(Still) Fighting Universal Healthcare
So despite his threatening notice to the chattering class, the king of arrogance (Obama) is still facing an uphill battle in getting consensus on a Health Care bill – even amongst Democrats. The phone calls, faxes, letters and emails are working. Apparently the appalling state of the job market is bending a few opinions on the Hill. Laura Ingraham has the names and numbers of some Dems who need to hear from you.
This article in the NYTimes Magazine is a must read for all. And not because it advocates for Universal Healthcare, a la “Medicare for All” with an option to opt out (if you can prove you will never become a public burden?) and options for supplemental private insurance. Basically, Singer is saying healthcare in the US is already rationed based on the economic status (wealth) of the patient so what’s the big deal? Well, the big deal is choice. Choice, choice, choice. Why is choice sacred in some issues and forbidden in others? How will those of us who refuse “Medicare for All” prove our lifetime economic sustainability? Am I the only one that noticed he did not indicate that those that opt out may also opt out of paying for everyone else’s “Medicare for All”?
Health care is a scarce resource, and all scarce resources are rationed in one way or another. In the United States, most health care is privately financed, and so most rationing is by price: you get what you, or your employer, can afford to insure you for. But our current system of employer-financed health insurance exists only because the federal government encouraged it by making the premiums tax deductible. That is, in effect, a more than $200 billion government subsidy for health care. In the public sector, primarily Medicare, Medicaid and hospital emergency rooms, health care is rationed by long waits, high patient copayment requirements, low payments to doctors that discourage some from serving public patients and limits on payments to hospitals.
Is healthcare in America scarce? I live in one of the most densely populated areas of the country and I can get my kid into her pediatrician in the time it take me to drive her there – 20 minutes tops. I can get in to see a specialist, including an ENT in Boston, in three weeks – and that’s only because I’m not acutely ill. And may I ask the most un-pc question of them all? For those of you who say care is scarce, how many illegals is your ER/hospital forced to treat? You know, the ones who will not be contributing at all to the cost of this colossal power grab?
Britain’s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence… set a general limit of £30,000, or about $49,000, on the cost of extending life for a year.
Really? NICE has calculated the value of a human life? Notice how in the article, Singer repeats the $5 million figure repeatedly, as if to suggest we are such a wealthy nation, we can afford to choose a higher value. Has he seen our checking account statement lately? And he also relies on unverifiable and incorrect statistics that almost 2/3 of bankruptcies in the US are due to health care costs. We know this to be incorrect but it makes a good headline. Personally, I’d go bankrupt in a heartbeat to save the life of someone I held dear. If your family does not feel the same way about you, you have bigger problems than whether or not you can afford the “good” doctors with “good” medicine.
As a first take, we might say that the good achieved by health care is the number of lives saved. But that is too crude. The death of a teenager is a greater tragedy than the death of an 85-year-old, and this should be reflected in our priorities. We can accommodate that difference by calculating the number of life-years saved, rather than simply the number of lives saved. If a teenager can be expected to live another 70 years, saving her life counts as a gain of 70 life-years, whereas if a person of 85 can be expected to live another 5 years, then saving the 85-year-old will count as a gain of only 5 life-years. That suggests that saving one teenager is equivalent to saving 14 85-year-olds. These are, of course, generic teenagers and generic 85-year-olds. It’s easy to say, “What if the teenager is a violent criminal and the 85-year-old is still working productively?” But just as emergency rooms should leave criminal justice to the courts and treat assailants and victims alike, so decisions about the allocation of health care resources should be kept separate from judgments about the moral character or social value of individuals.
First off, I’d pick most 85 year olds over teenagers any day. But what I find surprising is the willingness of policy makers to openly admit that there are lives more valuable than others when the reason they fight so hard for universal healthcare is because they say no life is more valuable than the next. Can someone please explain this circular logic to me? *This is a rhetorical question – it cannot be explained other than saying one answer is the touchy-feely, politically correct cocktail party answer and the other is the bureaucratic CBO answer.
The truth of the matter is government healthcare is antiquated, scarce and rationed and offers no other options. If you have it, you have no choice. The inconvenient truth is that health care in the USA is superior to that of any other nation on earth and an uninsured illegal alien gets better, faster care, when he/she asks for it, than the average citizen in the UK. There are roughly 13 million people in the USA who want health insurance but cannot afford it and/or have not applied for public assistance even though they qualify – they prefer to take their chances at paying as they go. The rest are illegal aliens or don’t have it because they are too unstable to get it (basically, mentally ill) or they have chosen not to pay for it even though their income indicates that if they laid off the grande’ lattes they could afford it. The 45 million number is a lie. Again, the “45 million uninsured, suffering waifs” line IS A LIE. We cannot afford to do this, because of the cost, because of the damage it will do to our existing system and its stellar history of research and innovation, because of what it means for those that are and will get sick.
I know I’m not qualified to deliver this argument. The Heritage Foundation, however is and the NCPA has some startling statistics you should see.
Look, I know I’m the bad guy because I hate poor people and want them to die but my plea here is the same as it is the the Transgender Bathroom bill case – bad law is bad law.
Be sure to check out the chart that illustrates the massive bureaucracy a couple of trillion will deliver.
H/T - HotAir
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This is what I wrote on my blog today.
“I pray that we will defeat the Health Care Bill. Please remember that nothing in life is FREE. Either you earn it or you pay for it. In this case you pay with your freedom.
Please do your homework on the Health care Bill. There are areas that more than hint at euthanasia especially for the elderly. There are MANDATORY meetings for your elderly family members with “end of life counselors”. (It will be a cold day in hell before that happens in our family!)
There is a part where it is spelled out clearly that private health insurance will become illegal. It will be phased out. You will not be able to pay for your own care or medicine even if you can afford it.
The report on the state of our budget is being held up until August. It should be out now. It is so bad that they have to cover-up.
I keep hearing that other countries have Socialized medicine but NO ONE says why we, the RICHEST NATION IN THE WORLD, should COPY other countries.”
We have decided we will actively campaign and give donations to politicians who support OPPOSING Obama’s Health Care.
We will encourage friends and family to do the same.
Please take note that Massachusetts has an un-affordable disaster for Public Health care and people still go to the ER..
Our country needs tax breaks and support for small business so we can get going again. We also need tort reform (frivolous law suits). We do not need more Utopian schemes. Annie
The situation in Massachusetts is really not as bad as people think – for people still on independent plans. It’s the suckers who voluntarily gave up their employer policy to save a few bucks that are the most regretful. I have been trying for over a year to find a MassCare policy that will mimic our COBRA policy (my husband left his company in May ‘08 to start his own business) and the closest I get is if I spend $300 more a month. But I will still, based on our annual averages, spend another $500-$800 annually out of pocket more than I do now. Why would I switch? Of course now that it’s coming to our expiration for the COBRA policy, I have to pick one. Because the state has stepped in and set up mandates, we cannot find a policy unless we go through MassCare. So my options are to purchase a lesser policy and use the surplus to pay out of pocket costs but get less coverage and options re: specialists, hospitals, etc. Or pay more, which frankly, I cannot do.
So far, none of these policies seem to mandate euthanasia counseling but I still have some reading to do!
It’s disgusting but remember, these are the people who brought us eugenics. Wait until they start mandating genetic testing so as to determine an individual’s potential “earning” power after birth. In the collective, however, no one earns, they contribute.
You aren’t a bad person GOPMOM , just a bigot. All that is just ignorance based. In fact , ignore that your reps and servicemen already get government healthcare , ignore that we as Americans must compete with countries that already have one payer healthcare , ignore that the single greatest cause of bankruptcy in the US is healthcare, that 22,000 people a year die because they have no access , that the health insurance companies are spending over a million dollars a day to fight it , that the costs are sky high because the pharmaceutical companies write or medical legislation and charge the highest prices in the world , ignore we have the worst health records of any industrialized nations and we pay twice as much for it ! You just keep playing your “I’m a right winger ” card and the rest of us will be Americans. Some people just never grow up.
Ted,
A bigot? Explain. I haven’t see anything bigoted from GOPmom.
22,000 people per year die BECAUSE THEY CHOOSE NOT TO USE health care. They have access to it. No hospital can deny you urgent or critical care based on ABILITY to pay. Stop spinning the leftist bullpoop. The costs are sky high because of overregulation and the federal government unconstitutionally getting their noses everywhere that they do not belong.
Americans, Ted, believe in the Constitution of the United States; and they get upset when the federal government ignores it (as it has in the past 100 years so much) over and over again, in an attempt to tyrannically usurp our NATURAL RIGHTS to life, liberty, and property.
People like you, a group I like to call statists, populists, Marxists… you think that a powerful central government, elected by a mobocracy (democracy without PROPER balance of power in representation–see the 17th Amendment to understand how our Congress was ruined) should control every minute of our lives.
Well if you like it so much, I think we’d be happy to start taking up a collection for you to move to China or perhaps North Korea, where you can live in your utopian communism.
If you wish to continue expending hot air, then do so, but don’t expect those of us with a clue as to how America is supposed to work, and the values of this nation, to sit by quietly and let you spew lies that you don’t even back with anything more than a list of talking points from the government which has suppressed us for far too long.
According to the definition of Bigot: One who is strongly partial to one’s own group, religion, race, or politics and is intolerant of those who differ, ‘Mom may technically (if you really want to get down to brass tacks) qualify, but then I’m betting we ALL do, so as that’s a common denominator in that stretch of a definition, let’s dump the argument.
Let’s look your facts… where do they come from? Of this 22,000, how many were denied the vital care to survive? My guess is, as The Mad Patriot says, they didn’t use the healthcare available, or waited way too long.
You mention the US has the “worst health records of any industrialized nations”. Did you get this from the WHO? The same organization that realized it’s rankings were flawed because the data was too complex for it’s rating system? I’d be hard pressed to find the US lagging behind industrialized countries in overall cost, access, and quality. Maybe some countries are better in one or two areas, but not all three, therefor, we can’t just claim they’re all better. Ask someone who has lived in the US and UK how they compare… I think you’ll be shocked.
But please, show ‘Mom how grown up you are, by presenting real information, and without the name-calling. I’d listen…
My wife is from Canada; and I have several friends in the UK.
I can tell you that from what my wife, in-laws, and friends have told me… care quality is definitely NOT better.
I suppose that’s why a good friend of mine in Bristol England buys private healthcare… as he puts it: “I don’t have to wait as long or deal with the annoyingly poor quality. And it offers me more choices.”
Hmmm… sounds like a raving endorsement for the NHS, no?
I could cite examples all day long–but there’s no point. Some people already have their minds made up that more government control is always better. Nothing we say or do will change that. It doesn’t matter to them that it’s unconstitutional (therefore ILLEGAL–just because Congress votes something does not make it legal!) and that it will steal away natural rights and individual liberty.
It fits their agenda.
Like they like to say, “The facts don’t matter, so long as the narrative is correct.”
LOUDElf, Mad – The Obots think that if they repeat the same BS enough, it will become true.
Ted – Would you feel better if you think about how much the US pharmaceutical companies contribute to world health care? If there were not profitable (Ekkkk captialism) then they could/would not research any new treatments. The market for these treatments is worldwide but the US market bears a disproportionately large chunk of the research expense.
BO is all about fair. In a ‘Fair’ world, the research cost would be spread across all the markets served. This means, raise the costs to every ‘Single Payer’ market we compete with. Seems Fair…
Be aware that the math is not linear if we spread the cost. The research cost would have to include an allowance for the government interference.
e.g.
Before ObamaCare: Research costs 100, 80 paid by America and 20 by the rest of the world.
After ObamaCare: Research costs 150, 75 paid by America and 75 paid by the rest of the world.
Ted, I’m not a bad person, I’m not a bigot and I’m not mentally ill. I’m a normal everyday American with the same beliefs and values of the majority out there. I realize it is difficult to accept that you’re the less evolved of the species but just as children must be cared for I’m sure someone out there in society will do the same for you. But beware of Darwin – I see an award in your future.
And please stop googling for statistics – that’s so 2008.
Its just sad. Very sad that the rest of the Western industrialized DEMOCRATIC world agrees that health care is a right, not a privilege. (yes, other countries are actual democracies, not republics like the USA; and believe it or not, they also have freedom. The USA does not monopolize freedom, nor did the USA invent the concepts, as usual, they stole them, mutilated them, and corrupted them beyond recognition).
Everybody seems to know a ‘Brit’ or a Canadian when they argue against national health care, and how this person hates it. I now live in the UK, and to be honest, if you were to take away the NHS, there would be a riot, a revolution. People would not stand for it. Mad Patriot, care is often denied. No, not emergency ambulatory care, but treatments for chronic, life ending illnesses are denied all the time.
The main issue, however, is that those who receive treatment for emergency care (because, of course, it is not denied) go into a massive amount of debt. This debt then turns into poor credit. Say a ‘Mom’ is trying to decide to pay the hospital bill that she acquired because of the car accident she was in that almost killed her (and she selfishly went to the ER without insurance, or partial insurance. We should have just let her die?), or she is trying to decide to pay the rent, bills, food, or school clothes ect. Of course she chooses to keep a roof over her family, keep them fed and clothed. However, now that she has bad credit, its hard to get a car, get a house, all those things most take for granted. All this happened because she was involved in an accident that was out of her control(could be anything besides a ‘car’ accident of course, and substitute mom for dad, grandma, sister, brother, daughter, son, uncle ect).
So, what does this do? When multiplied by millions, which there are every year in the USA, you get problems at all levels of society. In addition, because people know they are going to get a huge bill from the hospital, they stay away until its too late. If they weren’t afraid to go into debt, and get a huge bill, then they would have visited the doctor much much earlier.
Finally, do you like your fire department? Police department? Public library? Post Office? Public school system? Would you rather pay privately for these services. $1000 if your a victim of a crime? Say you are robbed, or a family member the victim of a serious crime, would it be fare for the police to charge a big sum of money to carry out the investigation, to find the culprit? Or with a fire, after having your house burn down, how would you feel about getting a bill for $5000 from the fire department? How would you like to spend $10000 a year sending your children to school? All of these things, police, fire, school, are SOCIALIZED. YES SOCIALIZED. Yet you seem to like and enjoy these just fine. But is it not the same that if you get cancer, a deadly disease, that you should receive care, be taken care of, be allowed to get healthy without incurring tens of thousands in bills? Its the same as if you had been the victim of a horrible crime, or watched your house burn down, and then were issued a bill. You would be outraged. But, why is it we are so complacent about health care? I would think your health, along with your possessions and family, is the most precious thing in life. So why not do the same to our health care as we did to our fire department, police department and schools (which were all at one time privatized). I am not a ’socialist;, but some things, in order to have a productive democratic society require being ’socialized’. It is so ridiculous how people are manipulated and manipulate that term. Do your research. Here is a great book by a respected unbiased historian, Dead on Arrival: The Politics of Health Care in Twentieth-Century America (Politics and Society in Twentieth Century America)
Anyways, I think capitalism an excellent system for producing vibrant democratic societies. However, as noted above, some things, in order for this system to work at full tilt, need, are required to be ’socialized’. Its a bit of a catch 22, but all of the other democratic industrialized nations of the world seem to get it…
Universal health care could boost economy
Ronald, It’s not as if I have advocated for the status quo. I’m not losing any sleep but I too feel some empathy for the 8 million American citizens who legitimately cannot afford any kind of medical insurance – which I highly recommend. But we’re only talking 8 million out of 300 million. Why destroy what is working so well for so many?
Have you read HR 3200? I realize you’re happy across the pond and seeing as how you’ve adopted the European “socialised” over the American “socialized” you seem to really belong. But why not try reading what the House has put forward. I’d recommend reading the Senate version as well, but it is still unavailable.
My point is HR 3200 has nothing to do with providing excellent quality, reasonably priced healthcare. It has everything to do with setting up government agencies to oversee an overhaul of 1/6th of the US economy. Why not go at this with a more reasoned approach?
1. Get rid of employer based health insurance. Make us all free agents.
2. Adopt the auto insurance model for health insurance – less mandates, more choices.
3. Allow real state-to-state competition.
I think you’ll see that with a common sense model, where customers buy what they want to buy, not what the government tells them they need, you will see the cost of health insurance and care stabilize. And you will see overall health rise because people will see day to day what their care costs them and they will take steps to protect themselves against preventable conditions.
Because that is what we are taking about here – risk. You risk bodily injury every moment of every day. If you’re clutzy like me, you buy good insurance. (And cut elsewhere as necessary – I am not by any means wealthy. Please try not to resort to Leftist personal attacks. Use the education for which someone paid a fortune.) If there is a genetic predilection for a disease in your family, buy great coverage. When you’re young and twenty, have less than when you’re 35 and raising a family. When you’re 60, have the best coverage your savings can buy you – unless you spent all your money on the coverage the gov’t mandated you have when you were 30.
And your points about healthcare costs or bills causing bankruptcy are false. Bankruptcy filings require a list of what you believe is causing your economic collapse. People have been told by attorneys to use the term “healthcare costs” and “healthcare bills” because it elicits pity from all those empathetic judges. No one ever explains that those costs are just one factor in a list or that health insurance premiums are considered costs or bills. So no, not everyone who lists healthcare costs or bills as a factor of bankruptcy is doing so because they had a horrible disease and some evil insurer would not pay the bill to save their life. You should do a bit more reading.
As I’ve said repeatedly, there are issues with our system but what the Dems and Obama are proposing simply create another bureaucratic money laundering scheme for the Fed. At a time when even most Americans recognize we cannot afford to lose even one more dollar of our incomes as individuals or go anymore in debt as a nation, we are balking at what we know from 200+ years of history will cost us more and deliver less.
I must say, I’m having great difficulty believing your “I’m a PhD story.” Are you sure you’re telling the truth? You don’t seem able to form a very solid argument. “I’ve been to hospital 3 x’s” in the UK is not very convincing. Sounds very British but not very enlightening.
GOP Mom,
Your the queen of resorting to attacks; and responding to attacks. Its what you thrive on to define yourself. You yourself have made no argument of thesis what-so-ever in any of your replies, ever. All you have done is defend your position. So here is an argument you insecure soccer mom. I argue that you need to wake up and realiZe that this world is not going to put of with selfish, egotistical and narrow minded people like you for long. Find another identity, another way to define and know your world. Stop using teleological (google that word, I’m pretty sure you have to)and naturalized arguments, and wake up to the power/knowledge nexus that surrounds your tiny tiny tiny programed brain. Engage with real research, real scholarship, and a real life. Not this cyberized, hollow and egotistical garbage that you spew to make yourself feel better. Its amateur, its childish and its a joke.
Oh, you never answered me if you use the SOCIALIZED fire department, police department, public schools and library. DO YOU use those GOP MOM? Huh, DO YOU. Why are those SOCIALIZED, huh. Get your tiny brain to argue how health care is any less important or a right than our police, fire and public schools. ANSWER THAT.
Love it when I strike a nerve. Um, hey DA, I don’t have to keep on defending my position. I’ve stated it. I don’t have to repeat myself over and over again to little “shites” who come along with their turned-out-to-be bogus degrees from obscure technical “schools” while I spend the day waiting for the coward who pretends to be POTUS, debating policy, talking to others, sharing opinions and learning more about this disaster of a policy the Left is proposing. BTW, you have read HR 3200, right? I mean, I know you’re no longer one of us but since you have such a strong opinion, I’m assuming your genius brain was able to breeze through all 1,000+ pages Tuesday last.
Yes, I do use the police, fire dept and library – although I also pay the additional “members fee” at the library and donate books, time, etc so I think I’m off the hook on that one. I consider it my right considering I subsidize the public school system yet send my child to private school. To compare health care to the police dept is antiquated and false. And not everyone who uses these services they supposedly have a “right to” pays for them. Do you pay property taxes?
You’re so wrapped up in your own self-righteousness, you have failed to address any of the proposed reforms I have suggested in this forum and have simply chosen to spew ridiculous talking points – for the entertainment of your cat, no doubt.
And for the record, I’m not a soccer mom – I’m just a mom, who defines herself in may ways, not simply by the achievements or activities of her child. I do drive a big, bad, black SUV, though. Go have another fit.
Yes, hope you are proud of subsidizing the world’s dictators with that SUV! Just think, everytime you fill up that large tank you are handing over $$$ to Lybia, Turkmenistan, Saudi Arabia – with it’s dismal treatment of women, but what do you care, you live here in the good ole USA, & while you can get away with sneering at & using vulgar language concerning the President, these women can’t even drive – and other fascist regimes, and are helping to support mass rape, torture, genocide, child soldiers, and child labor!
Way to go GOPMOM!
Susan, Sorry to be late getting back to you, I was out of town. Again, I did not see the sign you mentioned. I would not have approved if I had.
As to me filling my tank with foreign oil, why don’t you join the campaign to “drill here, drill now.” Issue solved.
Gopmom- Great, but I was under the impression that it would take years, if not decades, to get any oil if we started to “drill here”. Can’t we at least start to show some respect for our limited resources & try not waste them? You’re also emitting that much more carbon monoxide. Don’t forget the dictators, who are happy you have a large SUV.
Susan, I can’t tell you how silly that argument is. If we had been drilling in AK 15 years ago, last year’s $4.00+ a gallon gas never would have happened. And there is enough oil there to keep our homes warm for decades – more than enough time for technology to catch up to the real demand (not the gov’t mandated insanity) for alternative and effective and affordable energy sources. And why is our deal leader sending billions to Brazil’s state owned oil company to develop their offshore reserves when we can’t touch ours?
HotAir
Are you a global warming believer? Still? I drive a large SUV because I was hit head on in a small SUV and decided I’d prefer not to die because someone else cannot drive. Have you ridden in an ambulance, watching your four year old crying while being strapped to a backboard? Consulted with a neurologist about all the things that could “go wrong”? I’ll continue to drive the biggest vehicle I can afford. And I change my synthetic oil as directed and keep my tires inflated. Thanks.
And has it ever occurred to you what would happen to all the already miserably poor people in the Middle East, Africa, etc if we didn’t buy some of their oil? They’d simply starve in the streets. Maybe there’s a happy medium? Yes, we are at their mercy – a national security nightmare – so we need to tap our own resources. But we also need access to affordable oil – especially today – to use as a bargaining ship. You sound as if you get your talking points from the DNC – a year ago.
Does it count if I shop farmer’s markets, Whole Foods, have an organic yard/garden, cook fresh not boxed food and recycle? I even plant native plants that don’t require a lot of water and have an aerator on my shower and faucets that halves our usage. I’m not a global warming cultist, I’m just a “common senser” – and cheap. Do I get credits for that? And the carbon footprint of my tiny house is less than Al Gore’s garage.
Go preach your outdated Goreaphobia elsewhere. We just deal in facts here and global warming, or rather “climate change”, as it’s now called because that damn thermometer will not cooperate, is not a fact.
Great, but we do not have that oil now, and we would not have it for decades, so it’s time for another tactic.
(Why are we “entitled” to affordable oil, but not affordable healthcare, BTW?)
Perhaps you can make an argument about the “warming” – though you might tell me why the ice floes in Antartica are shrinking – but you can’t deny that emissions from CO2’s have changed the atmosphere. You could also argue wether this bodes well or not for the human race, or this planet, but I am not an optimist.
I would not drive a small car myself, but I at least my vehicle gets about 23 MPG.
I have, thanks God, not had to ride with my child in an ambulance, but I did see a woman struck & killed in a crosswalk by a young lady who was driving a mid-sized SUV. You do know that woman and children are exponentially more likely to be killed or injured by a larger vehicle, especially if they are in a normally-sized or smaller car?
In my experience, larger vehicles also block the view of other traffic, bicyclists, pedestrians, etc. because of their height & dark windows.
If you only want people who agree with you to post here, why have a public blog? Aren’t you hoping to enlighten some of us?
“Goreaphobia” would mean that I am afraid of Al Gore.
For Pete’s sake – based on your logic, we should never have children because it takes almost twenty years to “grow ‘em”. Or never grow brussels sprouts because you can’t harvest them for six months. Come on be honest, you’re over at Kos, right? DU?
Your newest argument against suv’s is akin to banning guns because they kill people. SUV’s don’t kill people, bad drivers kill people. Which is why I drive the biggest car I can afford – I live in MA and the drivers here are b-a-d! And if the EPA would actually take a look at the difference between diesel and regular fuel emissions, I might be able to buy the Commander with the diesel engine and then I would get the same mileage as you. Diesel emissions are not what they used to be. But none of this fits into the tax the big, bad corporations to high heaven meme of the left, which of course is contradictory to the “why are all industry jobs moving out of the country” whining. Are you starting to see the contradictions? We’re gonna’ reduce emissions with cap and tax but we’re gonna’ let co’s buy credits to emit more. How does that save the polar bears?
I thought it was the Arctic ice sheet that was shrinking? Or did it grow? Or shrink? And I thought the earth was warmer and had more CO2 during the dinosaur age than it does now. Or did? Or does? Hello. The information changes every day and cannot be tested or tracked. Do you know what that means? Did you ever do a science fair project? If you cannot test your theory and produce, repeatedly, conclusive results, you only have theory or speculation not fact. So the question is do we crash the entire American economy and therefore, the world, because of an unprovable yet somehow chic doomsday theory of a few power-hungry, rich hating yet filthy rich elitists or do we just encourage people to act in a more, I love this, conservative manner? As I said earlier, my other conservative actions effectively buy my big SUV credits. And not because it saves polar bears but because it saves me money – money I can then use for other purposes that I choose. Because this is America and we are free. For now.
Goreaphobia is a made up word and therefore means whatever I want it to mean – kind of like death panels. How can you be so anal about something so inconsequential yet so nonchalant about what matters? Your priorities are wack.
Huh?
Look off the coast of California. There are bunches of oil rigs ready to just be turned back on… could be flowing within a few MONTHS.
Mad – You’re using your brain again. Stop. Start using your heart and your emotions and your appendix if that what it takes. Whatever gets you to the conclusion that we should never, ever drill our own oil again but also we shouldn’t get it from anyone we don’t like. And we can’t go fight a war for it, either, even if in the process we are liberating an entire nation from tyranny and death.
So pretty much, we’re left with the grease from KFC and MickeyD’s to power our lawn tractors. And somehow, magically, when we reach that utopia, no one else on the planet will use any fossil fuels anymore either because they will see the evil of their ways. And we can all live in grass huts, wearing grass skirts, eating grass – until a Nor’easter freezes our a$$e$ off and we become polar bear food.
To coin a phrase, mission accomplished! Polar bears saved!
You know, if our people were in charge, death panels wouldn’t seem so extreme, would they? Step out of the herd before the Indians drive you over the cliff, right?
Good Lord, I need a drink.
No, the point is we need oil now, it has nothing to do with kids. Where do you come up with these analogies? There are about 4500 “kids” who will never again see the light of day so that you can fill your SUV. THEY ARE NOT INCONSEQUENTIAL. Your SUV is. No, you don’t get “points” to trade, what are you, an Al Gore lover or something?
I would much rather use the oil from KFC rather than send a young person over to Iraq or Afghanistan, but I was always a bleeding heart liberal, thank God.
Glad to hear you want to fight a war for oil! How old are you? Under 40? Great! GET OVER THERE! Take the guy with the “Tyranny” T- shirt with you, also The Mad Patriot, above. Have a child? TOO BAD! People want to fill their SUV’s! I am sure it will be waiting when you get back.
Should stop here, but I have already had my drink: What left-wing conspiracy is preventing anyone from using these wells off the California coast?