Bizarre Health Care Reactions

[ConcreteSchlyrd]

Somolian Pirates

The whole thing would have been incredibly funny if it weren't so unrelentingly sad.

Little-known FACT: If I have more articles of clothing with stars and stripes (or better yet, "USA" printed on them), I am indeed more of an American than you are. It also means I can say whatever the fuck I want to and it's not racist or stupid, because I just love America so much.

[Jerome Scuggs]

Jesus christ, I just used this argument facetiously in the other thread. Do you know the reason we have the highway system? Eisenhower tried to move military supplies from the east coast to the west coast, by road. It took over a month. He realized that in the event of a war, the railroads could be bombed leaving us SOL. It was a strategic decision to further mobilize our military.

I can't tell if you're trolling or not.

Edit: I just realized you're from Louisiana, so you're not trolling, just ignorant.

EDIT #2: When the north won, they should have turned Tecumsah loose and let him burn the entire south to the ground.

Google "C-5 galaxy" and witness your roads become obsolete before your very eyes. As for the ignorance comment, I'll let it slide. You haven't been following my posts, and I enjoy when people become aware of their own ignorance. Especially coming from people who support military-industrial programs. Yee haw, cowboy.

Edit: seriously, judging my character because of my geographic location? How ignorant. I may be incorrect in my beliefs and flawed in my ideology, but not ignorant.

Edit 2: Tecumseh was a native American who died fifty years prior to the civil war. The only reason I take offense at the comment is your ignorance. Well played.

[Mattey]

Yeah, that was more just a dig on the south and Louisiana in particular. It didn't add anything to the discussion.

And I haven't been following your posts so enlighten me. What did this mean?

I think had the country had stuck to principles, the landscape would look so much different. People would have used railroads more (which private companies could and did build), as well as air travel. Less pollution per person, less taxes per person, more useable land... but hot damn, we had to have roads. It seemed like a good idea, at the time.

Is this satire that I'm missing? Or... what?

I keep reading that post, and I guess you're trying to make some analogy between the government running the roads (because they're inherently inefficient) and should therefore run health care (because, right now, it's inherently inefficient.) I don't get it. What are you trying to say?

Edit: Maybe you're saying that at the time it seemed like a good idea for the government to build roads, just like now it seems like a good idea for the government to run health care. But, in hindsight we'll see that it was a mistake and travel to G-5 galaxy. Is that it?

Double Edit: Tecumseh Sherman* I like his middle name more.

[genocidal]

Yeah, that was more just a dig on the south and Louisiana in particular. It didn't add anything to the discussion.

But oh man! It was hilarious!

[Jerome Scuggs]

I'm afraid I can't continue this discussion; I am under the flawed belief that government runs healthcare now. I had this crazy idea that they were involved in Medicaid, Medicare, the enforcement of HMO's, the monopolization of doctors via the AMA, and the regulation of insurance industries. Ignorant old me. I mean, if this healthcare bill is "reform", then they are reforming something, which implies it exists prior - or else there would be nothing to reform.

I hate being so IGNORANT

[Mattey]

What does that even mean? It's funny, people usually start being passive-aggressive when they have nothing else to say.

[Jerome Scuggs]

What It means is, you falsely associated my side comment to squeezer with my position on healthcare, stating that healthcare is inefficient and therefore government should run it. So you ignorantly jump into the conversation, misinterpret it, and then imply that the government currently does not run healthcare. While calling me ignorant and being a dick about my place of birth. Granted, you caught me on a bad night, but my passive aggressiveness is far from having nothing to say. Like I said, you have not been around for the past through months, starting with my posts on how the economy would collapse, and how government attempts to intervene would not work at best, and hurt the economy further at worst - and this was when most people were refusing to believe a recession would happen. It culminated IMO with the thread on hyperinflation, in which I crammed so much economic theory onto these forums that it was almost accredited. But you northern folks complained about "walls of text" and since then I've had less to say.

If you wanna have a fireside chat proper, we can do that. If you're going to wish for the mass killing of my state and geographic region by a mass murderer, I'll save my time and effort.

[Epinephrine]

What does that even mean? It's funny, people usually start being passive-aggressive when they have nothing else to say.

Mattey you haven't been posting here much, so let me enlighten you.

Jerome firmly believes that the 'government' should basically disappear, because 'people' (and he'll mock me for using the term people by saying 'who are these people) are inherently better at making their own decisions about everything than any other external force or set of rules could ever.

At his best, he wants Ron Paul to become president and wants all of Ron Paul's policies to succeed. At his most extreme, Jerome would do away with government altogether and have us live in anarchy (his ideal form of government), with absolute capitalism being the unifying system that binds us altogether.

That's it... no government... nothing.

So Jerome doesn't support the government running healthcare. He doesn't support the government running the fire department. He doesn't support the government running the road system. He doesn't support governments (or anyone telling him what he can or can't do) period.

It's as simple as that.

He's not trolling either, Jerome has been pretty consistent with these beliefs for a year or two now and has posted extensively about it.

[Mattey]

Explain why this post is in a thread about health care.

I was daydreaming about roads and I had a random thought: roads are in fact ridiculously expensive and take up alot of space. Cars do nothing but create pollution. In short, very inefficient... which is why the government runs it.

I think had the country had stuck to principles, the landscape would look so much different. People would have used railroads more (which private companies could and did build), as well as air travel. Less pollution per person, less taxes per person, more useable land... but hot damn, we had to have roads. It seemed like a good idea, at the time.

And address this:

A question for you: why healthcare?

Because uninsured people ALREADY cost taxpayers millions of dollars. Part of the reason why this is, is because they can't afford preventative care. Then they go to the ER when the situation becomes dire. When they can't afford to pay their astronomical ER bill, guess who foots the bill when they declare bankruptcy?

If there were universal health care, the poor person could see a doctor when he has the flu, instead of going to the ER when he eventually develops pneumonia. Everyone paying to insure everyone would end up saving everyone money. But this is America, and we're greedy, short-sighted motherfuckers.

It also doesn't help that we are so heterogeneous. So when ignorant hillbilly #1 hears that his tax dollars are going to help generic black guy #2 kick his cold, he can't put himself in generic black guy #2's shoes. I truly think if America were all white people we would have had universal health care decades ago (like every other civilized, industrialized country). Sadly, this is not the case.

Then we can move forward.

[Mattey]

Holy shit? haha, you don't think there should be a fire department, a police department, hospitals or a road system? Seriously? Epi has to be misrepresenting your views.

[Mattey]

So you ignorantly jump into the conversation, misinterpret it, and then imply that the government currently does not run healthcare.

Right now, government doesn't run health care, it runs a very small portion of it. Health care in America is largely privatized, we can agree on this at least... right?

[Epinephrine]

Holy shit? haha, you don't think there should be a fire department, a police department, hospitals or a road system? Seriously? Epi has to be misrepresenting your views.

Oh Jerome will for sure say I'm misrepresenting his views, but basically that's what he believes in. To be clear he probably thinks there should be a fire/police/road system, but it would be run privately and that is the best way to ensure it's run well.

[Mattey]

Let Jerome speak for Jerome!

[Jerome Scuggs]

I know it sounds crazy - letting fire departments be run by firefighters, letting hospitals be run by doctors, letting roads be maintained by engineers - but what sounds crazier is letting a few people with experience in none of those things, run those things, with no consent on behalf of the governed and no actual incentive to do a good job.

[gran guerrero]

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