Krugman writes: "Last week, speaking to The Columbus Dispatch, Mr. Romney declared that nobody in America dies because he or she is uninsured."
Portrait, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, 06/15/09. (photo: Fred R. Conrad/NYT)
Death By Ideology
15 October 12
Mitt Romney doesn't see dead people. But that's only because he doesn't want to see them; if he did, he'd have to acknowledge the ugly reality of what will happen if he and Paul Ryan get their way on health care.
Last week, speaking to The Columbus Dispatch, Mr. Romney declared that nobody in America dies because he or she is uninsured: "We don't have people that become ill, who die in their apartment because they don't have insurance." This followed on an earlier remark by Mr. Romney - echoing an infamous statement by none other than George W. Bush - in which he insisted that emergency rooms provide essential health care to the uninsured.
These are remarkable statements. They clearly demonstrate that Mr. Romney has no idea what life (and death) are like for those less fortunate than himself.
|
THE NEW STREAMLINED RSN LOGIN PROCESS: Register once, then login and you are ready to comment. All you need is a Username and a Password of your choosing and you are free to comment whenever you like! Welcome to the Reader Supported News community. |
Comments
We are concerned about a recent drift towards vitriol in the RSN Reader comments section. There is a fine line between moderation and censorship. No one likes a harsh or confrontational forum atmosphere. At the same time everyone wants to be able to express themselves freely. We'll start by encouraging good judgment. If that doesn't work we'll have to ramp up the moderation.
General guidelines: Avoid personal attacks on other forum members; Avoid remarks that are ethnically derogatory; Do not advocate violence, or any illegal activity.
Remember that making the world better begins with responsible action.
- The RSN Team
It is right to pay our rent, utilities, groceries, etc. But it is also our RIGHT to be well-cared-for in order to remain productive in our country, even if we can't afford it.
People DO die because they can't afford insurance or can't even get it, so they can't afford to pay for the "health care" OR the "health insurance" they need to ensure they stay well or can even GET adequate health care.
Obamacare is a very good start, but the only way we will ever get out of this mess of "health insurance" is to go to universal healthcare, where we value everyone's life, no matter how much money they have or don't have.
Hell, I'd pay 70% taxes, as Denmark's people do, if I got health care when I needed it, education for free, and other services that keep people well, happy, and productive in their lives. Denmark is ranked as having the most satisfied, healthiest, happiest people in the world, and this is why!
N.
I will presume you are insured and have used medical care on a regular basis.
When your doctor sees you, he spends 10 - 20 minutes with you; he also spends an additional 5 - 10 minutes with paperwork; much of it includes inasurance overhead work. As part of Obamacare, the medical system will be required to undergo a modernization that will shorten the time spent by a physician on inaccurate, incomplete paperwork. Instead of spending 15 - 30 minutes per patient, the doctor will be able to spend 15 - 25 minutes per patient. It may not seem like a lot at first, but the bias will be towards the lower end when a doctor has all the patient's records in front of him. When it is all on paper the bias is toward the higher number.
So each Primary care doctor will be able to see another 6 - 8 patients a day.
Also, Obama supports putting more kids through College on the common nickle. A great investment that will lead to more doctors.
Leave the silo.
My condolences to you for your loss.
Your points about nutrition and exercise are all very good items to include in an individual health program. I myself eat as healthy as possible and engage in bi-weekly bike rides of 25+ miles to get outside and exercise. The issue however is not the choices we make as individuals but the choices we make together as a society. A Health Care system would enable and encourage opportunities for exercise and healthy food choices. This would be an essential part of a school's curriculum and other benefits could be granted to adults as well. Please note that most people on this site advocate a single payer health care system, which could incorporate all the issues you bring up into an integrated system that covers everyone at least as well as your wife was covered. What we would have without Obamacare would allow some people to have the care your wife had, but not all.
But the conservatives want to cut back on education - especially the Health and Science. Corporatists want to avoid healthy options on school lunches an stop feeding kids who may not get good nutrition at home.
That's why I'm a LEFTty. I vote to take care of kids.
But the death panels ONLY occur with the insurance companies, not with the government.
Pretty strong statement. Back it up with credible commentary.
Please.
2. Because of the greed of non intellectuals running healthcare (how in the hell did that ever happen? Would any of you rather take military advice from a general with 30+ years experience or an accountant who never fired anything more powerful than a spitball in English class?), doctors and similar professionals MUST adhere to a lifestyle to which they are surprisingly ill equipped - business management - or fail. Something doctors did not have to struggle with 20 years ago. So healthcare is run quite inefficiently as a result of the increased - and unnecessary burden of balancing books to please bloodthirsty jackals.
If we get the MBA's out of healthcare, we can bounce back from the #34th spot in the eyes of the World Health Organisation.
This issue is far above and beyond who is in office, now go mind the other end of your glass house.
Agreed. Like teachers, it's about the people they serve and their well-being and successful futures.
In the larger picture, we have to give everyone at least one fair shot at success.
You make a great case for non-for-profit, single-payer, universal health care and for doctors being paid a salary instead of per patient/procedu re. Thanks for getting on board and making the case for a truly progressive (and democratic) health care reform.
For profit primary care is the worst of all worlds and the reason we're the highest cost and one of the worst systems in the developed world, even behind Cuba and Costa Rica.
We're the only first world country that allows that.
sounds like you are not a friedman fan; that's another subject..."why i don't like very successful nyt's columnists & best-selling authors." his comment was that high ER costs for the uninsured are "collectively " paid by the insured, and that "obamacare" (or "romneycare") is a market-driven plan. there is no single definition of "socialized medicine;" many forms of managed healthcare exist around the world; may i suggest the pbs frontline doc "sick around the world." 2) health status and auto use both involve risk, and insurance manages risk.
As far as "socialism is concerned, most people in the USA have no idea what that is. They have all be taught that it is the same as communism.
The truth is, the most socialist countries in the world right now are places like Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and perhaps Canada. All have democratically- elected governments, a happier population, better-educated citizens, a better standard of living, and better health care than the USA. For that matter, most of what you like about the USA was damned as "socialist" when liberals first proposed it.
Tell us, which of these are you willing to give up because they're "socialist"? Free paved roads, free public schools, police and fire protection, free public parks, clean and safe water food, and medicines, regulated workplace safety, mandated overtime pay, social security, medicare, child labor laws, and anything else where everyone contributes to for the benefit of all? An example would be sports stadiums. They are often partially paid for by tax money even though only about 15% of any nearby population will ever enter them even though 100% help pay for them. Socialist!
Again, which of these will you gladly give up?
Secondly, seeing an MD/DO for a cold, flu, shot, etc., is a REALLY bad use of their expertise. Instead, we could/should be producing more PAs and NPs.
Thirdly, compared to other the first-world countries, healthcare in US is horrible. It's very expensive and very ineffective... and the "unelected death panels" are staffed with insurance company no-nothing administrators.
We need to fix healthcare NOW!!!!
Where do you make up this idea? Of course if you believe nonsense like this your world view is going to be distorted beyond belief.
But the broader question is how many people would you really let die so that you personally can wait in shorter lines.
What about if we all give you a cut in line when you get sick ... especially to the head doctor ... you seem to need it! ;-)
You are just inferring the President has an agenda to eliminate all healthcare because you believe it is a potential problem in Obamacare.
What a typical Republican response! Another example, is the Right Wing love affair with means testing. Which is really a way to make sure nobody cheats in any type of social benefit. The solution to a few welfare cheats is to add burdensome and costly overhead to weed out a few and frighten off many more. In this instance you are advocating getting rid of Obamacare because in theory some doctors will close their practice.
Why not raise taxes from their current low, low discounted rate on upper income people and use some of it to pay for more people to get their Medical degrees? Improve the IT infrastructure and also minimize paperwork to lower overhead costs. Some of the savings can be shifted to pay doctors better salaries and improve their working environments. Or, we can do as you suggest and double down on the fraud infested and inefficient many payer, many insurance plans with mish mash of forms and rules and faceless corporate zombies deciding your life.
That's how I judge our system and its impact on my neighbors and family. I'm OKAY, but it's EVERYONE ELSE for whom I am concerned. I VOTE in the interests of the majority.
life and death for many many people.
Kaiser dropped me from insurance because I had had 2 surgeries--succ essful ones from them!
Now I am over 65 they have to take me.
Still I pay quite a bit out of pocket and co-pays too.
The same thing happened to me recently, exactly. I am 64 and am having a helluva time getting medical insurance at ANY rate. If my state didn't have the state healthcare option where they cannot refuse you, I don't know what I'd do, and even that costs me an amazing amount each month!
As I look to next year and being able to take advantage of the Medicare that I paid with taxes from my income for my whole working life, I fear what will happen if Romney/Ryan are in the White House! And if they are, I may just leave the country...the country I worked HARD in all my life...the country that will not care about the elderly one bit if Romney/Ryan are put into office.
And Rob't Eagle, you have no idea that the teachers among us, who have large student loan debts and get paid very little STILL teach students as well as we can with few resources that even come close to those of physicians.
N.
When YOU were young costs were a lot lower. I went to a very highly rated engineering school, right up there with MIT and CalTech, and paid 235 a semester tuition.
I paid off student loans for 10 years faithfully, worked for a major corporation for 15 years, created and ran my own successful publishing business for 25 years, and decided in 1995, while I was still running my own business, and after three years of caring for my dying brother, to retire as a college professor. I am happily still doing that as an adjunct for several US colleges, essentially my own business, which is why it is difficult (besides my age) to get health insurance in the US from a private insurance company, even though I had been with the same one for 25 years. They dropped me, because they could.
This will not happen in 2014 if Obamacare stays in place.
You wife sounds like she was a good woman and did all the right things in her life.
N.
Mitt Romney is now planning, and depending on whom he is talking to actually saying what he is planning, on turning America into nation where success is measured by a few super rich and everyone else fighting for the crumbs off their tables. Redistribution of wealth from the middle and working classes to a few is exactly Romney's record in the private sector that he claims will be how he will govern.
Most people say that Obama will be better for the Middle Class than Romney but then say that Romney will be better for the overall economy. The problem is the Middle Class is the overall economy and what is better for them is better for America. I mean over 70% of American's still consider themselves Middle class and if you are better for them, as Obama clearly is, you are better for the overall economy.
Further more it is a lot more expensive to get ER treatment than preventetive care.
Only massive civil disobedience will topple them. Get ready.
In more civilized countries with national systems, doctors are paid well on the level of engineers, architects and other college-educate d professionals but are still free to accept privately-insur ed patients but the point is that it's for EVERYBODY, no fear of bankruptcy, unlike the over-inflated incomes of US MD's, including the high administrative costs and huge CEO salaries of the big insurance/pharm a Mafia who dictate who, what and for how long they can treat. When you get to the ER stage, you are utterly in their clutches and subsequently the bill collectors (trust me, I've been there, WITH insurance).
ANYBODY (like one or two on RSN) who is an apologist for a non-system that is the pitying laughing-stock of the industrialized world, is blind, deaf, daft, an ignoramus and a fink for the plutocrats like Twit. At least Obama has begun to address the problem in small, faltering steps, so reviled and obstructed by the reactionary right of Rove, the Koch's, Ryan and the whole merry gang that would enslave us all and remove any incentive to make our own ways.
My contempt-o-mete r is in overload!
It is NOT free. People pay more in taxes to participate in the system; but they still pay less than it costs to get care here, and doctors still make out fine.
I will be 65 in two days and have Medicare that I paid for over my lifetime. Anyone who thinks that it is an entitlement (like that was a bad word) is full of BS. I have been without medical insurance for the last 3 years because I couldn't afford it when Kaiser jacked up their rates every year after age 60 for me. Now they will have to take me, but I EARNED it, nothing more.
We need single payer because it will help create a healthy population and drive costs down. Until then, the ACA is the best we could get with Congress bent on keeping Obama from a second term.
You're also entitled to the pursuit of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, three more entitlements the wing nuts don't feel you deserve.
Let them earn a living and struggle with bills like anyone else. They wold not be permitted any help from family, friends, or anything but their won efforts. Anyone that helps them would also be denied access to their resources for 5 or six years, too.
We might se a little change attitude from a few of the 1%.
Several decades ago, Margaret Thatcher claimed: "There is no alternative".
She was referring to capitalism. Today, this negative attitude still persists.
I would like to offer an alternative to capitalism for the American people to consider. Please click on the following link. It will take you to an essay titled: "Home of the Brave?" which was published by the Athenaeum Library of Philosophy:
http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/steinsvold.htm
John Steinsvold
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result."~ Albert Einstein
As for Mr Eagle-we should attempt to not give him the dignity of a response. He has no other reason to be on this site other than stirring up the pot. He gets a rise from our anger at him. Obviously I am not following my own advise but this will be the last time I would mention him-but it is only to try to commit to ignoring his future posts.
His tactics are from the Republican playbook. First begin with attacks, belittling comments with no factual basis, and finally ending with response to our attacks. The Republican style (and this was on display by both Romney and Ryan in the debates)-is to attempt to humanize themselves with personal vignettes-attem pting to pull at our heart strings. We have all sufferred tragedy and loss. The personal tales of loss and pulling one up by his own bootstraps, such as the heroic Eagle, (who seems to be about 80 years old)is all by Republican design. Notice the stories of personal tragedy and self worship(i.e.-st ories of lifeguarding and skiing.) Alot of hot wind. Lets ignore this fellow.
Is Romney so ignorant or just out of touch with real Americans that he conveniently omitted that fact. On the other hand, perhaps he is aware that ER care isn't free, but that's no skin off his nose.
What rock have you been under?
Health Care under the current administration. Requires every one to pay for health care. Currently many people go to Emergency Rooms for a head cold and take up time, which is necessary for people who are really sick.
As for governmental Costs, need I remind you the last time I thought of that guy in Germany was When The Shrub tried to play a cowboy and invaded a country and killed its leader all the while, evidentluy brainwashing Americans, Do to Weapons of mass distruction, which never existed.
The shrub and the other brush in the family are major friends of the Saudie Family and arranged for them to leave the USA after 911. The Planes were all flown by Saudia Citizens.
This was done with the total backing of the Republican party, with no thought to the effects of such a move on the American People.
We the people are now paying evey month for that bunch of politicians even thought they were fired by the people.
To save money lts end the payment of dole being paid for plunging the country into such debt and death.
Elect Obama who at least Cares about the People.
Not a man who doesn't know what is truth and is bust related to a Chameleon
The Republican idea that free market medical care is efficient and humane is wishful thinking, not based on the actual experiences of real people.
But the insurers both made a profit, and that's the main point, hey Mitt? Right, Ryan?
I paid into SS and Medicare my whole life and therefore I am"entitled" to some benefits.
My son's 28 year old brother-in-law - whose right wing parents abhor the welfare state - was too poor to afford insurance. He worked part time and was attending college at night to get his degree - just another of society's dregs.
He was apparently too ashamed to ask his parents for money since they have no respect for people who can't make it on their own.
So the kid caught the flu, which turned into pneumonia and in a couple of days he died alone in his apartment. Because he couldn't afford to go to the doctor. Several days later someone stopped to check up on him and found him dead.
This happened in April 2012. In America.
Yes, Mr. Romney, no one dies in America for lack of insurance.
RSS feed for comments to this post