Glen Beck is an Idiot...

[jedweber]

I wonder if Beck's position against evolution comes from his Mormonism as well? I looked up the Mormon position on evolution, they don't explicitly condemn it but church leaders and official publications have expressed disapproval in the past. It seems that they're not necessarily on the same page as creationist fundies, but not nearly as open to the idea as the Catholic church either.  

I once talked to a practicing Mormon about it; he was also adamantly opposed to the idea that humans came from monkeys, maybe that's a stumbling block? (i.e. special creation of Adam?)

[jedweber]

I wonder if australopithecus would qualify as "half-man, half-monkey" enough for Beck...

It is widely held by archaeologists and palaeontologists that the australopiths played a significant part in human evolution and it was one of the australopith species that eventually evolved into the Homo genus in Africa around 2 million years ago...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australopithecus

Of course, that's a reconstruction from fossils, I suppose Beck could just say that scientists are making it up...

[Hatter23]

I used to do a lot of hand-wringing at what was going to become of the country when those asshats got into power. Then I realized, just a couple of days ago, that they're completely bought and paid for by Halliburton, Monsanto, and the like just like the smart politicians. So no matter how ridiculous their beliefs are, at least adults, albeit evil, greedy ones, will still be making the decisions.

To me, this makes it much, much worse. Maybe a little populist Tea Party rage was good to a point, when it was directed at deserving targets such as Wall Street, mortgage lenders, insurance companies, corporate lobbyists, corrupt politicians, etc. (That was there at the start.) Now it's all being channeled safely away from the corporate/financial interests and the wealthy elites, and re-directed exclusively at liberal Democrats, labor unions, teachers, immigrants, minorities, gays, etc.  Whatever feeble attempts at reform were underway (pathetic as they were), on financial regulation, health care, consumer credit, clean energy, etc., are about to be stopped dead in their tracks and reversed.

These Tea Party minions are about to serve as the foot soldiers in a war on their own economic standing, ushering in policies that are going to dramatically worsen income disparity in this country, transfer wealth to a small minority, and crush the middle class. The massive tax cuts they're about to deliver to the wealthiest Americans can ultimately can only be paid for by dismantling the very entitlement programs most of them rely on (SS and Medicare), along with destroying what remains of our social safety net. I fear for this country, I think it's going to get ugly.

MEMO: Health Insurance, Banking, Oil Industries Met With Koch, Chamber, Glenn Beck To Plot 2010 Election
http://thinkprogress.org/2010/10/20/beck-koch-chamber-meeting/

You can blame the Koch brothers little front Organization "American for Prosperity" for that. Convincing the American public to vote for the interests of a few dozen billionares, rather than in their own interest.

[Nick]

If we are that dumb as a people I guess we will get what we deserve.  Very sad.

[SherB]

If we are that dumb as a people I guess we will get what we deserve.  Very sad.

Amen. What makes me sad, as an American, is that I think we really did begin as a great experiment in freedom and the power of the people. Unfortunately, the founders forgot that, for the most part, people are incredibly stupid and self-serving. Some Communist leader of the past labeled democracy as "the rule of the mediocre" and sometimes I think that's what we have. Not that I'd rather have any of the other forms of government instead, although I suspect I might discover what living under either a plutocracy or a theocracy is like before I die. Is corporotocracy a word? Certainly rule by the corporations is a real concept, more real than I like to think about.

[xphobe]

Is corporotocracy a word?

According to Wiki, it is.

It seems our choices are always to rule our own stupid selves, or to allow someone to rule us who thinks they know better than we do what's for our own good.  It would be wonderful if we could be certain of a benevolent dictator, but it never works that way in practice because rulers are human and subject to error and greed.  I'd rather live in a system that operates in that environment of human nature and puts checks on their infringements, than one that naively expects the best and gives them carte blanche.

[velkyn]

Is corporotocracy a word? Certainly rule by the corporations is a real concept, more real than I like to think about.

I think yuo might be more thinking of "coprotocracy" 

I agree with you, SherB.  Sometimes, I feel like I imagine it must have felt when the British Empire was coming apart.  A great glorious past (nearly all a myth) but not much future to be seen.

[plbuster]

I thought this kind of discourse was not permitted on this site.  Do you have medical evidence that his intelligent quotient is below 70, the accepted level to be considered thus? 
So, you don't like his rhetoric, his demagoguery.  He is of the same mind, but on the other side of the fence.
He attacks propoganda, demagoguery and political rhetoric, and feeds the same back, tit for tat.  Is any of the information he is putting out on FOX incorrect?  Do you disagree with his conclusions?
Exactly what did he say that got your dander up?  Did his comments about George Soros get under your skin, accusing him of being a Nazi collaborator for turning in his fellow jews to be rounded up and murdered? 
Is he knocking the precarious foundations of your precious utopia?  Do you hate him for his religion?  Exactly how is the phrase "Glen Beck is an Idiot..." justified?  Can you even spell Glenn Beck's name correctly?
Or do you just like coming to sites like this and spout hate rhetoric like this to be coddled by your fellows in an environment where your "ideas" won't be challenged?  That's borderline pathological narcissism.

[jetson]

Read the forum rules.  Digging up older threads is generally frowned upon.

[velkyn]

I think that only applies for those over 6 months old.  The mods can clarify this.

PL, there is no need to have medical evidence that someone is an idiot.  It's a personal observation fairly well born out by Beck's actions.  What else but an idiot, would think a bird flying over him was a "sign from God"? 

And Beck has lied. The one most recent doozy was when he claimed to have handled documents in the National Archives ""I went to the National Archives, and I held the first inaugural address written in his own hand by George Washington.".   That was simply a lie, but of course Mr. Beck claimes that it was just hypperbole.  This is a common claim of theists when they get caught or if they can't explain why their God is such a rightwise bastard in the Bible.  His comments about Mr. Soros were again more of the same. Sly innuendo at claiming Mr. Soros was a collaborator with the Nazis when the actual facts are far from that.  Mr. Soros was 14 when the Nazis were in Hungary.  He was forced to help them.  Claimign that Soros was a collaborator would be as much true as claiming that another teeager, Joseph Ratzinger, was also a Nazi.  I find both claims ridiculous.  I also find it sad that you would continue to attemnpt to spread such nonsense. Beck has also consistently said things and then insisted that he has not.  Too bad for him that we do have recording media that he himself uses to demonstrate that he is simply lying.  For examples, you can compare transcripts thanks to the Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/glenn-beck-goes-after-me_b_445195.html  Yes, this is a liberal website but it's hard to refute the facts when there are there in black and white thanks to Mr. Beck himself.   

And I don't hate him for his religion.  Mormons are little different from any other Christian.  I don't like him because he is a lying demagogue, who seems to think he has some right to remove the chance for a informed decision from people as long as it suits his agenda.  As for hating him for his religion, I think other Christians are doing that quite well on their own, considering the hits you get when you google "Beck Mormon cult".

and PL, just look around on this site a bit. It's no echo chamber.  Atheists often have no more in common than not believing in the claims of the supernatural and deities.  You should leave your strawmen arguments at the door.   

[screwtape]

I thought this kind of discourse was not permitted on this site.  Do you have medical evidence that his intelligent quotient is below 70, the accepted level to be considered thus? 
So, you don't like his rhetoric, his demagoguery.  He is of the same mind, but on the other side of the fence.
He attacks propoganda, demagoguery and political rhetoric, and feeds the same back, tit for tat.  Is any of the information he is putting out on FOX incorrect?  Do you disagree with his conclusions?
Exactly what did he say that got your dander up?  Did his comments about George Soros get under your skin, accusing him of being a Nazi collaborator for turning in his fellow jews to be rounded up and murdered? 
Is he knocking the precarious foundations of your precious utopia?  Do you hate him for his religion?  Exactly how is the phrase "Glen Beck is an Idiot..." justified?  Can you even spell Glenn Beck's name correctly?
Or do you just like coming to sites like this and spout hate rhetoric like this to be coddled by your fellows in an environment where your "ideas" won't be challenged?  That's borderline pathological narcissism.

So, are you saying glenn "dumbest dumbfuck in dumbfuckistan" beck is awesome sauce? 

[kin hell]

I thought this kind of discourse was not permitted on this site.  Do you have medical evidence that his intelligent quotient is below 70, the accepted level to be considered thus? 

I cannot answer for the OP

So, you don't like his rhetoric, his demagoguery.  He is of the same mind, but on the other side of the fence.
He attacks propoganda, demagoguery and political rhetoric, and feeds the same back, tit for tat.

So your level of defence of Beck is to personally claim knowledge of his position is it?
Interesting then that you fail to notice the untenable and glaring hypocrisy of the position you place Beck in, by claiming he doesn't like rhetoric propaganda and demagoguery, and is only attacking them by feeding the exact same back "tit for tat".

So in essence he is a hypocritical demagogue, he pushes hypocritical rhetoric and lies through his hypocritical propagandising teeth.

Well done great defence of a great man. 

Is any of the information he is putting out on FOX incorrect? 

Up until this crap I was giving you the benefit of the doubt.  If you are so obtuse as to not recognise the fact that Glenn Beck has been caught out time and time again lying.
Here is a simple site to help you find some truth about his lies.
http://www.justfuckinggoogleit.com/


When you do get around to adjusting your "set" plbuster perhaps then you may be enabled to post some informed comments.
[/quote]

[Hatter23]

I thought this kind of discourse was not permitted on this site. 

Were that the case, there wouldn't be a "chatter" zone.

Do you have medical evidence that his intelligent quotient is below 70, the accepted level to be considered thus? 

Definition of IDIOT
1 usually offensive : a person affected with extreme mental retardation

2: a foolish or stupid person

Definition 1 is a bit archaic, definition 2 is more common in modern parlance. "You are an idiot for not knowing this,"
would be good example of this usage.

So, you don't like his rhetoric, his demagoguery.  He is of the same mind, but on the other side of the fence.
He attacks propoganda, demagoguery and political rhetoric, and feeds the same back, tit for tat.  Is any of the information he is putting out on FOX incorrect? 

Beck: I have always believed that, I have always wanted to believe that: that tomorrow is going to be better than it is today. Not so. In 1986 the only reasons that you didn’t commit suicide was that, in your own words, you were “too much of a coward” and “too stupid”.

OR Healthcare
*** Health care reform is a socialist plot to take over the government
*** Health care reform is a government takeover of the health care system
*** Health care reform is government control over 1/6 of the nation’s economy
*** Health care reform will kill your children, your grandparents, and/or you
*** Health care reform will use taxpayer dollars to fund abortions
*** Health care reform will cause doctors to quit their practice
*** Health care reform will cause people to stop wanting to become doctors
*** Health care reform will cause small businesses to fail, close, or stop offering health insurance to their employees
*** Health care reform will cause rationing of health care
*** Health care reform is reparations for slavery
*** Health care reform will cause Republicans to lose their health care

All lies.

[plbuster]

Healthcare
*** Health care reform is a socialist plot to take over the government
*** Health care reform is a government takeover of the health care system
*** Health care reform is government control over 1/6 of the nation’s economy
*** Health care reform will kill your children, your grandparents, and/or you
*** Health care reform will use taxpayer dollars to fund abortions
*** Health care reform will cause doctors to quit their practice
*** Health care reform will cause people to stop wanting to become doctors
*** Health care reform will cause small businesses to fail, close, or stop offering health insurance to their employees
*** Health care reform will cause rationing of health care
*** Health care reform is reparations for slavery
*** Health care reform will cause Republicans to lose their health care

All lies.

Although the rhetoric seems extreme, he bases his arguments on fairly solid ground.  Medicare and Medicaid are both
socialist programs.  Government control over health care insurance is socialism.  Is it bad?  hmmmm...that is a different argument.  However, given the historical record of government control over health care throughout the world, he is merely predicting that the United States Government will be no better at it than any other government.
Since Health related businesses and insurance including hospitals, pharmeceutical companies, and the rest do constitute
 1/6th of the US Economy, exactly how is he wrong?
The prediction that Health Care Reform killing people is based on past performance and the use of beaurocracies to allocate medical services.  The term Death Panels comes to mind.  Also that thing in Oregon, and assisted suicide.
Health Care Reform includes provisions for government funded abortions.
Doctors have already begun to quit their practice.  Fortunately, they are being replaced by the next generation of medical specialists.
Health care reform will cause some people to stop wanting to become doctors.  The rest, out of altruistic or other reasons will continue to seek being doctors.  It will lead to many practices moving overseas and establishing private "elite care" hospitals for cash.
"*** Health care reform will cause small businesses to fail, close, or stop offering health insurance to their employees"
Actually, this is historically correct.  Without a Government Plan for employers/employees to fall back on, small businesses will have to downsize.  It's a matter of economics.  Generally, Large Corporations benefit from socialist concepts like this as they pass the cost on to customers.  When small businesses do this, they lose customers.
The rationing of Healthcare has been the historic and inevitable result of nationalization of health services, though not necessarily of Health Insurance Reform.
As far as reparations for slavery?  Well, I think that's a bit of hyperbole.  I believe he thinks that the African-American vote was contingent on passing Health Care Reform, and that in some circles it may have been bantered about as a type of reparation.  Still, on the face of it, it sounds like demagoguery and devisiveness, and should not be believed.
The last point...well, that's more demagoguery, though his point is probably that they may lose the insurance they have, especially if the government is able to come up with a National Health Insurance program.

To say they are all lies?  Well...maybe republicans don't want to end up being Soylent Green.  Boowahahahaha

[SherB]

Methinks you spend way too much time in front of the faux noise machine. I hear the same arguments from my relatives who think the sun rises and sets on becKKK. I spend way too much of my time in the F2F world trying to educate real people how faux is convincing them to vote for policies that directly help the rich and/or the corporations and that harm themselves, and showing them where and how becKKK and oReally? lie, distort the truth, make up their own facts, and report other people's lies as the truth even when they know them not to be. Examples: Van Jones, ACORN, Shirley Sherrod. More examples: death panels in Health Care, Obama as a Marxist Communist Fascist Liberal with a deep-seated hatred for white people and or the white culture (whatever that even means.)

At any rate, since I do this practically for a living I could match you factoid for factoid, but I don't have the time or energy. I've found that once someone has begun drinking the fux noose kool-aide, it doesn't matter what you say, what you do, how much of their 'news' is demonstrably, provably untrue, because True Believers^TM simply can't or won't change their minds. So I pick my battles now. If there's someone in my real-world sphere of influence that I think might be open to at least starting to doubt what they hear on Murdoch's media empire, I work really hard at changing their minds. But if they either 1) are not willing to hear another viewpoint, no matter what, and/or 2) are simply a faceless entity with a keyboard and an internet connection that actually I've never seen before on this forum, well, I have better uses for my time. And since you appear to be both 1 and 2...

Two things I will agree on, though. One is that the health care bill that eventually passed was a piece of junk and mostly a big gimmee to the insurance and pharmaceutical industries, after the public option was stripped from it. And the other is you're right that becKKK isn't, technically an idiot. Unfortunately, he's quite intelligent, so it's sad that he's decided that what he wants to do with his life is hate-monger and race-bait and in general incite people to do violence and harm to one another.

If he were a different kind of person with the talent of persuasion he posesses, he could be a huge force for good in this world. So it's especially sad that he's chose to use his brains to destroy what little is left of this country's middle-class and it's secular democracy and move it ever-closer to a theocracy with huge gaps between rich and poor.

[ParkingPlaces]

Although the rhetoric seems extreme, he bases his arguments on fairly solid ground.  Medicare and Medicaid are both
socialist programs.  

The big problem here is that the word "socialist" not means whatever the right wants it to mean for whatever point they are pretending to get across at that moment. ANYTHING they don't like is automatically socialist, yet I doubt that more than two or three republicans can even define what a socialist is.

They also can't define "conservative". Little Georgie Bush often just stood in front of crowds when he campaigned and said "I'm a conservative" without explanation, without examples. He seemed to think just saying those words were enough. Or, more likely, he hoped that was the case because he didn't really know many more words than that anyway. In any case, the idea of KISS (Keep it simple stupid) seems to work best for those that are actually, you know, stupid.

I'm not saying the left side of things is any smarter. All politicians eventually get good at gaming the system, no matter what side of the fence they are on. All they require is the frickin' fence. Which must be pretty big, because I'm hearing lots of echos.

[velkyn]

Although the rhetoric seems extreme, he bases his arguments on fairly solid ground.  Medicare and Medicaid are both socialist programs.  Government control over health care insurance is socialism.  Is it bad?  hmmmm...that is a different argument.  However, given the historical record of government control over health care throughout the world, he is merely predicting that the United States Government will be no better at it than any other government.
Since Health related businesses and insurance including hospitals, pharmeceutical companies, and the rest do constitute 1/6th of the US Economy, exactly how is he wrong?

I suspect you have little idea on how Medicare and Medicaid is actually run or what exactly socialism is.  And other gov'ts seems pretty good at "socialist" medical care. It seems that you simply parrot what you've been told. Rather sad, that.  I'd like you to show how all of the following are on "fairly solid ground". IF you can't, well, that says a lot:

Health care reform is a socialist plot to take over the government
*** Health care reform is a government takeover of the health care system
*** Health care reform is government control over 1/6 of the nation’s economy
*** Health care reform will kill your children, your grandparents, and/or you
*** Health care reform will use taxpayer dollars to fund abortions
*** Health care reform will cause doctors to quit their practice
*** Health care reform will cause people to stop wanting to become doctors
*** Health care reform will cause small businesses to fail, close, or stop offering health insurance to their employees
*** Health care reform will cause rationing of health care
*** Health care reform is reparations for slavery
*** Health care reform will cause Republicans to lose their health care

The prediction that Health Care Reform killing people is based on past performance and the use of beaurocracies to allocate medical services.  The term Death Panels comes to mind.  Also that thing in Oregon, and assisted suicide. Health Care Reform includes provisions for government funded abortions.

more spew from repeated lies. Man, do you think we can't research these claims?  We aren't like you and accept whatever crap that Beck proclaims.  The crap about "death panels" is just hilarious.  Please do provide the evidence for this nonsense.

Doctors have already begun to quit their practice.  Fortunately, they are being replaced by the next generation of medical specialists.

again, more evidence please.  And what are "medical specialists"? Could they be oh, doctors, physician's assistants?  If doctors are supposedly quiting their practices, and just as capable people are replacing them, what is the problem?

Health care reform will cause some people to stop wanting to become doctors.  The rest, out of altruistic or other reasons will continue to seek being doctors.  It will lead to many practices moving overseas and establishing private "elite care" hospitals for cash.

more baseless claims.   More fear mongering. How "Christian".

"*** Health care reform will cause small businesses to fail, close, or stop offering health insurance to their employees"

Actually, this is historically correct.[/quote]  Evidence again please.

Without a Government Plan for employers/employees to fall back on, small businesses will have to downsize.  It's a matter of economics.  Generally, Large Corporations benefit from socialist concepts like this as they pass the cost on to customers.  When small businesses do this, they lose customers.

So we have you claiming that health care reform is soooooo bad but now you want a gov't plan to fall back on. Hilarious.  

The rationing of Healthcare has been the historic and inevitable result of nationalization of health services, though not necessarily of Health Insurance Reform.

So, again Beck is lying and trying to compare apples to oranges.  

As far as reparations for slavery?  Well, I think that's a bit of hyperbole.  I believe he thinks that the African-American vote was contingent on passing Health Care Reform, and that in some circles it may have been bantered about as a type of reparation.  Still, on the face of it, it sounds like demagoguery and devisiveness, and should not be believed. The last point...well, that's more demagoguery, though his point is probably that they may lose the insurance they have, especially if the government is able to come up with a National Health Insurance program.

Nope, it's a lie. I do love when people like you want to claim "oh it's just hyperbole." when caught in a lie.  Sad really.  More and more baseless claims.  I love all of the "probably" and "believe" that you must use in excusing Beck. Just like how Christians attempt to excuse their god.

To say they are all lies?  Well...maybe republicans don't want to end up being Soylent Green.  Boowahahahaha

and to finish up with, a strawman argument.  

[TopolX]

Although the rhetoric seems extreme, he bases his arguments on fairly solid ground.  Medicare and Medicaid are both
socialist programs. Government control over health care insurance is socialism.  Is it bad?

No it isn't and here's why.

 

However, given the historical record of government control over health care throughout the world, he is merely predicting that the United States Government will be no better at it than any other government.

Works well in every country that has it (Europe, Canada, Japan, even Russia).

The prediction that Health Care Reform killing people is based on past performance and the use of beaurocracies to allocate medical services.  The term Death Panels comes to mind.  Also that thing in Oregon, and assisted suicide.

Didn't happen in the UK, never will either, it's called efficiency and having enough resources to allocate them to everyone instead of making absupernormal profits (supernormal profit which has no beneficial economic effect).

Health Care Reform includes provisions for government funded abortions.

It's called autonomy, look it up some time. Also it gives the government more control over abortion so it can be limited to a certain number of weeks which is a brilliant compromise which exists everywhere with an NHS.

Health care reform will cause some people to stop wanting to become doctors.  The rest, out of altruistic or other reasons will continue to seek being doctors.  It will lead to many practices moving overseas and establishing private "elite care" hospitals for cash.

Didn't happen in the UK, never will either.

"*** Health care reform will cause small businesses to fail, close, or stop offering health insurance to their employees"
Actually, this is historically correct.  Without a Government Plan for employers/employees to fall back on, small businesses will have to downsize.  It's a matter of economics.  Generally, Large Corporations benefit from socialist concepts like this as they pass the cost on to customers.  When small businesses do this, they lose customers.

WTF is that supposed to mean? The point of an NHS is that health insurance is paid for by the people for the people so businesses don't need to provide insurance thus no problem. US is more of an oligopoly than the UK so that theory falls spectacularly.

The rationing of Healthcare has been the historic and inevitable result of nationalization of health services, though not necessarily of Health Insurance Reform.

Already rationed in the US through the price mechanism. NHS allows a more efficient and wide sweeping allocation of healthcare due to allocative efficiency motive rather than profit motive thus is better option.

To say they are all lies?  Well...maybe republicans don't want to end up being Soylent Green.  Boowahahahaha

Hasn't happened in the UK, never will either. Might do in China though but that's another story.

[velkyn]

no real suprise that PL seems to have abandoned this thread in favor of more nonsense in others. Always good to know requests for actual evidence confound him.

[Positiveaob]

SherB I agree with most of your post except the part about Beck being intelligent.  I haven't seen anything to indicate anything of the sort.  I havent seen anything he has said that shows he is capable of critical thinking, nothing in his education to indicate he is above average in the classroom, nothing whatsoever points me to a conclusion that he is at all intelligent whatsoever.  Im just not seeing it.  Making alot of money playing up kooky conspiracy theories to the masses is not a mark of intellect.

What he is is a talented public speaker and has good timing.  In tough economic times, stirring up paranoia and rallying the angry masses is easy to do if you have talent in front of a microphone and know how to play up collective fears.  And thats all he does.  There is nothing exceptional about him at all from an intellectual standpoint.  Smart people don't see a flock of geese flying overhead and think that it's a flyover from a god.  That's not an "intelligent" conclusion.

As far as the healthcare bill nonsense that plbuster is spouting about above, we already DO ration healthcare.  We just do it in an incredibly inefficient manner.  I am not in the least bit in favor of a complete government takeove of healthcare, but that is not what a public option would have been. 

And there is no slippery slope leading to "death panels"!!!  Once you uttered that phrase, I realized you has no idea what you're talking about!  Discussions with patients regarding their wishes at the end of their lives is not leading to "death panels"!  In the US we spend an inordinate amount of healthcare dollars on the care of those in the last weeks of their lives, most often based on the assumption that that is what the person would have wanted when in fact they may have preferred to spend their final days without tubes in their tracheas and feeding tubes in their stomachs.  These are things that can be discussed well ahead of time with their primary doctor but were killed in the legislation with Palin's "death panel" idiocy and the furor it caused.

I am curious what countries you were referring to where government run healthcare has been so disastrous?  Of course, comparing us to other countries is apples and oranges with regards to healthcare for a number of reasons. 

For starters, in most other nations doctors do not have to through college first.  And this is an important distinction.  In order to become a doctor in the US, you have to go through four years of college, four years of medical school, and a minimum of 3 years of residency before practicing as a physician.  Several more years to subspecialize.  During that whole time, you are paying an insanely high of amount of money in tuition (much more than you do in other countries), racking up hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt instead of making money.  If you are getting paid as a government worker at the end of all that, I can assure you fewer people will go into medicine in the US. I'm not saying those in other countries do not have to study hard to become doctors.  The quality of doctor education is outstandng everywhere.  But education is generally much cheaper and it's different when you can start collecting salaries when you are in your mid-twenties.

But the biggest difference, and what is being completely ignored in debates, is the issue of malpractice.  In certain specialties in the US literally HALF of a physician's salary goes towards malpractice insurance.  And that doesn't even begin to take into account the costs of defensive medicine.  Anyone who tells you that the threat of litigation doesn't play a role in a physicians decision to order tests, labs, imaging, and admissions is ignorant of American medicine.  In other countries, for the most part, this is rarely an issue.  The difference is primarily cultural.  We have this jackpot justice mentality here for whatever reason, and alot of our political leaders have made personal fortunes off the system.  So it never really gets brought up in the debate.  But it is a HUGE chunk of our healthcare expenses.

Before anyone comes back with something to the effect of "when you have been wronged by a physician you have the right to compensation" combined with a personal story and appeal to emotion, I would like to emphasize I am NOT suggesting we take away your right to sue.  I am stating that the system is out of control.  If I was permanently disabled by a doctor's mistake, then $100 trillion dollars wouldnt be enough to  satisfy me.  But the system cannot support that.  The fact is, doctors, nurses, and hospitals are going to make mistakes.  It's just the way it is.  But the good that comes from medicine far outweighs the bad.  And we cannot sustain multimillion dollar verdicts to everyone who has a poor outcome from human error.

And again, those who point to nonsensical figures about how "well only one percent of the healthcare budget goes towards malpractice" are completely missing the insanely high amount of money that goes towards defensive medicine and towards malpractice insurance.  Pass meaningful malpractice legislation and you will go a long ways towards fixing this healthcare mess.

[Dante]

Good post.^ Passing malpractice legislation would be huge, but I'd like to take it a step further and see some legislation against most of the ludicrous compensation lawsuits that are defining this country.

It would be great if the lawsuit mentality wasn't so pervasive, and the ambulance chasers were after more than just the paycheck. Unfortunately, greed is almost an epidemic, and a great inhibitor to freedom in the US.

[SherB]

We have this jackpot justice mentality here for whatever reason, and alot of our political leaders have made personal fortunes off the system.  So it never really gets brought up in the debate.  But it is a HUGE chunk of our healthcare expenses.

I love the 'jackpot justice mentality' concept. That describes the American attitude toward lawsuits, especially medical, perfectly. For whatever reason, we seem to have really, as a culture, abandoned our earlier work ethic in favor of one that posits getting rich as some kind of gambling success. We can win the lottery, we can win in Vegas, or we can win a big lawsuit for something. I know people who are actually busy budgeting their lottery winnings as we speak, while living in abject poverty.

You're absolutely right about the defensive medicine. Tests, tests, and more tests, when it's obvious from the beginning what is wrong. But they have to CYA, and you can't blame them. I take estrogen because if I don't my life is not worth living from my symptoms, but I practically had to sign a waiver to get my doctor to prescribe it because there's been a study that it increases the odds of getting breast cancer by 1% or something. He's afraid that if I get cancer I'll sue him, and some people probably would.

There are a couple of other things that never get discussed in the health care reform, or health care insurance reform, which this bill actually is for the most part. And that is the number of chronic diseases with expensive treatments that people bring on themselves with their lifestyles. I smoked cigarettes for years, even after knowing that they cause cancer, etc. Is the government, if they provided health care,obligated to treat my lung cancer or emphysema? If so, to what extent? Should they pay for expensive chemo that may or may not work? How about a lung transplant? Should someone who didn't smoke get a new lung faster than a smoker?

What about all the chronic diseases caused by obesity, which is taking over smoking as the biggest cause of chronic disease brought about by lifestyle? Diabetes is expensive, especially when you start getting complications, and most diabetes is directly caused from excess weight. High blood pressure, sleep apnea, etc. If the government is going to have to pay for it, should they have the power to make you lose weight?

I only brought those up because, again, just like tort reform, it's something that doesn't get discussed. It's as if, and this is true for many more issues than health care, some group has decided ahead of time the parameters of the discussion. There are still two sides, but only certain items are up for discussion. Everything else just isn't spoken of. It's really fascinating.

One more thing. The 'death panels.' I hate that Americans are so stupid that they actually can let something this stupid be accepted as fact. And again, nothing was ever said about the huge rationing that goes on now. It's called insurance policies. If you don't have any insurance, well, too bad. You're rationing starts and ends with nothing. Even if you do, though, it's a crapshoot if your company is actually going to pay for whatever it is that you have. Or pay enough of it that you can get treatment without losing your house.

And BecKKK... Perhaps intelligence isn't the word I meant. More like a cunning ability to pick up on what an audience wants and be able to bring exactly that to them. The people who believe in him, granted most of them aren't the sharpest tools in the shed, but the kind of unwavering, blind allegiance they give him is frightening. My opinion, and its only my opinion, is that there was an orator in the early 40s in a European country who had much the same talent and used it much the same ends that I see BecKKK going for. And look how that turned out. BTW, that same talent for getting audiences of True Believers is also Sarah Palin's forte. And I don't think many people use intelligence and her name in the same sentence.

[Hatter23]

One more thing. The 'death panels.' I hate that Americans are so stupid that they actually can let something this stupid be accepted as fact. And again, nothing was ever said about the huge rationing that goes on now. It's called insurance policies. If you don't have any insurance, well, too bad. You're rationing starts and ends with nothing. Even if you do, though, it's a crapshoot if your company is actually going to pay for whatever it is that you have. Or pay enough of it that you can get treatment without losing your house.

You are in part right, but what few people understand that insurance companies already have "death panels," they are called Actuaries.

[jedweber]

^ This.

The six largest private health insurance companies just reported profits of $3.4 billion dollars in the last quarter, up 22% from a year ago. They increased profits mostly by sharply cutting the number of claims they paid out on, which they call reducing their "medical loss ratio."

Third-Quarter Profits Reach $3.4 Billion as Health Insurers Cut Spending on Care, Drop Unprofitable Members

I'm not suggesting they do this because they are evil. They're simply following good business practices, which give them a vested interest in denying care to as many people as possible by rejecting claims and purging sick or high-risk people from their rolls. It's probably unrealistic and unfair to expect them to ignore business considerations and behave like charitable organizations or public servants.

I think we're going to have this problem as long as we rely on private, profit-seeking entities to provide health care coverage for the majority of Americans (everyone except the elderly, destitute and war veterans). Private insurers are essentially parasitic middlemen who divert a large proportion of their premium income to purposes that have nothing to do with delivering health care. It's not just profits - private insurers must also pay for high executive compensation, marketing, advertising, lobbying, political campaign donations, etc. out of their premium income. As a result they typically spend as little as 70 to 80% of premiums on actual health care for their clients. A non-profit or government-run insurer simply doesn't have many of these expenses, beyond their administrative costs, which are typically quite low. (reportedly 3% for Medicare.)

Instead of creating a single-payer government-backed insurer (say, by opening up Medicare to everyone), or even providing a "public option" as an alternative, the current health care bill reinforces our reliance on private, for-profit insurers. It imposed all sorts of costly demands on them (pre-existing conditions rules, etc.), while promising to compensate them with the individual mandate forcing everyone to buy their products. This is the part of the bill that's most unpopular and that's now under the fiercest attack by conservatives, but it's the part that is supposed to pay for everything else.  I think it's the Achilles heel of a badly flawed and compromised bill.