Ted Cruz for President

[BackInTex]

You know what the definition of insanity is?

I was pretty sure I did, but I looked it up to be sure. And I was correct.

Here is the entry:

[Bob Juch]

I think we had this discussion five years ago. <sigh>

If you don't have insurance who's going to pay your multi-thousand dollar bills when you wind up in the hospital? Before Obamacare most bankruptcies were for medical bills. That means the hospitals and doctors have to charge the rest of us more money for their services. I benefit when you have to have insurance.

http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/25/2/w74.full

First, they fail to provide a causal relationship to support the claim that medical spending contributes to “half of all bankruptcies” (54.5 percent). Our analysis of their data finds a causal link in only 17 percent of personal bankruptcies. Nor do their data support their contention that “solidly middle-class Americans” are threatened. Four decades of studies that have explicitly addressed the bankruptcy–medical spending connection lend credibility to our conclusion. These studies, which we discuss below, support a much smaller figure than half, as does a more recent national consumer survey sponsored in part by the Harvard School of Public Health.3 As for the “solidly middle-class” citizens who face “impoverishment,” Himmelstein and colleagues report an average household income of $25,000 for their respondents—a level more accurately characterized as “marginally middle class.”

Pick all the nits you want. The bottom line is that it raises everyone's medical costs when people don't pay their bills.

[Estonut]

I think we had this discussion five years ago. <sigh>

If you don't have insurance who's going to pay your multi-thousand dollar bills when you wind up in the hospital? Before Obamacare most bankruptcies were for medical bills. That means the hospitals and doctors have to charge the rest of us more money for their services. I benefit when you have to have insurance.

http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/25/2/w74.full

First, they fail to provide a causal relationship to support the claim that medical spending contributes to “half of all bankruptcies” (54.5 percent). Our analysis of their data finds a causal link in only 17 percent of personal bankruptcies. Nor do their data support their contention that “solidly middle-class Americans” are threatened. Four decades of studies that have explicitly addressed the bankruptcy–medical spending connection lend credibility to our conclusion. These studies, which we discuss below, support a much smaller figure than half, as does a more recent national consumer survey sponsored in part by the Harvard School of Public Health.3 As for the “solidly middle-class” citizens who face “impoverishment,” Himmelstein and colleagues report an average household income of $25,000 for their respondents—a level more accurately characterized as “marginally middle class.”

Pick all the nits you want. The bottom line is that it raises everyone's medical costs when people don't pay their bills.

Pointing out that your "fact" is overstated by 220% is not nitpicking.

[BackInTex]

The bottom line is that it raises everyone's medical costs when people don't pay their bills.

Not necessarily. I can see where costs could actually go down. The assumption made by most liberal thinkers is that people who don't get adequate preventative care eventually get sick and go to the emergency room which then wipes out all of the cost savings. Perhaps is does for them, perhaps it doesn't. But what about those that never get sick or don't go to the emergency room when they do...they do what we did in the old days....ride out the illness.

What does raise the cost of healthcare, for everyone, is making everything a medical condition and a right to live pain free, annoyance free, etc. with no consequences, at the cost of everyone else but the 'sick' person. Go ahead, get fat, get diabetes. All your medicine is paid for. Do drugs let your organs shut down. Your dialysis is paid for. Smoke, your cancer or emphysema is covered. Drink too much? We'll treat your liver.

At some point you got to look at someone who has abused their bodies over and over for years and say we aren't paying to fix it or make you comfortable. You have to pay. Can't work? Too bad.

Heartless? Not really. If we set those rules out of up front perhaps people would live longer happier healthier lives to begin with.

Then we'd have money to take care of folks who though no fault of their own do get sick.

[jarnon]

What does raise the cost of healthcare, for everyone, is making everything a medical condition and a right to live pain free, annoyance free, etc. with no consequences, at the cost of everyone else but the 'sick' person. Go ahead, get fat, get diabetes. All your medicine is paid for. Do drugs let your organs shut down. Your dialysis is paid for. Smoke, your cancer or emphysema is covered. Drink too much? We'll treat your liver.

At some point you got to look at someone who has abused their bodies over and over for years and say we aren't paying to fix it or make you comfortable. You have to pay. Can't work? Too bad.

Heartless? Not really. If we set those rules out of up front perhaps people would live longer happier healthier lives to begin with.

Then we'd have money to take care of folks who though no fault of their own do get sick.

Yes, those unhealthy behaviors raise all our insurance costs. But if someone isn't deterred by the pain and disability that their actions will cause them down the line (even with medical care), the added risk of not being able to afford treatment won't make much difference. A better approach is to make them pay now: charge them higher premiums (some insurance companies are doing this) or increase "sin taxes."

[SportsFan68]

Let me explain it to you.

The House Republicans have passed many amendments, alternatives and outright repeals of the AHA. All of them died on Harry Reid's desk. But we hear about the 'Do Nothing Congress', and it's blamed on the House Republicans. The actual bottleneck was in the Senate, by the Democrats and the go along republicans.

So the idea that the 'republicans' have no alternative to Obamacare is as truthful as "Hands Up Don't Shoot" was. It's just a slogan to rally the uninformed.

It's a lame analogy regardless of what you believe..... but feel free to use my equally lame graphic the next time you contribute nothing to a discussion...

lb13

I don't usually claim "Found it!" on your avatar changes, but Uly seems to have mostly decamped, and besides, I somehow think I'm getting a preview of this week's comic. Ugh!

Anyway, found it!

Yep, a preview to the comic -- as far as the injury, anyway. A Most Excellent comic, except for the bloodletting, as always . . .

[Estonut]

It's a lame analogy regardless of what you believe..... but feel free to use my equally lame graphic the next time you contribute nothing to a discussion...

I don't usually claim "Found it!" on your avatar changes, but Uly seems to have mostly decamped, and besides, I somehow think I'm getting a preview of this week's comic. Ugh!

Anyway, found it!

Yep, a preview to the comic -- as far as the injury, anyway. A Most Excellent comic, except for the bloodletting, as always . . .

I don't think it's related to the comic. Hands up, don't shoot!

[silverscreenselect]

I think we had this discussion five years ago. <sigh>

If you don't have insurance who's going to pay your multi-thousand dollar bills when you wind up in the hospital? Before Obamacare most bankruptcies were for medical bills. That means the hospitals and doctors have to charge the rest of us more money for their services. I benefit when you have to have insurance.

http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/25/2/w74.full

First, they fail to provide a causal relationship to support the claim that medical spending contributes to “half of all bankruptcies” (54.5 percent). Our analysis of their data finds a causal link in only 17 percent of personal bankruptcies. Nor do their data support their contention that “solidly middle-class Americans” are threatened. Four decades of studies that have explicitly addressed the bankruptcy–medical spending connection lend credibility to our conclusion. These studies, which we discuss below, support a much smaller figure than half, as does a more recent national consumer survey sponsored in part by the Harvard School of Public Health.3 As for the “solidly middle-class” citizens who face “impoverishment,” Himmelstein and colleagues report an average household income of $25,000 for their respondents—a level more accurately characterized as “marginally middle class.”[/quote]

http://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordp ... ankruptcy/

And of course, Dranove and Millenson have their critics as well. As the above article indicates, a large part of the discrepancy is due to the fact that the two studies define "medical bankruptcy" in different ways. Himmelstein uses an objective test with critieria he selected. Dranove and Millenson use only those cases in which the person filing bankruptcy listed medical expenses as the reason. Arbitrarily accepting Dranove and Millenson's definitions seems as or more flawed than their criticism of Himmelstein. It would be akin to using a patient's self-reported list of symptoms rather than the test results as the basis for the prevalence of a particular disease.

The reality is that there are some people who are in more or less good financial shape before they suffer a catastrophic medical loss that ruins their finances. There are others who are barely staying afloat and for whom unforeseen medical expenses are the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back.

Another article from the same source that TMITSS cited that puts the matter in pespective:

http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/25/2/w89.full

[Bob78164]

It used to be [that] it is accepted scientific wisdom the Earth is flat, and this heretic named Galileo was branded a denier.

The level of ignorance this statement displays is startling. --Bob

[littlebeast13]

It used to be [that] it is accepted scientific wisdom the Earth is flat, and this heretic named Galileo was branded a denier.

The level of ignorance this statement displays is startling. --Bob

Since when is it startling for a politician to believe a common misconception? You can't be indoctrinated into either major political party without being made to believe in a lot of them...

lb13

[Bob Juch]

The bottom line is that it raises everyone's medical costs when people don't pay their bills.

Not necessarily. I can see where costs could actually go down. The assumption made by most liberal thinkers is that people who don't get adequate preventative care eventually get sick and go to the emergency room which then wipes out all of the cost savings. Perhaps is does for them, perhaps it doesn't. But what about those that never get sick or don't go to the emergency room when they do...they do what we did in the old days....ride out the illness.

What does raise the cost of healthcare, for everyone, is making everything a medical condition and a right to live pain free, annoyance free, etc. with no consequences, at the cost of everyone else but the 'sick' person. Go ahead, get fat, get diabetes. All your medicine is paid for. Do drugs let your organs shut down. Your dialysis is paid for. Smoke, your cancer or emphysema is covered. Drink too much? We'll treat your liver.

At some point you got to look at someone who has abused their bodies over and over for years and say we aren't paying to fix it or make you comfortable. You have to pay. Can't work? Too bad.

Heartless? Not really. If we set those rules out of up front perhaps people would live longer happier healthier lives to begin with.

Then we'd have money to take care of folks who through no fault of their own do get sick.

No, what happens is that those people don't get health care early enough then wind up with more serious problem that require hospital admissions thus costing us even more.

Interesting that you are advocating "death panels".

[themanintheseersuckersuit]

It used to be [that] it is accepted scientific wisdom the Earth is flat, and this heretic named Galileo was branded a denier.

The level of ignorance this statement displays is startling. --Bob

Since when is it startling for a politician to believe a common misconception? You can't be indoctrinated into either major political party without being made to believe in a lot of them...

lb13

He conflated Galileo (Earth is not the center of the universe) with the Columbus Myth (TPTB believed the Earth is flat), kinda like saying there are 57 states or the Austrian language. The thought that Ted Cruz is ignorant is silly.

[silverscreenselect]

Heartless? Not really. If we set those rules out of up front perhaps people would live longer happier healthier lives to begin with.

People will smoke, drink, do drugs, overeat, skydive, and engage in whatever other bad habits because they want to, not because they've got insurance to cover it.

I highly doubt that your decision to expose your family to the risk of gunshot wounds is due to the knowledge on your part that you've got insurance to cover any medical costs that may result.

[BackInTex]

The thought that Ted Cruz is ignorant is silly.

"Silly" is being polite. However, the intent of Bob's post was not to inform us of his opinion of Ted Cruz's knowledge or lack thereof but as we will see over the coming months it is part of an attack by the left of Ted's or any conservative candidate's intelligence. That is because the left cannot win on the issues. They need their electorate to believe the liberals are smarter and more intelligent than the conservatives.

What is ironic is that the left tries to paint conservatives, especially evangelical conservatives, as ignorant when the left must rely so much on the ignorance of the voting populace to win elections. This is why Obama is in favor of mandatory voting, to get the ignorant out to vote.

[BackInTex]

Interesting that you are advocating "death panels".

No, not quite, but I can see how you get there. You are confusing with "I'm not paying for it" and "I'm preventing you from getting it".

I guess in your world, that is one and the same. But it is not.

[BackInTex]

I highly doubt that your decision to expose your family to the risk of gunshot wounds is due to the knowledge on your part that you've got insurance to cover any medical costs that may result.

LOL. So in character for you.

[silverscreenselect]

What is ironic is that the left tries to paint conservatives, especially evangelical conservatives, as ignorant when the left must rely so much on the ignorance of the voting populace to win elections. This is why Obama is in favor of mandatory voting, to get the ignorant out to vote.

The right's constituency consists of a small number of voters who know exactly what they're getting and a much larger numbers who believe the simplistic feel-good fairy tales they're being spoon fed by the Cruzes of the world and their media mouthpieces like Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck et al.

[BackInTex]

What is ironic is that the left tries to paint conservatives, especially evangelical conservatives, as ignorant when the left must rely so much on the ignorance of the voting populace to win elections. This is why Obama is in favor of mandatory voting, to get the ignorant out to vote.

The right's constituency consists of a small number of voters who know exactly what they're getting and a much larger numbers who believe the simplistic feel-good fairy tales they're being spoon fed by the Cruzes of the world and their media mouthpieces like Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck et al.

Nope, but keep believing that if if makes you feel good about yourself.

[silverscreenselect]

What is ironic is that the left tries to paint conservatives, especially evangelical conservatives, as ignorant when the left must rely so much on the ignorance of the voting populace to win elections. This is why Obama is in favor of mandatory voting, to get the ignorant out to vote.

The right's constituency consists of a small number of voters who know exactly what they're getting and a much larger numbers who believe the simplistic feel-good fairy tales they're being spoon fed by the Cruzes of the world and their media mouthpieces like Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck et al.

Nope, but keep believing that if if makes you feel good about yourself.

You know, like the fairy tale that once we invaded Iraq and destroyed all those WMDs, that people would be greeting us with flowers and candy and we'd have a peaceful, stable pro-US democracy in place in no time.

That example is especially telling because it's one of the few occasions on which the Right got to do exactly what they wanted without any interference from the left and you can see how successful they were. Fortunately, the country has been saved from putting too many of their hare brained schemes in place.

[BackInTex]

You know, like the fairy tale that once we invaded Iraq and destroyed all those WMDs, that people would be greeting us with flowers and candy and we'd have a peaceful, stable pro-US democracy in place in no time.

That example is especially telling because it's one of the few occasions on which the Right got to do exactly what they wanted without any interference from the left and you can see how successful they were. Fortunately, the country has been saved from putting too many of their hare brained schemes in place.

I've got one better.

The Great Society.

You and your party still buy into its premise, even though 50 years later it has all but destroyed the poor in this country. Your party's leadership knows better. The 'promise' will keep them getting elected and in power. But the 'promise' is a lie.

[SportsFan68]

quote="littlebeast13" It's a lame analogy regardless of what you believe..... but feel free to use my equally lame graphic the next time you contribute nothing to a discussion.../quote I don't usually claim "Found it!" on your avatar changes, but Uly seems to have mostly decamped, and besides, I somehow think I'm getting a preview of this week's comic. Ugh!

Anyway, found it!

Yep, a preview to the comic -- as far as the injury, anyway. A Most Excellent comic, except for the bloodletting, as always . . .

I don't think it's related to the comic. Hands up, don't shoot!

I didn't say it was related. I said it was a preview. I think the preview aspect for the injury is inescapable -- bullet hole through the head, bullet hole through the head.

I should have said inchoate. Oh well.

[Bob78164]

You know, like the fairy tale that once we invaded Iraq and destroyed all those WMDs, that people would be greeting us with flowers and candy and we'd have a peaceful, stable pro-US democracy in place in no time.

That example is especially telling because it's one of the few occasions on which the Right got to do exactly what they wanted without any interference from the left and you can see how successful they were. Fortunately, the country has been saved from putting too many of their hare brained schemes in place.

I've got one better.

The Great Society.

You and your party still buy into its premise, even though 50 years later it has all but destroyed the poor in this country. Your party's leadership knows better. The 'promise' will keep them getting elected and in power. But the 'promise' is a lie.

Do you have any idea what the poverty rate used to be among seniors? Compared to what it is now?

Cruz (based on his public statements) is ignorant. Or pandering. Or both. Consider, for example, his "strategy" when he encouraged House Republicans to shut down the government -- just keep saying "no, no, no," and when easily predictable consequences, both political and real-world, began to occur, stick his fingers in his ears and sing "naaa, naaa, naaa." He's just the latest in a string of conservative wannabes who would make decisions in an evidence-free environment guided purely by ideology.

We had that for the first 6 or so years of the Cheney Administration. And that made his mouthpiece easily the worst President of my lifetime (with the possible exception of Nixon, based purely on Watergate -- if I ignore Watergate Nixon wasn't half bad, though I reviled his policies), and probably (I haven't thought it through carefully) one of the worst five we've ever had.

Cruz is starting to come across to me as a slightly more articulate version of Sarah Palin. And he deserves her electoral fate. --Bob

[themanintheseersuckersuit]

Cruz is starting to come across to me as a slightly more articulate version of Sarah Palin. And he deserves her electoral fate. --Bob

[flockofseagulls104]

You know, like the fairy tale that once we invaded Iraq and destroyed all those WMDs, that people would be greeting us with flowers and candy and we'd have a peaceful, stable pro-US democracy in place in no time.

That example is especially telling because it's one of the few occasions on which the Right got to do exactly what they wanted without any interference from the left and you can see how successful they were. Fortunately, the country has been saved from putting too many of their hare brained schemes in place.

I've got one better.

The Great Society.

You and your party still buy into its premise, even though 50 years later it has all but destroyed the poor in this country. Your party's leadership knows better. The 'promise' will keep them getting elected and in power. But the 'promise' is a lie.

Do you have any idea what the poverty rate used to be among seniors? Compared to what it is now?

Cruz (based on his public statements) is ignorant. Or pandering. Or both. Consider, for example, his "strategy" when he encouraged House Republicans to shut down the government -- just keep saying "no, no, no," and when easily predictable consequences, both political and real-world, began to occur, stick his fingers in his ears and sing "naaa, naaa, naaa." He's just the latest in a string of conservative wannabes who would make decisions in an evidence-free environment guided purely by ideology.

We had that for the first 6 or so years of the Cheney Administration. And that made his mouthpiece easily the worst President of my lifetime (with the possible exception of Nixon, based purely on Watergate -- if I ignore Watergate Nixon wasn't half bad, though I reviled his policies), and probably (I haven't thought it through carefully) one of the worst five we've ever had.

Cruz is starting to come across to me as a slightly more articulate version of Sarah Palin. And he deserves her electoral fate. --Bob

You seem to be a slightly more articulate version of BJ.

[silverscreenselect]

Cruz is starting to come across to me as a slightly more articulate version of Sarah Palin. And he deserves her electoral fate. --Bob

You seem to be a slightly more articulate version of BJ.

Yeah, but I'll bet you won't see Tina Fey doing an impression of either of them.