Originally Posted by JohnMc82

So... economically logical, and popular policies aren't obtainable? In that case, the only conclusion is that Democracy is over, and an illegitimate power has usurped the government.

How do you suggest we move forward from that?

You are obviously better at this than I am, and the results would please me no end. Please, make it happen! Start by firing the entire TP bunch in your home state. We have a putrid mess up here in Virginia too, but yours is much worse. Ours appears to be under control ... to the extent it can be.

Originally Posted by The Rani

Nope, you either didn't read or didn't understand the article.
Here's a hint:

Slow medicine for a massive bleed-out. How does that work?

Originally Posted by princeofcats67

No, Rani. You're looking at this all wrong. All wrong.

You see, the proponents of The ACA(aka "shit sandwich" ) didn't mis-represent
(or lie, for that matter). Many have already stated that they didn't even read the
legislation, so how can they be held responsible for understanding what's actually
in it. You know, "plausable deniability".

Plus, Americans are too stupid to make decisions on their own.
"We need"^TM others who are more educated and intelligent to make
them for us. Just relax; I'm quite certain they know what's best.


Prince

I've already covered this horseshit as well -

http://www.fourthturning.com/forum/s...705#post486705

I can understand Rani not being able to keep up with the clown car, but I though a young stud like you would not have a problem getting in the car.

You might be the poster boy for why the young 'invincibles' should consider getting some health insurance.

Originally Posted by playwriteI'm actually spending my own money in some of those states to turn it around.

Originally Posted by The Rani

Oh yeah? Prove it.
I don't believe a thing that you type on this forum anymore.

I can only guess, but I imagine he's contributed money to Terry McAuliffe's campaign for governor of Virginia (and other local races) to get people in the State administration and legislature who will support expanding Medicaid to those too poor for the public exchanges...

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

Slow medicine for a massive bleed-out. How does that work?

By actually reading the freaking article!
(LOL!)


Prince

Originally Posted by JohnMc82

...
A very significant difference would have been in the public option, you know, the policy backed by economists as saving money, and the one supported by 60-70% of the population (except for Senators receiving insurance donations).

What is wrong with people like you? You're like a child whose parents took you to Chuckie Cheese for your birthday because they simple can't afford a week at Disney World and all you do is whine and throw temper tantrums for a week. Fucking, grow up.

How can any adult with a functioning brain be whining about getting something more (public option, single payer) than Obamacare when its on the fucking news 24/7 that the GOP has done and continues to do everything possible to kill just that little advance. Do you fucking even stop your self-pitying for a fucking moment to understand that millions of children in 30+ Red states are going to not be covered by Medicaid because its more important for GOP a-holes in office to suck up to even more mean, nasty insane a-holes know as the t-baggers???!!!

Like I said, what is it with people like you? Are you that fucking stupid, that fucking self-centered or is it just a big clusterfuck of both?

Originally Posted by The Rani

Heard about this concept the other day, thought it was pretty cool:

Slow Medicine


There's lots more in the article, well worth the time to read it.

I have yet to find someone without health insurance spouting off this kind of sanctimonious horseshit.

There is one category of now-cancelled insurance plans that did serve a market very well. Those only covered catastrophic care, and were coupled with health savings accounts (HSA). I can still get one of these through my employer, and I would if our needs were different, but they are no longer available on the individual market. Mostly they served an upper-middle class clientel who had the wherewithal to meet day-to-day expensies if necessary, but needed coverage for big things. My plan through work meets the requirments by subsidizing the HSA for the first two years, and assumes the employee will also dump a bunch of money into the pre-tax account.

I've never considered one of these, because we have recurring bills that make the plan more expensive. I have some friends who have purchased them in the individual market. Their catasrophic plan cost ~$200/month for people in their late 50s and early 60s. The ACA plan has a lot of features that are "better", but they don't use any of them. The Bronze Plan is less generous in cost sharing: 60/40 versus their old plan at 80/20, has roughly the same deductable, but costs ~$550/month. For a couple, the difference between $400 and $1,100 a month comes out to $8,400 a year - more than the deductable.

So not all changes have been beneficial.

Originally Posted by playwrite

What is wrong with people like you? You're like a child whose parents took you to Chuckie Cheese for your birthday because they simple can't afford a week at Disney World and all you do is whine and throw temper tantrums for a week. Fucking, grow up.

How can any adult with a functioning brain be whining about getting something more (public option, single payer) than Obamacare when its on the fucking news 24/7 that the GOP has done and continues to do everything possible to kill just that little advance. Do you fucking even stop your self-pitying for a fucking moment to understand that millions of children in 30+ Red states are going to not be covered by Medicaid because its more important for GOP a-holes in office to suck up to even more mean, nasty insane a-holes know as the t-baggers???!!!

Like I said, what is it with people like you? Are you that fucking stupid, that fucking self-centered or is it just a big clusterfuck of both?

And what the fuck is wrong with people like you, claiming to act on the best interests of the less fortunate, while celebrating the fact the most vulnerable of all will be screwed over to prove your political point? How do you claim a victory when the Dems pass a shitty version of a Republican bill? Where are the '90s Democrats who understood this was a huge step backwards that will only empower the insurers?

Just stop pretending that you care about anything other than how much money the government can deliver to your trust fund. You're not fooling anyone, you're just a really good example of that spoiled child you claim everyone else is.

Originally Posted by playwrite

I have yet to find someone without health insurance spouting off this kind of sanctimonious horseshit.

Actually, there is a lot of value to takng a slower approach to medicine. For some reason, The Rani got her panties in a bunch when I mentioned that this was good, except for acute care (yes, I read the frickin' article). Much of what was discussed is now being recommended for prostate cancer, among other things. If I die at 90 with, but not of, prostate cancer, how was I served by having a procedure to correct it? On the other hand, there are times that a slow approach still leads to intervention, it will just be a more measured and focused effort.

I chose prostate cancer because I have it, or maybe I had it is a better construct. I decided to intervene in a minimal way, because the time was taken to evaluate the progress of the disease, and it would have killed me long pefore I reached 90. On the other hand, I was proactive enough to use a minimal treatment option - no surgery. At 5 years, I test clean.

GOP loved Obamacare until Obama proposed it

http://www.kansascity.com/2013/10/29/4585052/gop-loved-obamacare-until-obama.html

Alternative titles:

• Democrats hated Obamacare until Obama proposed it
• Partisan propaganda model working as intended
• DOW/S&P reach record highs, misery index remains high for workers

Originally Posted by playwrite

No facts there either; not even a link to purported falsehood.

Fair enough. For the sake of any hypothetical new-to-the-board readers.

Start here* and follow to here (there's a fair bit of other conversations going on, but a reader could easily just look for posts by you and me in that interval).

-----
*Your lies go back much, much further, but it's more than sufficient to simply start with one recent outright falsehood and follow that thread through. As an example.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

Yes, that's the perfect if unobtainable choice. Since it is unobtainable, is "doing nothing" your fall-back position? Demanding the impossible may feel righteous, but it's unfulfilling. Deb has a similar problem: a strongly held desire with no way to bring it to fruition.

On this, Eric is right. Your option is off the table until a political change occurs - espcially in the TP states, like NC. If it is really important to you, move to Vermont. The Public Option is available there. That's as good as it gets for now.

As long as we think that real political change will happen through voting, we are fooling ourselves. The system is seriously rigged against us. When the lobbyists have more access than the citizen to our representatives, that's a major road block to any change. The problem, as I see it, is that we are sold a bill of goods that's worthless and way too many people are buying the lies.

Most citizens actually wanted the public option but our voices were silenced by the gangster insurance industry that had the money to buy the ACA that works strongly in their favor. If we think that the ACA is the best we can do, then that just might be the biggest part of the problem. Every time we buy into the lies of the dysfunctional political system, we strengthen the corporate grip.

Originally Posted by JohnMc82

And what the fuck is wrong with people like you, claiming to act on the best interests of the less fortunate, while celebrating the fact the most vulnerable of all will be screwed over to prove your political point? How do you claim a victory when the Dems pass a shitty version of a Republican bill? Where are the '90s Democrats who understood this was a huge step backwards that will only empower the insurers?

Just stop pretending that you care about anything other than how much money the government can deliver to your trust fund. You're not fooling anyone, you're just a really good example of that spoiled child you claim everyone else is.

As somebody who overall feels the same way about Obamacare as Marx and Lennon (far from ideal but better than the patchwork we had in 2010), I still understand that a minority of people are worse off under Obama Care than under the prior patchwork. I'm sorry you're one of them.

I still think it's better to work out the bugs in Obamacare then to go back to what we had before. Maybe we can yet add in the public option once we have an established system to add it to.

However, it's easy for me to say this, since I'm covered under the Federal Employees' Health Benefit system.

I'm sorry that PW is giving you a hard time about being mad, though.

Originally Posted by The Rani

Heard about this concept the other day, thought it was pretty cool:

Slow Medicine


There's lots more in the article, well worth the time to read it.

Cool. Thanks, Rani.

A couple of comments, if I may. I really liked the term "culture of haste"(Too true, IMO).
Plus, in the excerpt that you posted, I doubt people will understand the wisdom of
temporarily "do(ing) nothing". That takes a certain 'personality' and/or experience to
understand, IME/IMO. Plus this:

We’re involved when a child has an ear infection and we go for a powerful antibiotic
right away to “treat” it, or if we have a minor heart arrhythmia with occasional slight
symptoms and opt for a $100,000 procedure to “fix” it, despite the attendant risks, or
when we want rare plant materials from the other side of the world for a minor condition.
We’re involved if we make no effort to understand the multidimensional costs of our
choices, as practitioners and as patients, to ourselves, our neighbors, our descendants, and
to the earth and sky cradling us.

"Multi-dimentional", "our descendants",
and ... "the earth and sky cradling us".

Heh. That may be my kinda language, but I'm not sure if
others can handle that sort of responsibility/accountability.
(Hell, I'd even add "our ancestors"! ).


Prince

PS: OK. Last thing here. The article mentioned "Slow Medicine" being used
as a strawman. Here's the link to the reference: Stabiner. I don't really see
this as a "strawman" argument b/c Stabiner did state that "We're in no danger
as long as these decisions reside with the patient, ..." But that said, we could
use "Slow Medicine" as a way to get rid of the Boomers quicker.
(But only if "we need"^TM to for the "greater good"^TM, of course! !)

Originally Posted by Deb C

As long as we think that real political change will happen through voting, we are fooling ourselves. The system is seriously rigged against us. When the lobbyists have more access than the citizen to our representatives, that's a major road block to any change. The problem, as I see it, is that we are sold a bill of goods that's worthless and way too many people are buying the lies.

Most citizens actually wanted the public option but our voices were silenced by the gangster insurance industry that had the money to buy the ACA that works strongly in their favor. If we think that the ACA is the best we can do, then that just might be the biggest part of the problem. Every time we buy into the lies of the dysfunctional political system, we strengthen the corporate grip.

When, and only when, we throw out the ones selling us out will we get results. Unless you propose a revolution, then the democratic process is the only thing we have. We may need another crash to achieve critical mass. Who knows? For now, it's this or nothing.

Some progressives are actually promoting GOP ideas. How can they defend them in the ACA and not with the rest of the social safety nets?

"Think about it, progressives. The real “suicide caucus” may consist of those on the center-left who, by passionately defending the Affordable Care Act rather than holding their noses, are unwittingly reinforcing the legitimacy of the right’s long-term strategy of repealing the greatest achievements of American liberalism."

Here’s how GOP Obamacare hypocrisy backfires

GOP base doesn't understand right wants to turn Medicare, Social Security and more into a very similar program

The worst features of Obamacare are the very features that conservatives want to impose on all federal social policy: means-testing, a major role for the states, and subsidies to private providers instead of direct public provision of health or retirement benefits. This is not surprising, because Obamacare’s models are right-wing models — the Heritage Foundation’s healthcare plan in the 1990s and Mitt Romney’s “Romneycare” in Massachusetts.


This point is worth dwelling on. Conservatives want all social insurance to look like Obamacare. The radical right would like to replace Social Security with an Obamacare-like system, in which mandates or incentives pressure Americans to steer money into tax-favored savings accounts like 401(k)s and to purchase annuities at retirement, with means-tested subsidies to help the poor make their private purchases. And most conservative and libertarian plans for healthcare for the elderly involve replacing Medicare with a totally new system designed along the lines of Obamacare, with similar mandates or incentives to compel the elderly to buy private health insurance from for-profit corporations.

http://www.pnhp.org/news/2013/octobe...risy-backfires

Originally Posted by princeofcats67

Cool. Thanks, Rani.

A couple of comments, if I may. I really liked the term "culture of haste"(Too true, IMO).
Plus, in the excerpt that you posted, I doubt people will understand the wisdom of
temporarily "do(ing) nothing". That takes a certain 'personality' and/or experience to
understand, IME/IMO. Plus this:



"Multi-dimentional", "our descendants",
and ... "the earth and sky cradling us".

Heh. That may be my kinda language, but I'm not sure if
others can handle that sort of responsibility/accountability.
(Hell, I'd even add "our anscestors"! ).


Prince

PS: OK. Last thing here. The article mentioned "Slow Medicine" being used
as a strawman. Here's the link to the reference: Stabiner. I don't really see
this as a "strawman" argument b/c Stabiner did state that "We're in no danger
as long as these decisions reside with the patient, ..." But that said, we could
use "Slow Medicine" as a way to get rid of the Boomers quicker.
(But only if "we need"^TM to for the "greater good"^TM, of course! !)

This post for the win of the day!

Ps. I wish you could have seen my lazy herd of cats yesterday when I got home from work. I had left the electric blanket on my bed on. All the cats were lined up doing puzzle piece impersonations on the bed. It was a fuzzy furry purr festival. And it was even better stretching out with them and enjoying the company.

I hope you are well.

"Nor are progressives likely to press the point in present or future debates. Unlike conservatives, who are right-wingers first and Republicans second, all too many progressives put loyalty to the Democratic Party — most of whose politicians, including Obama, are not economic progressives — above fidelity to a consistent progressive economic philosophy. These partisan Democratic spinmeisters are now treating Obamacare, not as an essentially conservative program that is better than nothing, but as something it is not — namely, a great victory of progressive public policy on the scale of Social Security and Medicare."
... Michael Lind

Originally Posted by The Rani

My panties are just fine, thanks.
If you did read it, then you didn't understand it.

I'm glad your panties are fine, but I feel I got as valid a reading as you. Slow care is smart, when that's the right thing to do. We love to get a prescription for this, then another to counteract the side effects of the first one. Most are unnecessary. I have sciatica. I got a few adjustments from a chiropractor, which helped, and am now evaluating my condition. Since insurance pays for procedures, I'm taking my own counsel and doing as little as possible, getting moderate exercise and eating right ... mostly. I would have consulted a DO if one was available.

Other than NSAIDs for the acute pain I had for 2 months, I'm not feeling any need to do much other than be sensible. It's a chronic condition, so I'm working-on a sustainable lifestyle, rather than "fixing me".

I support ACA for now as better than nothing, and I support continuing the pressure for single-payer, because it is better than ACA and one of the best answers to health care costs. I support voting for politicians I think work for the people, and I support pressuring them and speaking out on what is important and right. I support having health insurance for people who need it, and I support people taking care of themselves by standing still or whatever works for them.

Originally Posted by The Rani

I don't think you understand the medical definition of "acute."

Is a bleed-out acute in your version of MedSpeak? It's also severe, so both apply here. My BIL went through that, and it required a few days hospitalization. Cause: excessive use of NSAIDs. It came on fast, and was resolved the same way.

Originally Posted by The Rani

I had a prof in med school who used to say, "Don't just do something, stand there."

LMAO! I'm totally stealing that one!

Originally Posted by Rani

I'm fairly sure that he had health insurance. <snip cool-smiley>

Well, if he's anything like me, I'll bet he can't wait to take advantage
of finally being covered for "Maternity Care". Hey. Who knew?

[Note: I fully admit that, although I have no children(that I know of) the
"Pediatric Care"-coverage is necessary(at least for me personally). ]


Prince(aka PoS)

PS:

Originally Posted by The Rani

ETA:
Took me a sec to find this:

Slow medicine isn't a suicide pact, or a death panel.

Of course not. But that doesn't mean we still can't use the argument for those purposes.

I mean it says it right there: "When something
needs to be done fast and dirty, then it just does."

Oh wait. "Slow Medicine" isn't "fast and dirty"(well, not necessarily);
I guess I'll have to think of a different way to get rid of the Boomers.

Originally Posted by The Rani

I don't think you understand the medical definition of "acute."

Point taken. Severe was the word I needed in that context.

Originally Posted by Danilynn

This post for the win of the day!

Ps. I wish you could have seen my lazy herd of cats yesterday when I got home from work. I had left the electric blanket on my bed on. All the cats were lined up doing puzzle piece impersonations on the bed. It was a fuzzy furry purr festival. And it was even better stretching out with them and enjoying the company.

Sounds like my place. I've got two cats(they're sisters) on my bed as we speak.
A "lazy herd" and a "purr festival" are great visuals. Thanks.

Originally Posted by Danilynn

I hope you are well.

I'm doing OK. I've got a little time off in the near future.
I hope everything is going well with you, as well.


Prince

PS: BTW, that post and thread about your knowledge of water is pretty cool.