JABbering Stooge

Gee, Conservatives for Patients’ Corporate Rights lied to the Canadians they duped into taking part in their lying ad bashing Canadian health care. Color me not surprised in the least.

You stay KKKlassy, Rep. Joe Wilson (R — Douchebag).

I’ve got your Death Panels™©® right here:

After the mortgage business imploded last year, Wall Street investment banks began searching for another big idea to make money. They think they may have found one.

The bankers plan to buy “life settlements,” life insurance policies that ill and elderly people sell for cash — $400,000 for a $1 million policy, say, depending on the life expectancy of the insured person. Then they plan to “securitize” these policies, in Wall Street jargon, by packaging hundreds or thousands together into bonds. They will then resell those bonds to investors, like big pension funds, who will receive the payouts when people with the insurance die.

The earlier the policyholder dies, the bigger the return — though if people live longer than expected, investors could get poor returns or even lose money.

And when this plan inevitably blows up in America’s face (to Wall Street’s benefit), and we’re staring face-to-face with the Second Republican Great Depression, Wolf Blitzer’s going to be in front of the cameras saying, “No one could have possibly foreseen this crisis,” before spontaneously combusting from his diet of hard cheese and drywall.

Would it kill Wall Street not to act like rapacious mobsters for one fucking nanosecond? I mean, seriously. What the hell are they teaching in the nation’s MBA programs, “How To Be Nakedly Criminal And Get Away With It?”

What was BartCop’s Second Law again?

ANY time a person or entity makes a “mistake” that puts extra money (or power) in their pocket, expect them to make that “mistake” again and again and again.

Yeah, that pretty much sums it up.

I’ve made comments to this effect a couple of times over at JJ’s place, but between this video and all the unhinged bullshit coming from the right lately, I’m just about ready to look for employment north of the 49th parallel.

In the local fishwrap, of all places. The first letter takes on the notion that if you make it impossible to sue incompetent doctors, CIGNA will provide free ponies for everyone:

Tort reform

Re: Aug. 20 letter “Society’s real problem.”

Tort reform is a red herring when it comes to health care costs.

We all know how much tort reform has helped consumers in Texas, California and the 16 other states that have passed strong tort reform laws. My insurance premiums have risen more than 40 percent in the last three years. I now pay more than $4,000 per year and carry a $1,500 deductible. And I have never submitted a single claim.

A study by the American Medical Association based on surveys sent to medical practitioners shows that malpractice premiums as a percentage of overhead was the same in 2000 as it was in 1986. The largest percentage increase of overhead during that time (36 percent) was for nonmedical staffing. Might that be because of the extra people needed to process insurance paperwork?

The second letter uses conservatives’ Free Market Fundamentalism™ against them:

There is no health care market

What conservatives have forgotten in the debate over health care reform is that there is no health care market.

In a market, consumers operate with sufficient information and bargaining power to make effective choices based on marginal benefit. Hospitals and insurers are loath to part with information necessary to make informed choices.

Although 39 states require hospitals to report information on mortality or infections resulting from medical care, this information is difficult to find and not currently available in Texas. And even armed with information, consumers can hardly choose their emergency care provider.

Our choice is whether or not we value the myth of the health care market above the reality of human suffering it causes. The cost of protecting the health care market is inefficiency, a broken economy and, for those unable to receive life-saving care, death.

Heh. Indeed.

Ezra Klein’s Confusion Over “Rationing”

• According to the movie* dictionary in my mind, it’s not “rationing” if CIGNA, Aetna, UnitedHealth Group and the rest of the murder-by-spreadsheet cartel does it!

“Shorter” concept created by Daniel Davies, perfected by Elton Beard and given a beneficial mutation by the fine folks at Sadly, No!
I am aware of all Internet tradtions.™

* Cf.

Why isn’t this man in prison trading cigarettes for his anal virginity?

Please tell me this isn’t true:

PHOENIX — The White House, facing increasing skepticism over President Obama’s call for a public insurance plan to compete with the private sector, signaled Sunday that it was willing to compromise and would consider a proposal for a nonprofit health cooperative being developed in the Senate.

The “public option,” a new government insurance program akin to Medicare, has been a central component of Mr. Obama’s agenda for overhauling the health care system, but it has also emerged as a flashpoint for anger and opposition. Kathleen Sebelius, the health and human services secretary, said the public option was “not the essential element” for reform and raised the idea of the co-op during an interview on CNN.

Mr. Obama himself sought to play down the significance of the public option at a town-hall-style meeting on Saturday in Grand Junction, Colo., when a university student challenged him on how private insurers could compete with the government.

Seriously, Mr. President, if you and the Congressional Dems pull a France in this fight and surrender without a shot being fired, you deserve to lose in 2010 and 2012. We are dangerously close to losing this country to the fascists, and the health care reform battle is probably the make or break point. This is how Germany slid into fascism: a weak government all too willing to make concessions to an opposition that would be satisfied with nothing less than the utter destruction of the ruling party.

We are in the river, Mr. President, and the scorpion is rearing back to strike. Do the right thing. If you fail, I will be watching the death of the America I was raised to love and defend from north of 49^th parallel.

How Democrats And Republicans Exploit Emotion

• Silly libruls — thinking that having all the facts means that you meaningfully contributed to the debate, much less won it!

“Shorter” concept created by Daniel Davies, perfected by Elton Beard and given a beneficial mutation by the fine folks at Sadly, No!
I am aware of all Internet tradtions.™

A Teabagger at Arlen Specter’s second attempt at a troll-free town hall wants to share this nugget of “wisdom” with us:

I know that years down the road, I don’t want my children coming to me and asking me, “Mom, why didn’t you do anything? Why do we have to wait in line for, I don’t know, toilet paper or anything?” I don’t want to have to tell them I didn’t do anything. As a normal citizen, the most I feel like I can do is come to this town hall meeting.

* With apologies to John McEnroe.