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Let Them Die Because It’s About Money, Not Lives

Health Care  http://mariopiperni.com/

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A Harvard Medical School study reveals

Nearly 45,000 people die in the United States each year — one every 12 minutes — in large part because they lack health insurance and can not get good care, Harvard Medical School researchers found in an analysis released on Thursday. “We’re losing more Americans every day because of inaction … than drunk driving and homicide combined,” Dr. David Himmelstein, a co-author of the study and an associate professor of medicine at Harvard.

Not good. So what does Republican Minority Leader John Boehner believe is a good approach to reforming the health care system?

“We are trying to make the current system work better,” he said. “We take a step-by-step approach by allowing people to buy insurance across state lines, by allowing small business and other groups of individuals to group together for the purpose of buying health insurance at lower costs like big business and unions can… We need to do something about junk lawsuits.”

Perhaps more telling, a GOP health care reform effort, he said, would be defined by incrementalism. “We do not attempt to cover 46 million more Americans,” he said. “We will cover millions more Americans but we won’t attempt to do this. This is not affordable… what this is going to do is bankrupt America.

What John Boehner is saying is this: the Republican party will let 45,000 people die each year. Period. That is, one American dying every 12 minutes because they lack inadequate health insurance is acceptable to this screwed up political party of heartless bastards.  Republicans like Boehner lack the compassion to understand that while capitalism is great and wonderful, it has no place in the area of health care.

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Comments

  1. Brooke says:

    I spoke to a woman yesterday whose family (minors) were evicted from their apartment while she was in the hospital being treated for Cancer.

    Sure, that’s illegal. When can I tell them (living in their car) that it’s also impossible and unacceptable?

  2. Blue Heron says:

    The people running our government don’t care about us.

    They do away with laws to protect our money and give it to the bankster/gangsters here and around the world. Obama isn’t reinstating the Glass-Steagall Act, among other things.

    What about the contents of the swine flu vaccine and pushing it on the most vulnerable of us, seniors, children and pregnant women? I’m wondering if 45,000 people a year isn’t enough for them. I get the feeling they’d like to triple that number, if not more.

  3. Tennessean says:

    I sure hate it when you guys use fear and hatred to spread misinformation.

  4. janine says:

    @Tennessean,

    who are “you guys?” How is Harvard lying in their figures? This isn’t using fear and hatred — this is accuracy.

    For fear and real hatred you just have to tune into Fox, to various conservative web sites. If you had a baseline for fear and hatred you would know the difference.

  5. Jovial says:

    Tennessean,

    From what I read, the Harvard medical school does not invent the data they supply and the reality is that the truth makes our capitalism look senseless and uncaring.

    America is not the jungle of some third world country.It is the richest country on the planet and it cannot provide for its people. Why is that ? It’s because capitalism worries too much about money and less about people who make capitalism prosper.

    This country is ready for change and it has nothing to do with fear and hatred but it has everything to do with the responsibility of the marketplace to pay its fare share of health care so that businesses can continue to make profits off our backs.

  6. Tommy Pane says:

    I agree with the approach pitched by John Boehner.

    I believe the report issued by Harvard is inaccurate at best, and fabricated to advance a progressive agenda at worst.

    I believe the reforms being pushed by progressives will bankrupt this country.

    I believe Americans are smart enough to figure this all out.

    My wife, who voted for Obama, says she would not have voted for him if she had known his agenda for health care. I believe there’s a large block of voters within the 54% that voted for him who feel the same way.

  7. Blue Heron says:

    Our country is already bankrupt. They’re printing money and if you or I did that, we’d be in jail. It doesn’t matter what party you belong to. They’re destroying the middle class and before long, we will be a third world country…and I don’t believe Americans are smart enough to figure it out.

    I was hoping Obama wasn’t a puppet, but I’m losing that hope.

  8. Auriandra says:

    Acccording to the National Institutes of Health, 100,000 people also die each year due to “medical errors.” A more conservative estimate, 60,000, comes from the OECD, which collected information on “medical misadventures” from 15 “first world” countries. Of the 15 countries, the US ranked 10th.

  9. Anomaly100 says:

    @Jovial: If Harvard is not a good enough college for “those guys,” I know of a technical school down the street. The people of this country have bitched about the money being sent to other countries for years. They want to know when we’re going to take care of our own but now that the time is come, they’re in denial. The insurance companies have not been kind to any of us & that is a fact. Now that it’s a political issue, I truly believe “these guys” just want President Obama to fail, just like their radio personality extraordinaire, Pigboy, has already stated. There are so few, if any sane Republicans out there, IMO. If there were more, wouldn’t we hear or see them by now? They all sound nuts & the crazier ones are still crawling out of the woodwork. Their party is a madhouse.

  10. Tennessean says:

    anomaly, I’m wondering why you get all bent out of shape when I refer to people or ideas as “stupid” but it’s okay for you to call someone “Pig Boy”. Some more of that ballyhooed Liberal Hypocrisy??

  11. @Tennessean

    The difference is that one is a public figure while the other is a person who comments on these pages and is voicing her thoughts. You can refer to the President or Barney Franks or any other liberal as stupid if you wish as a means of expressing a point. But when you do the same with someone with whom you are attemptiong to have a conversation with, then referring to them as stupid cuts the debate instantly.

    If I were to refer to you as an ignorant Southerner, whatever point I was trying to make up to that comment would be lost and the conversation would now be about having called you an ignorant Southener. Get it?

  12. Anomaly100 says:

    @Tennessean: Obviously, you know who “Pigboy” is. He’s a well known pig. I borrowed that term from Mario because it’s apropos when referring to, Rush, who is a lying mass of human waste. Calling people, “stupid” when you’re losing a “debate” (for lack of a better word), is childish & wreaks of desperation. You mentioned earlier that you didn’t appreciate “black rappers” because their words are abusive to women. Isn’t the term, “feminazi” offenive to your sensitive ears? I first heard that word when my brother was laughing in his room when we were quite young. His room was in our home that my divorced mother paid for, yet he was laughing at this pig calling women that want equal pay, femi-fuckin’-nazis! “Ballyhooed” does not seem to fit your sentence. Just sayin….Perhaps a new thesaurus?

    Hyprocrite: Someone feigning high principles. Hmm…Now who does that bring to my mind: Tennessean, Larry (same diff) & Rush. ;-)

  13. Tommy Pane says:

    Blue Heron – That’s a good point that you make about the middle class. I think most people forget, or never knew, that it’s our large, quasi-affluent middle class that defines the success of America. Mexico doesn’t have one. Nor does India. China is only starting to have one, but with the stipulation that you can’t say anything bad about the government.

    If you read the writings of Frederick Engels from the mid 1840′s, his ideas for Communism were intended to create a middle class by raising the status of deprived workers, while lowering the status of business owners. His intensions were supposedly good (I like to give everyone the benefit of the doubt), but his preferred instrument for creating it, government action, was flawed. He didn’t take into account the power of the human spirit.

    The middle class in American really didn’t come into existence until Henry Ford realized that the only way he could sell a lot of cars, was to have a population of consumers with enough money to buy them. To that end, he paid people more than anyone else was paying at the time. Workers flocked to Ford, which forced other factory owners to pay more to avoid losing skilled labor. In an instant, the American middle class was born.

    American’s, given an opportunity to succeed, will find a way. When governments dictate terms to its citizens, opportunity is lost.

  14. Tennessean says:

    mario, I know the difference and we’ve been there before. Surprisingly, we disagree.

    When you tell me everything I say is stupid, everything I believe is stupid, and everything I think is stupid. you have called ME stupid. There is no difference.

    When you say everyone that watches Fox is gullible and stupid, if I watch Fox, then you have just called ME gullible and stupid.

    The blog is rife with instances of where you do this. For instance, you comment that “The only thing more ridiculous than Michele Bachmann is the fact that there are enough fools…” How do you make the argument that you didn’t just call the people that voted for Bachmann “fools”? There are much better examples throughout the blog but this was the most convenient.

    You think there is some difference. I don’t. We should just agree to disagree.

  15. Anomaly100 says:

    @Tennessean: There’s a vast difference here, which you already know. YOU call liberals stupid all the time here. I’m fairly certain Mario has never called you stupid. I find anyone who votes for Michele Bachmann to be a fool. Don’t they see her eyes rolling around like dice in her head?! Geez, girl, she’s nuts. If you don’t see it, I find you foolish too. ;-)

  16. janine says:

    @Tennessean

    not everyone who watches Fox is stupid. Everyone who watches Fox and believes their lies, their hate peddling stories and their call to arms, is lacking in grey matter as they do not think for themselves or investigate on their own, they only believe the lie.

  17. Tennessean says:

    anomaly, you’re out of your league. Best to stay out of discussions between the grown ups. ;-) (How’s that?)

  18. Tennessean says:

    janine, glad you refined that one for me. Just the act of watching Fox doesn’t make me stupid. It’s only if I watch them, then don’t reach the same conclusions YOU do that I THEN become stupid.

    Okay. Got it!!!

  19. janine says:

    @Tennessean

    You’re Welcome

  20. Tennessean says:

    anomaly, and just one other thing. You shouldn’t be too sure about what Mario has or has not called me! (A sincere ” ;-) “)

  21. Anomaly100 says:

    @Tennessean: How about you go sifting through comment threads and find me a time Mario has called you stupid. I’m pretty sure he didn’t. I do not have the patience he does. I admit that. It would be nice, but I just don’t. I would have said a lot more than he has, but I’d stop short at calling you “stupid”.

    I am “out of my league” with you? Silly girl. ;-) (And what’s with the “How’s that?” Your insults are small & don’t effect me. I find you insignificant in my life and of what’s important in life. You are to sanity, as to Palin is to brains. “And never the twain shall meet.” :cool:

  22. Tennessean says:

    anomaly asks, “How about you go sifting through comment threads and find me a time Mario has called you stupid.”

    How about, No! because I’m not an anal retentive 12 year old?

    (The “How’s that?” was referencing your use of smileys which you attacked me for some time back. You used it. I used it and was simply seeking your approval.)

    As for your immature closing remark, “I know you are but what am I.” (I’m giving you latitude that you are actually qualified to evaluate Sarah Palin’s level of intelligence.)

  23. Anomaly100 says:

    @Tennessean: You won’t find the comment where Mario supposedly called you “stupid” because it doesn’t exist. You are wrong. Deal with it. I haven’t been visiting this blog that long & I know that much. Good night! Mwhaaa! ;-)

    PS- I’m sowwwy if my smileys hurt your feelings.

  24. Blue Heron says:

    Tommy Boy – Thank you for the info., it’s interesting. Is the human spirit lost in America? For the last 30 years our jobs (among other things) have slowly slipped away. It feels like we’re turning into India and Mexico, and China practically owns us. And our opportunities are being lost. Wasn’t it Thomas Jefferson that said something about there being more to fear if banks run the country than anything else?

  25. Anomaly100 says:

    @Blue Heron: Our grandparents were the smart ones. I remember my Grandfather telling us he didn’t trust banks. He used to stuff money in the flour, sugar, mattresses, etc. As odd as that may sound, he was a farmer, but left this world owing nothing and leaving a tidy sum behind to his daughters. He was not educated, but he knew more than most of us today. Most people I know seem to have had similar grandparents. We think we’re so wise today in comparison with long ago, but it just isn’t so. Not really. You’d think we would have learned by now. G’night!

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