a day. The local hospital did not have the facilities to do the surgery so he had to be taken to the city. 100-mile ambulance ride was > $10,000. (the helicopter ride would have been triple that, so he opted for ambulance). The surgery (not that complicated, probably took the actual surgeon 15 minutes, 2 hour total with setup/prep by the techs in the OR) was > $70,000. You can buy a house for that.

So, with some bad luck, you can get sick and get yourself into a lot of debt, or you can choose the republican plan - TO DIE QUICKLY.

If he had health insurance, he could have gone earlier (at the point where it wasn't an emergency situation), or if not preventable with earlier treatment, at least the insurance would cover most of that $80k of expense.

And people also seem to think that "the public option" would be free - it wouldn't. you still have to pay for it. It's simply cheaper than private insurance for the same coverage. I don't think it would ever be as efficient as a single-payer system (such as in Canada), but it would help millions of people financially.

Honeestly, I don't think congress is doing enough. Just put in the public option, but don't make it mandatory to have health insurance, and all the naysayers (people like QM and WP) will have the FREEDOM to choose the plan they want. If they want to spend $500/month instead of $100, that's entirely up to them. Or they can spend $0, cross their fingers, and if there is a major problem go to the ER and get in debt.

(I just hope I never see a 1-800-SAFE-BODY commercial, starring Justin Case.)

I haven't had insurance for at least 10 years because I cannot afford it. I am self employed (most of the time) and can barely make ends meet. I have some ailments that I cannot afford to get checked out and even if I had cash to check it out, if I found out that I had something more serious, guess what I would NEVER be able to get health care because now it would be a pre existing condition. Tell me who honestly thinks we have a good health care system in this country?

I just feel, that people should be able to go to the doctor without having to worry about if and how they are going to pay for it.

This simple statement should explain very clearly to everyone exactly why 'government' health care will not be affordable, sustainable, or feasible. I would very much like to hear just exactly the explanation of how the system will cost less when it is filled with 300+ million human beings who "don't worry about how they are going to pay for it." Because government is going to (ahem) aggressively negotiate costs? Just like how they aggressively negotiate costs with Medicare & Medicaid? Or with military spending $200 on a toilet seat and $75 for a lugnut? As with all government programs, such a system would quickly become rife with cronyism, corruption, waste, graft, and outright theft.

Meanwhile, average people who just want medical care would soon find that 'government' medicine is certainly not free. They'll have payments to make (and bankrupcy to suffer though) just as much as with the private system. The difference is it will cost more (in total with taxes and fees) and will provide much crappier service (since coverage & quality will inevitably be scaled back). And of course, grandpa would be denied coverage for his helicopter ride for neck surgery just as readily as if he had a private insurer.

So, with some bad luck, you can get sick and get yourself into a lot of debt, or you can choose the republican plan - TO DIE QUICKLY.

Hyperbole. No Republican has ever said so, nor even implied it. For you to say it is both false, and makes you seem like some sort of propoganda parrotting puppet. I'd suggest you divest yourself of such simplistic dictotimisms if you wish to be else but a political zombie. The solution is to PURCHASE some freaking catastropic medical coverage. It is not unaffordable. You can get catastrophic medical for a very reasonable price for any number of private insurers. Then you don't go bankrupt. Simple. Easy. So of course that is not the solution government wants.