Reader Mail
Warning: Low Battery
Volt’s charge account. Bunion care in New Zealand. Pulling grandma’s plug. End of life costs. Not mean enough. Plus more.
(Page 4 of 5)
President Ronald Reagan cut government waste and inefficiency, freeing up capital, that when returned to the people, was used to improve the quality of life of millions upon millions of Americans. He never felt a need to call his conservative values “compassionate.” He understood that Conservatism is innately compassionate.
“Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it
everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong
remedies.” — Groucho Marx
— I.M. Kessel
“Mean-spirited hypocrites” is much too polite, though sufficiently succinct.
Perhaps, though, “pusillanimous, narrow-minded, imperious,
malicious, mendacious, mean-spirited hypocrites” has its
place?
— C. Kenna Amos Jr.
Princeton, West Virginia
AN ANGRY MOB OF ONE
I am an angry mob, and I took some Tea last week.
I stood by an Obamacare supporter. We began to speak.
He is a middle aged engineer, and he is without a job.
He didn’t seem to fit in with the Acorn egged-on mob.
He has no health care coverage. He’s worried and he’s
scared.
He voted for our president, thinking Obama really cared.
We chatted in a friendly way. On most things we agreed.
We found we are both average folk with no elitist greed.
He hadn’t seen his freedom lost, hadn’t come to that
conclusion.
He began to open his eyes and ears and spotted the Grand
Illusion.
We realized our American hopes and dreams really did align.
As I waved good-bye, he waved back and put down his Obama
sign.
— Mimi Evans Winship
GIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE ME RATIONING
Re: Letters from Gary Hankin and Bob Blazek in Reader Mail’s
The Common Sense Panel:
Those of us who work within health insurance know a few things which may make you uncomfortable.
Within any given plan, a handful of severely ill people can take up 40% to 75% of all the benefits an insurance company will pay out. Of course, that is the whole theory behind insurance: healthy people contribute to a common pool of funds from which they can draw in case illness or injuries befall them. For this to work, by definition, it takes a large number healthy people who do not (or, at least, minimally) draw on the fund to feed the money pool so that a smaller number of ill and injured may be supported when facing large medical care costs.
Studies have shown that, taking one’s “medical life” as a whole, the lion’s share of one’s medical expenses occurs during the last six months of life. Even barring significant and “heroic” measures to prolong life, efforts to relieve pain (palliative care) can be quite expensive.
Thus when seeking to gain some control of potentially limitless costs, the most obvious means would be 1.) Interventions which limit the benefits those who “over-utilize” medical resources can receive. 2.) Intervene in the medical treatments for the elderly and dying.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (22) | Leave a comment
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frost| 8.19.09 @ 7:01AM
That Groucho Marx comment has also been attributed to a gentleman named Ernest Benn.
How appropriate!
Michael L. Hauschild| 8.19.09 @ 8:41AM
Until fuel cells are perfected and the distribution and storage issues of separating and storing hydrogen and oxygen are resolved all this hoopla about “green” transportation is unrealistic. Fossil hydrocarbon fuels are incredibly efficient within the context of some established frameworks (the efficiency of trains and barges for instance will boggle your mind). Progress does not flourish under the government stipulation to politically correct scenarios.
Wars, depressions, and recessions are the motivators for innovative solutions. Scientists and freedom loving individuals do best in times of stress and you will soon witness the vehement rejection of the socialist principal of “abandonment,” be it proven technologies, proven economic principles, or proven democratic political systems.
The Red Editor| 8.19.09 @ 9:58AM
To the wonderfully confused Loretta Austin of New Zealand: Maybe it has something to do with the fact that the US population exceeds that of your native country by a mere 300,000,000 people. Or maybe it has to do with the belief in individual liberties this country was founded upon, as opposed to individual entitlements. This is not a Socialist nation, nor is it a Democracy...it's a Representative Republic. You also mentioned the ol' cliche about "a mark of a civilised country shows in how we treat the underprivileged." Needless to say, US citizens donate more to charity and social causes around the world than any other country, and most if not all combined. FORCED CHARITY IS NOT CHARITY. No US citizen wants to see their fellow man/woman without adequate services, some of us are just smart enough to recognize when those services are administered improperly or to the fault of those receiving said aid. Please, you can come here and get an education, but stay out of political arenas you admittedly don't understand.
2Anglico| 8.19.09 @ 10:18AM
Loretta: People who cannot afford/choose not to buy insurance, GET CARE IF THEY NEED IT. There is a little law duly passed by our congress that makes it so.
As to "violently" opposing .... obviously you know NOTHING about violence.
The house bill being discussed DOES NOT ALLOW a dual plan as in NZ. We are opposed to our government trying to GRAB POWER they are not allowed to have!
Ned| 8.19.09 @ 10:21AM
In reply to Loretta Austin's letter, "CAN"T FIGURE US OUT", from Red Beach, NZ:
The health care reforms Mr. Obama is tossing about are no more about health care than the global warming scam (Cap & Trade) is about the environment. Both are naked attempts to seize power in the US government in a manner that their supporters believe will be irreversible, and remake the country in ways most Americans oppose.
If there was even the least bit of honesty in these two packages of corruption, Americans - the most generous people on the planet - would not be so outspoken against them. If "health care reform" were the real objective there are a myriad of changes and solutions to issues that heavily effect the overall health care outcome in the country. Tellingly, not one of those changes or solutions is even under discussion in the most dishonest, calculating, manipulative White House in American history.
And, by the way, none of those changes or solutions require 1000 pages of impenetrable jargon to enact.
Were there even a hint of honesty in Obama's schemes, there would be at least grudging admission that most of the problems in American health care costs are caused by the very government that now pretends it can "fix" them. If there were a shadow of truth in the room, proponents would not feel obliged to falsely inflate the numbers of uninsured to the commonly quoted 47 or 50 million, but would address the 9 or so million 'core' uninsured.
But to do that they would also have to admit that even that core group actually gets health care when they need it. It may be inconveniently delivered, but health care is available, even to the millions upon millions of illegal aliens here that you, Loretta, don't have to worry about. And to admit that there are actually fewer uninsured than there are illegal aliens in the system, and they all get care, reduces the scope of the problem to something manageable without a complete make over of the American economy - but then, that's the actual goal, isn't it.
One thing that Americans really do not like is being taken for chumps.
2Anglico| 8.19.09 @ 10:23AM
Also Loretta, millions of Americans have died so that others would not have to live in tyranny. DO NOT PREACH to us about caring for the "underprivleged".
Ned| 8.19.09 @ 10:31AM
And, as the Red Editor points out above, Loretta, having a perfect health care system in an isolated country of 4M is an altogether different question than providing for more than 300M. Hell, we have at least three times as many illegals here than you have citizens!
Appleby| 8.19.09 @ 10:47AM
Loretta, I was in your country in 1991 when it declared bankruptcy. I have a good friend in Wellington who lost his job with Air New Zealand when it was privatized, who has kept me posted over the years on how that worked out. I understand that since the cold shower bath taken by the people of your country (and I heard the public service announcements instructing all the Needy and Underprivileged that the gravy train had ground to a halt and they should report to their Nannies to find out what happens next) and the injection of market capitalism into many areas previously socialized, that things have dramatically improved, to the point where your post office gives everybody one day of free mail per year. I also understand your dollar is now 67 cents to the US Dollar as opposed to 50 cents in 1991.
I very much enjoyed the three weeks I spent in New Zealand and I recommend it to any sports tourist in the world except race car drivers not involved in rally. H owever, living there would give me the creeps because your population is so small and isolated that you pretty much all have the same face.
Ray| 8.19.09 @ 11:57AM
"Can you please explain exactly why Americans are so violently and maliciously against providing care for those who can't afford insurance?"
Loretta. no one is being denied health care in America. Let me repeat that, NO ONE is being denied health care in America. Not even the people who are just visiting America and have no insurance can be denied health care. I don't know where you get your information, but it's false.
David Govett| 8.19.09 @ 12:38PM
Not only does New Zealand pay nothing for the international security system paid for by the overburdened American taxpayer, it won't even let American Navy ships drop anchor there. Freeloaders like NZ often have disposable money to spend on health care, etc., and are particularly happy to proffer advice to the U.S., as long as they don't need to contribute. My disgust with NZ is boundless.
JerseyJ| 8.19.09 @ 1:09PM
A splendid rant by C.D. Lueders. I heartily agree.
PolishKnight| 8.19.09 @ 2:31PM
Has anyone noticed that socialist paradises always seem to work (somewhat) when there's a small population in a large resource area, isolated (on an island or far north), and usually almost entirely lily white?
Crack open your borders, Loretta, and let all the illiterate people with health problems in from near you and then give us a call and see how it's working out for ya.
Smithy| 8.20.09 @ 5:31AM
As an immigrant from Britain to New Zealand of 52 years I can understand some replies to Loretta's letter. PolishKnight touches a good point since large numbers of Pacific Islanders have flooded into NZ causing a blip in health, education, and policing services in some parts. NZ officials would of course deny any problems, but we older types can see the negative differences. David Govet is both right and wrong. NZ has supplied men and material to both world wars, exceptional in relation to it's population. Helped out the US in Vietnam and has an SIS detachment in Afghanistan. Yes, some of us don't like the big anti-nuclear lobby that exists here and so the refusal to have US nuclear ships in NZ ports. It is sad there is an undercurrent of anti-Americanism among many Kiwis. Personally I have helped host American farm visitors to this country and would say they are the best. It is my concern at the moment the way western democratic nations are being undercut by the left, and old tried and true systems are coming under fire, a propaganda war is in progress to force our western cultural inheritance into submission to a foreign miasma.
Pat| 8.20.09 @ 11:07AM
Loretta Austin,
If you were indeed a student in the United States, you would have an adequate understanding of why most Americans are so “violently and maliciously against providing care for those who can't afford insurance”. You are a shill and a fraud…