Gunner's Status

You are correct. Since Gunner will not be paying for his medical care that means someone else will be footing his bill. This is generally passed on to the taxpayer in one form or another. I live in California so I will be paying for some portion of it somehow. I don't oppose this actually. But then I am a believer in universal health care. If we had it now he would be cared for and it would be done the cheapest way. I guarantee that the way it's done now will be very costly. Normally the costs for Gunner's bills would be cost shifted to the people who have insurance, to the hospital, or to the state. If we had universal care his medical care would be paid for by all of us, which is the most efficient way of doing it. The irony is that he's against that kind of system but he's all for taking the benefits from it. Which is why he's a dick. You would think that this little episode would have shown him why universal health care is good for poor folk like him. But I doubt it will have any effect on him and he will continue to complain about a system that has saved his life. Which is why...

Hawke

Really? That must have been a great gig. Did I get some really good mileage out of it?

Winny....you claim all Im all go, with no show....but yet you complain that I offer to back it up.

Why havent you yet put it to the test? Now Id really appreciate if if you would wait a couple months until this open heart thingy heals up...but hey...if you are admitting its the only time you are going to be able to back up you fat mouth and tiny brain....

Gunner

Me? Im well known as a lovable harmless fuzzball. It appears to be you feckless fucktards that try to make me into some evil bastard. Either I am, or Im not. I wish you asshats would make up your minds

Round them up and do what bidding? You drifted off on a tangent again son...slap yourself, take your meds and try that in English again

Gunner

Mommmy?

Then we would have to ignore you ..and you are far too entertaining

Gunner

Gunner, you sit there all crippled up with your breastbone split and standing up to pee with a Foley. Ain't no man worth his salt going to go to jail for whipping a cripple.

But I can give you examples of at least half a dozen other countries where they do have health care systems just like what I'm talking about. And you know what? They pay about half as much for their health care as we do for ours and everybody is covered. So what does that say about your claim of us spending most of our GNP on health care? We spend 13 to 15 percent on health care now. It'll be less if we go to a universal system not more. Which is the reason for doing it in the first place. The examples of the other countries shows that their systems are better than ours. All you have to do is look at what other countries do for health care and you see it can and is done well and for considerably less money. So what you are saying is simply incorrect.

Hawke

"Next time" you or any of your loyal fans here FEEL ANY SORT OF DISCOMFORT IN YOUR CHESTS start mega-dosing cayenne pepper. I MEAN MEGA-DOSE, Like TABLE SPOONS FULL IN WATER UNTIL THE PAIN OR DISCOMFORT SUBSIDES. Cayenne is a BLOOD CLEANER and will break up anything or whatever is causing the blockage. IT IS A GREAT IDEA TO TAKE SOME EVERY DAY, especially by old farts in here that have been eating dead cows all their lives.

Via con Dios

You indeed have a right to post stuff. Even the bullshit you resort too. On the other hand....I dont have any obligation to read your bullshit.

Bye Fucktard! (Gunner waving like crazy as he hits

Whenever a Liberal utters the term "Common Sense approach"....grab your wallet, your ass, and your guns because the sombitch is about to do something damned nasty to all three of them.

John Carroll:

Oops, I lost your post, and Google's on the fritz.

But Fran's fine, and yes, she's pretty "zippered" up. I was looking close yesterday with a flashlight to check for any possible leakages, but everything is healed up fine. I did notice one thing though. She no longer has a belly button. I mean there is a depression, but no "button" if you know what I mean. It was right in the path of one of the railroad tracks.

On Sat, 31 Jan 2009 09:48:17 -0800, the infamous Gunner Asch scrawled the following:

Excellent. But taper off the nicotine quickly if you can. It's that drug in your system which makes you want to smoke even more.

I quit a 2.5pk/day habit 21 years ago (next month!) I had tapered down to half a pack a day when I got sick and decided that since I hadn't smoked in 3 days, it was time. Most of the nicotine was out of my system by then. I took up pencil chewing when I wasn't chawin' on sugarless bubblegum. Whenever I wanted a drag on a cig, I simply closed my eyes and took a deep breath, sometimes outside. It fills the same hole cigs did but it doesn't make you stink. G'luck!

---------------------------------------------------------- --== EAT RIGHT...KEEP FIT...DIE ANYWAY ==--

On Sat, 31 Jan 2009 14:34:27 -0600, the infamous Don Foreman scrawled the following:

Nah, the old habit/memories die within 6 months, but the majority of it is over in the first week, once you get the nicotine out.

-- Even with the best of maps and instruments, we can never fully chart our journeys. -- Gail Pool

On Sat, 31 Jan 2009 11:06:43 -0500, the infamous "Ed Huntress" scrawled the following:

Got any good keywords to suggest, Mr. Medical Editor? Googling "high medical costs" gives me 49,000,000 entirely unusable hits.

-- Even with the best of maps and instruments, we can never fully chart our journeys. -- Gail Pool

On Sat, 31 Jan 2009 11:16:14 -0600, the infamous Don Foreman scrawled the following:

Q:How could they have spent ten grand and NOT done an echo? A: Negligence.

-- Even with the best of maps and instruments, we can never fully chart our journeys. -- Gail Pool

For info on hospital charges and insurance, go to The New York Times and search on "Uwe E. Reinhardt." Reinhardt is a Princeton economics professor who has written some excellent articles that explain how it works. He's currently running some short pieces in the NYT's "Economix" blog. Here's one from last week that I think was the first. There was another one this past Friday:

If you want to see proposals for change from the medical establishment, go to PubMed Central and search on things like "health care reform." As you're using search terms, keep in mind that AMA style dictates "health care" rather than "healthcare." That's how it's spelled in the better medical journals. It usually doesn't matter but some search engines are pretty dumb.

Understanding insurance and hospital charges is pretty straightforward. Understanding total health care costs is a lot more complicated, but an hour or two will leave you better informed than 99% of the population.

Have fun.

-- Ed Huntress

That does seem to be a reasonable question.

It could well be that folks who pay their bills get preferential treatment. Is that not fair? Isn't the essence of survivalism a matter of providing whatever's necessary for survival -- which may include medical insurance as higher priority than armament and ammo? I merely pose the question, pick yer pony and take yer ride.

Not to say that anyone should be left completely behind; they can be wards and beneficiaries of public spending by the democrats. Timing is propitous because there'll be a lot of that going on now.

Gunner is a veteran. Veterans are entitled to medical care per promises made at time of enlistment or commission, right? WRONG! The gummint has not honored the promises made, shamefully so. The gummint is behaving like scumbag Kalifornia lawyers, the machete cuts both ways. So sad, too bad, tough s*it if you were silly enough to believe the promises made back then.

I liked it too. I must have "quit" ten times between the age of 14 when it finally "took" 13 or 14 years ago. I think there was some kind of nicotine substitute gum I tried one of those times. The rest, including the successful time, were just cold turkey. One thing I found helped was cinammon sticks (bark, not candy); something for the hand to mouth habit, as well as something zingy for the tongue.

Whenever a Liberal utters the term "Common Sense approach"....grab your wallet, your ass, and your guns because the sombitch is about to do something damned nasty to all three of them.

And yet, your argument above against single payer is all about cost.

That argument might make some sense if it were true. You can have any opinion you like about coercion, but if you live in a society, you accept some level of coercion. Arguing the level you find acceptable is OK, claiming to want none is silly, and the stuff of hermits.

No, it is a method of getting some reasonable level of health care to the vast majority of people (ideally everyone, but perhaps implausible) in this nation. Right now we have a coercive health care system, and an ever-increasing number of people are asked to not take part. The stop-gap is the emergency room visit, which is the most expensive method of all. People (of essentially all economic status) used to have doctors, and doctors were both respected and well paid. That wasn't good enough for some. Now we have profit-seekers, who find a lucrative specialty of enrichment, taking up an inordinate number of slots in medical school, and medical schools who artificially limit the slots available for profit reasons. "Health Care" in this country is a joke, on oh so many levels.

Most surgery is prostrate... ; )

Many reasons for that. Insurance industry is a major one, maintenance of obscenely expensive industrial equipment (sold to the public through good old TV shows) is another.

Left to its own devices, as you suggest, will only make the problem much, much worse, as the escalating disaster we now find ourselves in shows.

But a major reason they are outrageously priced is that there is no external control, and the overhead in both the medical and insurance industries is oppressive.

I worked in the pharma industry. Costs are very high. Yet drugs are still, in most cases, far cheaper than the alternatives. The industry has its problems, most of which are related to the Capitalist system they operate in (as are most of its advantages). Two edged swords cut both ways.

The biggest problem with pharma is that money is made (and expenses are generated) by developing new drugs, not by making and selling drugs.

Dan

I gave you the wrong URL for the first in that series of short articles. This is it:

-- Ed Huntress