I like the way your reply completely fails to address ANY of those ten inconvenient facts, but instead wants me to look up some nonexistent eleventh “dissatisfaction.”

WOW, I hate repeating myself, but I did address one of the fact. Fact #7. Go back and read that comment.

As an example fact #7, which stated that people in countries with gov’t controlled health care were highly dissatisfied, conveniently didn’t list the number of Americans dissatisfied with their health care.

But it also left off the statement in the abstract which said

The United States stands out for cost-related access barriers and less-efficient care.

But who cares about whether you have the best health care system in the world, if you can’t afford it.

That’s all that article. The Hoover Institute is a right propaganda tool, which conveniently cherry picked the data, to mislead the public [a common tactic of the right], and basically making only comparisons between the US and Canada and UK.

And in case you forgot, which I can understand living in such a narrowly focused world, there are quite a few other countries in the world, besides the UK and Canada.

I wonder why those countries were conveniently left out the comparison? You think maybe they didn’t support the conclusions the Hoover Institute were trying to promote.

Like I told Rob before, continuing thinking the US has the best health care system in the world. Just don’t get sick or get old. You’ll soon find out how quickly you’re perception will change.

Rob Port Derangement Syndrome
http://sayanythingblog.com/readers/entry/rpds_rob_port_derangement_syndrome/

>> of a poll where Germans overwhelmingly (80%) approve of their health care system. < <
That's nice. Compared to what?

What do you mean compared to what? Compared to the Hoover report that says 70% of Germans are dissatisfied with their health care system. Didn’t you read fact #7?

See how inconsistent you are Davy_Dave. How come you didn’t ask that same question to Fact #7 in the Hoover report? Because it wouldn’t have fit your agenda, of course.

You’re not interested in the facts, just distortions and lies that suit your agenda. And when you come across information that doesn’t support your agenda, you change the subject.

You’re just like Rob. SELFISH, with no compassion for your fellow man. You believe health care is a privilege, provided only to those that can afford it, not a social service provided to those in need. You believe the sick, the elderly and the poor are just a scourge on the earth, and a drain on your pocketbook. They don’t deserve to live, that is, unless they can afford it get health care, or of course, if they’re members of your family.

Remember that old saying? Well there’s actually two of them.

The first one, “do unto others, as you would have them do unto you”, and the second, “what goes around, comes around”. I just can’t wait for you to experience the latter.

Wow! The tiny minded Tiki Twerp stops calling Rob names long enough to call me names!

Go suck a surfboard, twit! Maybe no one will ask you how your damp, yellow stained “boardies” got that way!

If Hannitized wasn’t such a mewling infant with a bad case of Rob Port Derangement Syndrome, he might notice that it is common practice in political circles to highlight members of your opposition party when they agree with you. Hence, the popularity of “Maverick” John McCain by the MSM and Colin Powell and any number of moderate and RINO Republicans.

Can’t you find a blog with training wheels until you’re ready to show up with an adult argument, Wankertized?

at least I am not a hypocrite like Rob…and the rest of you.

Tiresome, tiny minded Tiki Twerp’s idea of making an argument.

Tim, do your own research and you will find that our cancer patients live longer, America has created the new drugs and new equipment that makes modern medical care such a marvel. When I was diagnosed with breast cancer, I had a meeting with the doctor right away, the surgery within days, and finished radiation in 5 days instead of six weeks because of a new method of radiation which will ensure that if cancer reoccurs in that breast I won’t have to have a mastectomy. Check out the youtube videos from Canadians talking about coming here for catastrophic illnesses and paying the freight rather than waiting to die. Check out the stories of socialized care in Britian: a report just issued by Brits themselves shows that 100.000 people die yearly from cancer because of rationed care. If you can’t see that our system is superior, then you are an idiot.

Only the spinning DJ (Kenny) could be ignorant enough not to see that I am calling Rob out on his newly found respect for Deans opinion.

Not that you would notice hypocrisy, you don’t get paid enough to use your brain.

I think you’re a little confused, not that I’m surprised. You probably live in North Dakota, and don’t get the news are really no what is going on in the world.

I think you meant to say the 500 to 700,000 Americans traveling abroad for treatment are stupid.

Varying reports containing medical tourism statistics put the number of American patients seeking healthcare abroad between 500,000 to 750,000 in 2007.

To Rob and Davey-Dave,

What bothers me the most about all the moronic responses to my comments, no one (with the exception of Carrick, who came up with the well thought out, intelligent [NOT] comment that I am a “f**king idiot”) is disputing my allegation that

[none of you have any] compassion for your fellow man. You believe health care is a privilege, provided only to those that can afford it, not a social service provided to those in need. You believe the sick, the elderly and the poor are just a scourge on the earth, and a drain on your pocketbook[s]. They don’t deserve to live, that is, unless they can afford it, or of course, [are] members of your family.

And why doesn’t that surprise me?

Finally your real motives are revealed!

Your comment is a bald-faced lie. 30 cents on the dollar? Do the math idiot. Insurance companies are lucky to make a 4-6% profit. America has the best health care in the world and it is not the government’s job to run it. Fix the things that are broken, don’t remake the whole system.

We all had better be concerned with the Cap and Tax bill it needs to die for sure, now especially that it has been leaked that they were covering data and hiding the decline in temperatures,It is a religion not science , they see all kinds of green and it ain’t in the trees and leaves , like in funding for their pet projects and a life of ease making large pay checks .Cried wolf one to many times now no one will believe them again . I have writers cramp from writing My reps .Dean is right or half right, it needs to die but no public option at any rate .

“He wants more government price controls over private health insurance plans, and also more elements of a purely single-payer plan.”

I was waiting for the other shoe to drop; and there it is. Whenever someone like Dean switches gears, ther’s always a catch.

Oh brother…all of a sudden you care what Howard Dean thinks, and value his opinion.

Are pigs flying, by chance??

I’ve read that, but I don’t put much faith in it. It’s from a right wing organization, that cherry picked the data, conveniently selecting statistics, for the most part only from Canada and the UK.

As an example fact #7, which stated that people in countries with gov’t controlled health care were highly dissatisfied, conveniently didn’t list the number of Americans dissatisfied with their health care. (Maybe you’d want to purchase the article to get the US number, and enlighten us.)

But what really caught my attention, was the last paragraph of the abstract and which was conveniently left out as well was

The United States stands out for cost-related access barriers and less-efficient care.

BTW, you can see the reference used in the article by going to

Here’s proof for those left loons who think health insurance companies make ‘obscene profit’. http://biz.yahoo.com/p/522conameu.html . This is the “health care plans” index. Look at the column NET PROFIT MARGIN. Now due the math. BTW, why do we demonize someone who makes a profit? Can you left loons quantifiably tell us what is “obscene profit”? Give a number/percentage.

Dean is for Health Care Reform !! He sees the rats and know how to handle them. He wants more government price control over health ins.co.The bright Ones know the best care for the people of this country is a single payer plan. Lets go for it!We need a start and something has to come out of Congress This is all really on paper. we don’t have to move large armies to stamp out tyranny. Starting January bill Washington for your health care needs./
Whats it going to be the fatcats or the people!30cents on every health dollar goes to the Insurance co..and it’s all profit! blood money. Health Care Reform is the ISSUE

Insurance companies are making an 8-10 percent profit

Can you even name 3 with that profit margin?

Wait times are less here than in say Germany? And cancer survival rates are better here as well? Are you sure?

Just you saying so, doesn’t make it so. Where are the stats

Dean is a no-necked boob. Always was, always will be. Always thought that, always will.

“[none of you have any] compassion for your fellow man. You believe health care is a privilege, provided only to those that can afford it…”

Because your intention is to help making a problematic system worse is laudable?!?! You stopped arguing that nationalizing would improve the system or even maintain the same level of care. You now argue it would make the system fair (if worse.) Improving cost (Carrick mentioned methods) would improve access.

AND:
“Fact No. 5: Lower income Americans are in better health than comparable Canadians.”
Improved access means improved for the poor too.

Tim i.r.t. Rob:
“Rob, I find it very intriguing how you can always seem to find fault with data that doesn’t support your perception of things, yet there’s never any problem with your data.”

Tim, I find it very intriguing how you can never do any of your own heavy lifting, to find the data that supposedly refutes Rob’s point. Why do you suppose that IS, Tim?

You see a repudiation anything Obama in the coming 2010 elections? I’m seeing it too. Still surprising to have Dean do such a turnaround but he is nothing but a political animal.

Actually, I *do* like your reference, posted at
http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba649#_ednref9“this link”
yes I do. It’s the link I myself should have posted, instead of the Jonah Goldberg article which only made reference TO it.
. Know what I like about it?
I like the way your reply completely fails to address ANY of those ten inconvenient facts, but instead wants me to look up some nonexistent eleventh “dissatisfaction.”
. So yeah, kudos for good linksmanship on your part, but get back to me when you have an answer for one or more of these ten points, listed here for your convenient reference:
Fact No. 1: Americans have better survival rates than Europeans for common cancers.
Fact No. 2: Americans have lower cancer mortality rates than Canadians.
Fact No. 3: Americans have better access to treatment for chronic diseases than patients in other developed countries.
Fact No. 4: Americans have better access to preventive cancer screening than Canadians.
Fact No. 5: Lower income Americans are in better health than comparable Canadians.
ha haha ha haha that one’s my favorite
Fact No. 6: Americans spend less time waiting for care than patients in Canada and the U.K.
Fact No. 7: People in countries with more government control of health care are highly dissatisfied and believe reform is needed.
Seriously, why DO you think that is?
Fact No. 8: Americans are more satisfied with the care they receive than Canadians.
This all by itself pretty damn well answers your useless “answer” to point 7, made in your prior reply.
Fact No. 9: Americans have much better access to important new technologies like medical imaging than patients in Canada or the U.K.
Fact No. 10: Americans are responsible for the vast majority of all health care innovations.

So howzabout, instead of calling on ME to provide some ill-defined stats that you hope will work against my own point, you try to DISPROVE some of the bothersome facts that are ALREADY on the table? How hard would that be?

“Wait times are less here than in say Germany? And cancer survival rates are better here as well? Are you sure?
Just you saying so, doesn’t make it so. Where are the stats”

Read them and weep, Tim.
http://tinyurl.com/noh5oo
You’re welcome.

Got it.
You can’t answer the questions, so your BEST POSSIBLE reply is this weak-ass “argument by abuse.”
Here’s your fork, Timmy, you’re done now.

Slippery Tim: “I’ve read that, but I don’t put much faith in it. It’s from a right wing organization, that cherry picked the data, conveniently selecting statistics, for the most part only from Canada and the UK.”

So you want to have it both ways, eh? From here, it look like your whole lazy strategy is to complain about how they come from a source that disagrees with your politics, a “right wing organization.” On that basis, you can tune out EVERY opposing viewpoint, simply on the basis that it IS an opposing viewpoint. That must save a lot of strain on the old brain pan, eh?
And of course, when you start hearing it from Howard Dean, who IS on you’re side, you can wave it off on the basis of “hypocrisy.” So you’ve pretty much spared your lazy self from the trouble of even trying to argue your own point.
Okay, wait, I take part of that back, you at least make THIS weak effort:

“As an example fact #7, which stated that people in countries with gov’t controlled health care were highly dissatisfied, conveniently didn’t list the number of Americans dissatisfied with their health care. (Maybe you’d want to purchase the article to get the US number, and enlighten us.)”

I’ll do you one better; I’ll give you a link to the large, and steadily increasing, number of Americans who DO prefer our health care, as it is right now, to the ridiculous “reform” package being pushed right now. Ready? Here…
http://www.quinnipiac.edu/x1295.xml?ReleaseID=1398
Note: “…voters disapprove 51 – 35 percent of the health care overhaul passed by the House of Representatives…” And that’s from the 19th, which was nine days ago. If those numbers have changed in your favor, in the meantime, feel free to post your evidence.
It’s harder, isn’t it, when the specific questions are tied to the specific evidence? Just now, for instance, I took your vague, hand-having “number of Americans dissatisfied with their health care,” and provided an actual yardstick to measure that so-called dissatisfaction. And guess what? When compared against our opinion of Your Side’s stupid “plan,” we’re VERY damn satisfied with what we’ve got now.
You see Tim, it’s like this: In this imperfect world of ours, anybody can be “dissatisfied” with anything, because nothing is perfect or ever has been. So “dissatisfied” is pretty damn meaningless, Until and Unless there’s an actual comparison being made. Everybody wants “lower costs” and “better care” and “wider access,” UNTIL they notice that actual trade-offs are required to obtain those swell things. And they always are. But nobody on your side of this fight is willing to honestly lay it out. If they did, it would be this: “Lower Costs, Better Care, Wider Access: Pick Two.”

Tim “But what really caught my attention, was the last paragraph of the abstract and which was conveniently left out as well was
The United States stands out for cost-related access barriers and less-efficient care.”

If the trade-off is “less-efficient” versus “less-effective,” and it is, then I pick the latter over the former.
As for your complaint above about “conveniently selecting statistics, for the most part only from Canada and the UK.” yeah, there’s an excellent reason why that’s done: Canada and the UK are pretty much Worst Case Scenarios for how a formerly state-of-the-art medical-care industry can be screwed up by ignorant, ham-handed government mismanagement. And despite this, your leftist legislators are using THEM as their model for what they want OUR system to be. So yeah, it’s not too surprising that our side uses those two examples as warnings of what’s in store, once your side gets its way.

“BTW, you can see the reference used in the article by going to

That’s nice, here's one for you, about how your sides plan, along with its many other shortcomings, will totally fail to contain the costs about which you so love to complain.
http://tinyurl.com/ydvyr3g
That’s a .pdf from the Congressional Budget Office, btw, so I’m anxious to see you wave them off as “a right wing organization” or complain about my “hypocrisy” in presenting their figures. While you’re at it, you can make one (or both) of the same complaint(s) about these figures from the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services, you know, the agency that actually RUNS runs those programs, for the government.
http://tinyurl.com/ygzwgqv
Which are they, right wingers or hypocrites?

Oh, and about THIS:
“The Hoover Institute is a right propaganda tool, which conveniently cherry picked the data, to mislead the public [a common tactic of the right],”

Really? It’s a “tactic of the right,” huh?
I guess this means the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (CRU) is a “right wing” organization then, right?
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6936328.ece
“In a statement on its website, the CRU said: “We do not hold the original raw data but only the value-added (quality controlled and homogenised) data.”
~ Professor Phil Jones
And of course, it necessarily follows that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is another huge “right wing” organization too, right?
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/28/science/earth/28hack.html?_r=1
I mean, by your logic, they have to be right wingers, right? No leftists would evvvvver perpetrate a worldwide intergovernment scam based on cherry-picked data points and heavily “massaged” data series, would they?
So it’s GOT to be those evil data-cherry-picking RIGHT wingers, with carbon credit billionaire Al Gore as their front man, who are running this whole Copenhagen conference from behind the scenes, yes, that’s got to be it! Damn those right wingers!

Rob, I find it very intriguing how you can always seem to find fault with data that doesn’t support your perception of things, yet there’s never any problem with your data.

I’m not sure why you’re blaming me for the data you cite having faults.

You keep thinking the US has the best health care system in the world. My only suggestion, don’t get sick or get old, you’ll soon find out how quickly you’re perception will change when you do.

I actually have been sick. Had my gall bladder out two years ago. I had the surgery to remove it two days after my doctor said it needed to come out.

Average wait in Canada? Two weeks. Great Britain? Three months.

When I was 16 I got into a snowmobile accident. Spent two months in the hospital, and another 7 months at home in a hospital bed. Never had a problem with the care I got.

Last year my grandmother died from breast cancer. But she’d been diagnosed with it 10 years earlier, in her late 70′s, and she was treated and it went into remission. During those ten years two of my daughters were born.

In America she got treatment. In her cancer survivor group a woman who had moved here from Canada to get her breast cancer treated said that in Canada, at my grandmother’s age, they’d have just made her comfortable while she died.

So, Tim, maybe I just know what I’m talking about and you’re wrong.

The WHO survey several years back found exceptionally high satisfaction ratings in the US.

While affordability is an issue, no hospital will turn you away for not being able to pay. You’ll just rack up bills. Sorry, but “being in debt for getting treatment” is a completely different animal than “not being treated”.

>>So I guess you believe everything you read on the internet without checking out the facts.< <

1/ I've checked out the facts; you have failed to, despite repeated opportunities to do so.
2/ I definitely believe the well-documented facts I've presented so far, and until and unless you cough up a reason for me to disbelieve them, I'll continue to do so.
3/ And so will all of our readers. Know why? Because you haven't held up your end of the debate.

>>I pointed out the one problem with Fact #7. < <

No, you didn't. You just spitballed out a rhetorical question about what is the level of "dissatisfaction with the health care system in the US," and tried to make it MY job to look it up. But it's not, sportycakes, it's YOUR job to cough up the facts and statistics that will supposedly refute my presented facts.
Still, if you really were curious about that dissatisfaction level, you could have read ahead to
"Fact No. 8: Americans are more satisfied with the care they receive than Canadians."
So, see, the inverse of that would be:
"The level of dissatisfaction felt by Americans for our health care is LOWER than the level of dissatisfaction felt by Canadians for theirs."

>>It doesn’t list the level of dissatisfaction with the health care system in the US. Why not? Do you think maybe the level might even be higher?< <

I don't, and if you do think so, then YOU, yes you, should stop with the bluffing and hand-waving, and LOOK UP some stats that say they're higher. You should, in short, display some knowledge, instead of the bleak ignorance you've been displaying. Yes you should.

>>You might be interested in this article by a German and his sighting< <

citing

>> of a poll where Germans overwhelmingly (80%) approve of their health care system. < <

That's nice. Compared to what?
1/ Get back to me when they conduct that survey in the context of a COMPARISON between their system and that of the U.S. That would make it relevant, you see. So they would need to poll persons who are familiar with both systems. But they didn't.
2/ If that's too hard, then get back to me when there's some reason to think that your PelosiCare / ReidCare / ObamaCare plan has any real resemblance to the German system. And be sure to provide those reasons.

>>But that wouldn’t fit your agenda, would it? So you will just ignore it, or just say it’s a lie.< <

As you see, above, I've done neither. You could save yourself some embarrassment by not presuming to predict my responses. Because so far, you haven't even managed to argue your OWN side of the debate; you're clearly not ready to argue my side too.
Your turn: Show me where and how the German public opinion of the German healthcare system applies to the question at hand.
The question at hand is, lest you forget again:
Is Howard Dean correct in his opinion that the U.S. would be better off with a Single-Payer healthcare system.
You know, like they have in Canada? And Britain? And don't have in Germany?

>>Plus all the other facts only deal with comparisons with the UK and Canada.< <

The discussion started from Howard Dean's dissatisfaction with the Pelosi-Reid-Obama "plan" for U.S. healthcare. What was Howard's complaint? It was that this "plan" isn't extreme enough, that it doesn't become a Single-Payer System. And what are the world's two MOST RELEVANT EXAMPLES of Single-Payer Systems? They are Canada and Britain.
My turn: I now predict that you'll pretend to have known this all along. But clearly, you did not, or you would not be making that same complaint, again and again.

>>That would be good, if the UK and Canada were the only two other countries in the world. The reality is, there are actually quite a few more countries in the world. Maybe you should re-read your history book.< <

Maybe you should address the actual facts I've presented, and either refute them, with better facts, or try to trivialize them, with better logic, or in some other way attempt to persuade our readers that these facts fail to support the case for NOT deforming the present U.S. health care system.
That's what you should do. And if you had any pride or integrity whatsoever, that's what you WOULD do, or at least try to do. But no. All you can do is fling a lot of stupid insults, to wit:

>>You only hear what you want to hear. It’s obvious you only care about yourself. The problems of others are for others to deal with, not you. As long as you got yours who gives a rats about anyone else. Right?<<

This is all strangely unpersuasive, for some reason. How odd, eh?

Oh, and BTW, I never said I approved of any of the health care reform plans going through congress now. They will only make things worse, except for the insurance companies that is. You’re right in that regard [even a broken clock is right twice a day]. But that doesn’t mean I approve of the current US health care system either.<<

Actually, insurance companies made 2.2% profit last year. That’s a slimmer profit margin than Tupperware.

The Wrath Of Tim:
“”what goes around, comes around”.”
You know what goes around? Unanswered questions. So here’s this one, coming around again.

>>If Tim doesn’t like the current U.S. system, and also doesn’t like the Pelosi-Reid-Obama “system” then one of two things is true:
a/ Tim agrees with Howard Dean that a single-payer system is better. You know, like they have in CANADA AND BRITAIN.
or
b/ Tim would prefer the German system, and should explain in what ways it’s superior.
Yeah, that’ll happen.<<

You don’t have an answer for it at all, you evasive little coward, do you?

Those numbers are inflated by cases where Americans get health care while they happen to be traveling abroad.

Getting treated and appendicitis in Mexico isn’t exactly “medical tourism.”

And keep looking down your nose at North Dakota. We don’t want you living here anyway.

Dean implemented a successful program in Vermont. His opinion should be taken very seriously. He’s the one whose 50-state plan landed Obama in the WH. He should have been surgeon general or secretary of health but he and Rahm ‘I’m-a-f**king-c*ntface’ Emmanuel don’t get along so Deano got snubbed.

If he was pointman for the admin, you GOPpers would be whining a lot louder. He’s actually effective at doing things.