Comments (39) Jump to Comments Form

1. 

   scottfreitas said, 4 months ago

   Hehe. :)

2. 

   big G 3469 said, 4 months ago

   F-

3. 

   dtroutma said, 4 months ago

   I could have sworn we had an election that demonstrated more power than a few “demonstrations” put on by sore losers and the duped.

4. 

   oldlegodad said, 4 months ago

   Stupid people and juveniles deceived by acorn and others voted for “change” and got ineptitude corruption and hubris at odds with real Americans

5. 

   nomad2112 said, 4 months ago

   dtroutma, it wasn’t a landslide.

6. 

   GNWachs said, 4 months ago

   “I could have sworn we had an election that demonstrated more power than a few “demonstrations” put on by sore losers and the duped.”

   Of course that is correct. And we actually have a precedent. Bush was elected and then reelected and never did the Democrats utter one word in opposition or demonstrate against his plans. We want the same response from the losers in this last election.

7. 

   cdward said, 4 months ago

   “Stupid people and juveniles deceived by acorn and others voted for “change” and got ineptitude corruption and hubris at odds with real Americans”

   You could say this or something similar for every election. Which either means “real Americans” are inherently stupid, or the election system is screwed up, OR we have been so divided as a country from the get go that unity never was possible.

8. 

   charlie555 said, 4 months ago

   Charismatic candidates and “first” candidates (first Catholic, first African-American, first woman, etc) will always be at a disadvantage because they don’t know how many agenda votes they received and how many groupie and cultural votes they received.

   Obama is doubly disadvantaged because he is very charismatic and a “first.”

   It’s just the way it is. Perhaps this is why Americans generally like bland candidates?

9. 

   Ian Valenzuela said, 4 months ago

   70,000 teabaggers marched on Washington. 70,000,000 Americans voted for Obama. The majority is still with the President, no matter how loud and rude the teabaggers get. GOP, continue to dream that you are the majority, and you will continue to remain asleep.

10. 

    petergrt said, 4 months ago

    “You could say this or something similar for every election. Which either means “real Americans” are inherently stupid, or the election system is screwed up, OR we have been so divided as a country from the get go that unity never was possible.”

    Actually, the last presidential election was quite different from any other, indeed it was more akin to a perfect storm:

    Most news-media outlets became 0bama’s campaign centers.

    No white person could be elected a dogcatcher if he had attended KKK, or other like ‘church’ meetings for 20 years.

    With the fall of Global Communism a couple of decades away, Marxism, Socialism and such were all but off radar.

    Most importantly though, the worldwide financial crisis that exploded weeks before the election, cementing the demise of the party in power - however wrongly perceived it was - Democrats controlled the Congress, but hardly anyone knew.

11. 

    charlie555 said, 4 months ago

    ^140,000,000 Americans did not vote for Obama. Until Obama knows the reasons why they did not vote for him, and the reasons why those who voted for him did so, it would be prudent for him to tread lightly.

12. 

    oldlegodad said, 4 months ago

    WTF and counselling Ho and Pimp on how to scam mortgage and taxes….real fine organization.

13. 

    Tigger said, 4 months ago

    This is extremely True

14. 

    believecommonsense said, 4 months ago

    charlie, there were only 169,000,000 registered voters in 2008. There were 129,391,814 votes cast in the presidential election. So what does the 140,000,000 number represent?

    Obama won 52.9% of registered voters, a larger win percentage than 2000 and 2004.

15. 

    DrCanuck said, 4 months ago

    Um…Gorrell…the USA is a community? Not that I’ve noticed.

16. 

    charlie555 said, 4 months ago

    bcs

    I count unregistered and non-voters. They’re Americans too. Their voices count even if they’ve given up on a poisoned political system. Give them a real statesman and they’ll come back to the political process just like African-Americans came out for Obama.

    My research gives (approx) 210 million possible voters of which 70 million voted for Obama. This leaves 140 million Americans who did not give him any mandate.

17. 

    HOWGOZIT said, 4 months ago

    You are duped by Acorn wtfall among a bunch or others.

18. 

    believecommonsense said, 4 months ago

    charlie555, to put context around the numbers you cite, you would need to go through the same process for previous elections. I don’t just mean Bush, go back to Clinton too. Without context, those numbers have no real meaning.

19. 

    GNWachs said, 4 months ago

    Here in NYC on Tuesday we had a primary election. there was an 11% turnout. That meant 90-95% of citizens did not vote for the winner. I think, if you don’t vote you can’t complain.

20. 

    ChuckTrent64 said, 4 months ago

    Nomad? Was Bush’s 2004 victory a “landslide?”

21. 

    ChuckTrent64 said, 4 months ago

    By the way, it’s early yet. Let’s see how the community organizer does on the back 9.

22. 

    4uk4ata said, 4 months ago

    “Stupid people and juveniles deceived by acorn and others voted for “change” and got ineptitude corruption and hubris at odds with real Americans”

    There might have been a few like that, yeah. However, I can bet you a cookie that most people who voted for Obama were “real Americans” themselves.

23. 

    charlie555 said, 4 months ago

    bcs

    I see what you mean, but the context I am worried about is not simply the number of Americans who did not give a particular president a mandate, but that number plus a president with an agenda of cultural machination.

    Only God knows what may spark widespread civil unrest or even Civil War in any nation. It seems to me that a prudent president will tread softly when a full 2/3 of the people did not vote for him.

    This is not the time to ignore such signs as divisive town meetings, local tea parties, burgeoning conservative media ratings, etc. It’s a time to step back and listen; to find out what changes Americans are really willing to accept wholeheartedly, tolerate as an experiment, or take up arms against.

24. 

    charlie555 said, 4 months ago

    This is the first documentation that I have seen that confirms my suspicion that many Americans voted for Obama, not for his agenda, but for the sake of race relations:

    http://www.creators.com/conservative/pat-buchanan/race-and-stupidity.html

    QUOTE:

    “Barack won the African-American vote 24 to 1. But he did better among whites than Al Gore, a Southerner, or John Kerry. One reason, according to pollsters, is that many white folks thought a black president would finally get us out of the cul de sac of race politics. Barack Obama would be a ‘post-racial president.’”

    If this is true, President Obama already has his legacy. There is no need for him to push America to the brink of a cultural melt-down.

25. 

    believecommonsense said, 4 months ago

    charlie555, but it is hard for me not to wonder if you felt Bush should have followed the same restraint, since he did not even win the popular vote in 2000, and won in 2004 with a smaller percentage than Obama did in 2008. Do you see what I’m getting at?

    I doubt this Administration is ignoring the divisiveness and discord. The “bully pulpit” is one of any president’s greatest advantages. Obama is not confrontational in his remarks, he’s sought to seek agreement that could be built upon. I admit he was more critical of the false charges being made (death panels, etc) in his address to a joint session of Congress, but I thought he needed to be;. those false charges had been hanging out there unchallenged by the administration too long.

    IMO, he’s has consistently sought to distance himself from racism brouhahas, as he did again recently. I give him credit for that.

26. 

    charlie555 said, 4 months ago

    bcs

    Yes, I think Bush definitely overestimated support for his agenda of “compassionate conservatism.”

    I think he did feel the restraint of the controversial 2000 win. (Of course 9-11 set his agenda for him.) He felt vindicated with the 2004 win and tried to spend what he thought was his political capital. But he ended up alienating the conservatives by expanding government control of education and healthcare.

    He probably received a significant “war vote” that had nothing to do with support for his domestic agenda.

27. 

    charlie555 said, 4 months ago

    bcs

    There is a difference between hyperbole for effect (an accepted rhetorical device) and a lie.

    “Death panels” is hyperbole for the government entity which will make the healthcare rationing decisions that are necessary in any healthcare system.

    The plug is pulled on grandma every day. But, presently, the decision is made primarily by grandma herself, her doctor, her family, and the insurance companies we choose.

    All Obama does by calling “death panels” (health rationing) a lie - which it obviously is not - is quash the discussion that he does not want to take place; the question of whether Americans really want the government making these decisions for us.

    It is this refusal to allow dialogue that is infuriating the people. After all, this is AMERICA.

28. 

    GNWachs said, 4 months ago

    @Charlie Welcome aboard.

    I have been attempting to make your exact points for the last few months. Well articulated. But I am afraid all your logic will fall on deaf ears.

    You say rationing, Obama says death panels and the response (see above) is you are lying there are no death panels. They are unable to see a connection between rationing and limiting very expensive medications and the subsequent consequences.

29. 

    believecommonsense said, 4 months ago

    charlie, I appreciate your thoughtful responses … you and I have had some constructive dialogue. I hope this can be another constructive dialogue.

    I believe there is tremendous misunderstanding of the medical panels (I don’t know if they’re actually called panels in the House bill) Obama has talked about. They make perfect sense to me and they deal with a subject physicians have long known about. In some areas of the country, for example, the overwhelming percentage of children have their tonsils removed. In other areas, almost no children have their tonsils removed. Yet there is no difference in the health of the children.

    Obama has given different examples in different speeches, but here’s one from June 9: That means promoting the best practices, not simply the most expensive. We should ask why places like the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, and other institutions can offer the highest quality care at costs well below the national norm. We need to learn from their successes and replicate those best practices across our country. That’s how we can achieve reform that preserves and strengthens what’s best about our health care system, while fixing what is broken.

    I would have to do much more research to find concrete examples, but I recall Obama gave some at a town hall meeting some months ago. He compared the costs and outcomes of very specific conditions at two healthcare centers in the U.S. The first center spent about one-half as much per patient as the second, yet had better outcomes than the center that spent twice as much. Because I worked in healthcare administration for so long, I know this “waste” exists. Sometimes it’s just a case of what some physicians are used to doing, so they keep doing.

    Medical researchers have been studying the efficacy of specific treatments for a long time. This is not a political issue at all. The research is there and it’s been shared and adopted in specific areas, but not on a nationwide level as Obama is suggesting. It’s ironic that going back to Nixon, presidents have been saying they will work to control rising healthcare costs, and yet costs have not been controlled. In fact, healthcare costs are literally out of control right now, with growth in spending far outpacing every other segment of society, including inflation, wages, etc., with no improvement in overall health of population.

    So the sharing of “best practices” is a win/win situation. One, it can help spread information about the best practices as proved by research and help achieve better outcomes. Two, it can help control costs if expensive tests, treatments, etc., that do not improve outcomes are no longer routinely practiced.

    As I see it, the medical review panels are a very good way to prevent rationing and save wasted dollars within the system. It’s not about death panels, and it was never about pulling the plug on grandma.

    I know this post is long but I’ve tried to explain it more fully, since I think this provision is so misunderstood.

30. 

    kensurg said, 4 months ago

    Let’s say an expensive cancer treatment has a 50% chance of working, does the pt get it? What about a 10% chance? 5%? 1%? .5%? etc. What it by working we mean it prolongs life yrs? 1 yr? 6 mos? Currently the people that try to answer these questions are the insurance companies (and no one likes it when they say no). Who is going to make these decisions when there is only 1 party payer? No matter how you spin it, it is rationing. and until you can answer these questions good luck controlling the costs.

31. 

    GNWachs said, 4 months ago

    This toon has generated some well thought out well articulated comments. An interactive discussion is ensuing.

    Here is a quote I posted elsewhere

    ”. With cancer care, it’s more severe—Medicare is dismantling the delivery system. Medicare has decreased payments for the administration of lifesaving cancer drugs by over 25% since 2004 and is now planning to cut them by another 38%. Additionally, payments next year will be severely cut for diagnostic imaging and radiation treatment. Cancer clinics are increasingly struggling to treat patients while remaining viable.

    Based on documented five-year survival rates, the U.S. has the best cancer-care delivery system in the world. However, Medicare is a threat to that record and needs to be fixed in health-care reform; extending its influence—for example, by basing a public plan on it—would have catastrophic implications for cancer care.

    Ted Okon

    Executive Director

    Community Oncology Alliance”

32. 

    charlie555 said, 4 months ago

    bcs

    This is a very good example to work from. Consider how varied opinions are concerning something as simple as the removal of a child’s tonsils.

    Some parents allow their children to suffer the pain and inconvenience of frequent sore throats for fear of the risks of surgery. Some parents allow the suffering in trust of the God Who sends us small penances early to avoid large ones later.

    On the other side, some parents see the risks of surgery small compared to the ongoing suffering of their child. And some parents opt for surgery simply because they don’t like how it inconveniences them to have their child so often ill. (A doctor may recommend a child have his tonsils removed because he is left alone when he is sick because his mother can’t afford day care or won’t bother with it. An “unnecessary” procedure may save this child’s life.)

    Every health care decision is a very private decision fraught with variables that are religious and social as well as financial. I find it quite reasonable that Americans object to any invasion of the privacy between themselves and their doctors, and themselves and their children.

    You seem to be saying that you would find it acceptable for an anonymous government panel to over-ride decisions made by doctors and parents who actually know and love their patient and child.

    A “best practice” may still not be the best decision for a particular child.

33. 

    believecommonsense said, 4 months ago

    I’m including transcript of the remarks by Dr. Jim Yong Kim, a medical doctor, anthropologist and scientist, now president of Dartmouth University.

    _ re tonsil study _: *”Why is there variation, for example, in the number of children who get their tonsils taken out, between one county in Vermont versus another? ‘Cause one of his children was in school at one place. Another of his children were in the school in another place.” *

    ”And in one place, almost everyone had their tonsils out. And in another place, almost no one did. And of course, he found that there happened to be a doctor there who liked to take tonsils out and benefited from it. And he kept asking this question, you know, outcome variation. He called it the evaluative clinical sciences. And I think that’s really the forerunner to what we’re talking about in terms of the science of healthcare delivery.”

    The latter part of this quote explains the type of medical research that I referred to. It’s neither partisan nor political, it’s led by physicians, scientists and researchers. Here’s another explanation he offered :

    *”It means how do you evaluate clinical outcomes? How do you understand variation in doctors’ practices, for example? And ultimately, how do you fix the problems? So the group at Dartmouth Institute does all of that. We look at variation. You know, why is a Medicare reimbursement rate, you know, almost a third in the Mayo Clinic area, as opposed to Miami?” *

    ”It’s around 6,000 and around 15,000, huge differentials. And they simply ask that question. That’s the Dartmouth Atlas, that looks at variation in health care expenditures from one place to the other. And we keep asking the question. “Why does this happen?”

    ”So not only do we study the problem and try to understand why there’s variation and why there’s poor outcomes in one place, but we also work very hard in the kinds of interventions that will change the tide. I think that’s the science of health care delivery.”

    I’ve offered his own words rather than my paraphrasing them because when you read them (or hear them) it’s clear he’s talking about improving cost and quality, exactly what we MUST do as a nation to control our out-of-control healthcare costs. And the tonsil discrepancy was not due to parental choices, but to physician habits. I felt like I learned from listening to him. to read the complete transcript go here:

    http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/09112009/transcript3.html

    charlie: ”You seem to be saying that you would find it acceptable for an anonymous government panel to over-ride decisions made by doctors and parents who actually know and love their patient and child.”

    I trust experts like Dr. Kim to research patterns, inefficiencies and outcomes. It would not be an anonymous panel of government bureaucrats. It is something we have to do or we will be crushed by healthcare costs and our ‘system’ will implode to the disadvantage of all except the very wealthy who could afford to pay independent of insurance.

    I was a consultant to a physicians’ group in the ’90s so I know first-hand that physicians are aware other physicians habitually have abnormal practice patterns which cannot be justified by medical facts. It exists.

    And, back to your statement I quoted above, right now insurers routinely over-ride medical decisions. I’ve shared details on my sister, so just to recap: Her private insurer refused to authorize a procedure for clogged neck artery, her doctor fought for it to no avail. Shortly thereafter she had a stroke and was never able to return to work, too much damage.

    My sister’s neighbor, a man in his late 50s, took himself to an ER with chest pains. His doctor, who knew the patient well, wanted the hospital to keep him overnight. The hospital wanted to keep him overnight. The insurer said no, he was discharged and died of a heart attack in his sleep that very night.. These two examples are not aberrations. I most definitely do not trust insurers who overrule doctors constantly. I trust the methodical, scientific research described in this post can help us achieve goals for cost and quality.

    This is a good dialogue.

34. 

    parker has left the ... said, 4 months ago

    i think i’m in love! so much right brain brilliance around here.

35. 

    believecommonsense said, 4 months ago

    parker, why is this right brain? (I thought left brain was linear and right brain emotional, is that not right?)

36. 

    moosegirl said, 4 months ago

    I agree with oldlegodad. Acorn sucks. How helpless do you have to be if you can’t go to city hall or other voter registration location, produce your id or proof of residence, and register. If you don’t know where to go, get to your local library and use one of their computers, look up your town, and search on voter registration. Geez!

37. 

    charlie555 said, 4 months ago

    bcs,

    [I am sorry about your sister. I hesitated to respond because you used personal examples, but I trust you will not be offended by sincere dialogue, which this is.]

    Again, I agree there are abuses all around: doctors, patients, hospitals, insurance companies, and government when it is involved.

    But let’s look at your sister’s case. You say the doctor fought for the procedure, yet when the insurance company denied it, it does not appear he told your sister to sign a payment plan with the hospital and have the procedure anyway. If he really expected such a bad outcome without the procedure, wouldn’t he have told her to sell the farm to have it done?

    If he didn’t know the future, how can you expect the insurance company to know it? For every person helped by a procedure, there are people who benefit not at all, and some who are actually hurt by it. All an insurance company can do is roll the numbers in such a way that they help the most people and stay in business.

    I’m sure many insurers would rather pay for more actual health benefitting procedures than they do, but state regulations may make them pay for non-essential things like breast-reconstruction after a mastectomy. There is only so much money to go around. Even a non-profit company has to ration care to keep premiums low for everyone.

    I have a hard time feeling bad for your sister’s neighbor. He died the death many people pray for - asleep in his own bed. We don’t know he would have survived the heart attack in the hospital. He may have been saved and endured months of suffering attached to machines before escaping life.

    We live in a country where many people believe it is impossible to die a moment before the Lord calls us home. They see the hand of God in the decisions of their pastors, doctors, and, yes, even their “evil” insurance companies. They will also see it in the rationing decisions the government makes, if it comes to this.

    But caring for the sick is the work of God, not the State. For me, this is a matter of the separation of Church and State. The State is usurping the rights of the Church (defined as the local community of like-minded individuals). It is a defeat of the people.

38. 

    believecommonsense said, 4 months ago

    charlie555, Life is full of unknowns, without a doubt. What I hoped would be informative to people is that in each case, it was an insurance call center that interfered with patient care. As I’m sure you know, one of claims from the opposition to healthcare reform is that it will put government between you and your doctor. But the reality today is that a for-profit insurer sits smack dab in the middle between you and your doctor, frequently, and for no good medical reason. The primary priority for a private health insurer is to return profits to shareholders, to please Wall St. with its medical loss ratios so its stock prices will do well. I’m not ranting, that is their #1 goal.

    Of course my sister could have opted to have and pay for surgery out of pocket (or any other patient whose insurer denies care) but I would assert that very few, if any, people do that. They’ve been paying for health insurance, why should they have to now pay for the actual medical care their insurance was supposed to cover?

    I don’t consider my sister’s case rationing of care, to me, it was an abuse of my sister’s rights by the insurer. Rationing, to me, means that not every person is going to be entitled to a liver transplant, or a heart transplant, or undergoing intrusive extraordinary measures when their condition is terminal. (Just a personal aside, if I reach that point myself, I will not opt for continuing extraordinary measures.)

    If I leave with you any information learned from these posts, I hope it is that private insurers frequently become the deciding factor, rather than the doctor, or even the patient, about the course and quality of care we receive. They are insurers, they are not clinicians, but they substitute their policies and protocols for the judgment of physicians who know the patient and the patient’s history.

    Do I think insurers are evil? I think I’d say they are now occupying an improper role in the health of the American people. Thanks for responding.

39. 

    charlie555 said, 4 months ago

    And I agree that reform is needed in the way insurance companies are regulated.

    And I think it is worth noting that if the government is in charge of health care, there is a good chance that we will not be able to pay for a government-denied procedure ourselves. It wouldn’t be “fair”.

    So only the very rich who could fly to other countries will have this option. I’m sure India will start hiring our best doctors.