Patterico's Pontifications

7/26/2009

Who Thinks Obama Isn’t Leveling About the Consequences of Changing Healthcare?

Filed under: Obama — DRJ @ 11:39 am



[Guest post by DRJ]

The Editors of the Washington Post.

UPDATE: The CBO and the Obama Administration aren’t seeing eye-to-eye, either.

— DRJ

21 Responses to “Who Thinks Obama Isn’t Leveling About the Consequences of Changing Healthcare?”

  1. The brazenness with which Obama makes up things about healthcare reform is getting too much even for the lapdogs.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  2. Me!

    What we need is single payer.

    David Ehrenstein (2550d9)

  3. The Barack Obama is right not just about how much money it would save but also about how much more better it would be generally if we avoided unnecessary amputations. Put me down as “pro.”

    happyfeet (c75712)

  4. Not to mention those unnecessary Propecias and Viagras.

    DRJ (6f3f43)

  5. Deficit neutral 😉

    JD (a74281)

  6. This is a good place to add the CBO/Orzag dispute so I’ve updated the post with a link.

    DRJ (6f3f43)

  7. The time for talk is done!

    MayBee (3ea00e)

  8. The difference on this particular bit of abusive lying by our government ‘betters’ is that the mistakes can’t be covered over by appropriations committees and additional borrowing.

    This will kill people, and, more specifically, it will kill people from groups who cover the entire spectrum of belief and ideology in this country.

    Dead relatives and loves ones are huge political motivators. This healthcare scheme, if enacted, will backfire, and the particular political calculations of blame avoidance are already creeping in from some politicians and the media.

    Apogee (e2dc9b)

  9. Obama took six months to pick a dog for the White House, but we’re supposed to have a take-over of one-seventh of the US economy shoved down our throat in weeks.

    [He took a year to pick a church. — DRJ]

    SPQR (26be8b)

  10. Who Thinks Obama Isn’t Leveling About the Consequences of Changing Healthcare?

    Is the Pope Catholic? Do birds fly? Is the South Pole cold?

    Mark (411533)

  11. I almost can see that maybe the government could back (not offer) a basic plan for the uninsured. Something that covered routine basic care and emergencies but is shorn of all the extras.

    This should be offered to people but the free care at emergency rooms should be sharply cutailed for those who refuse to buy in. Absolute emergency care only for non-payers.

    Ideally this would be preceded by a study of just what health care services young people end up using. My 21 year old daughter seems prone to trips and falls for example.

    This should not be called insurance, what we have now is a human service plan and maybe we should think of it that way.

    BK

    agesilaus (a16468)

  12. I keep wondering why there isn’t more talk of this story. Medicare will be out of money in eight years. It is running a deficit now. The tax increases to save Medicare and Social Security (bankrupt in 2037) are huge. Nobody talks about them since Bush gave up on trying to save SS. The day will come when Bush looks awfully good about this. In the mean time, the spenders are triumphant but maybe not for long. If only Hastert had been a competent Speaker.

    Mike K (2cf494)

  13. Cardiac stress tests every three or four years are a part of routine physical checkups for males over 40. When you hit 65 like me, you’ve been through 5 or 6 of them. For years that mean you stripped down to gym shorts, got hooked up to an EKG and ran in front of a single cardiologist until you hit the peak he was looking for. One doc, one medium sized examination room, one nurse to take the EKG sensors on and off–that was it. Fairly low cost procedure–call it the ’69 VW Beetle of tests.

    Last such cardiac stress test was entirely different: it was a “nuclear” stress test conducted in a cardiology center at a regional hospital. Sonogram of heart by one technician; injectin of some kind of fluid by a doctor; running on treadmill in front of four, count ’em four, attractive young Asian female doctors (that’s one way to get a tired old man’s heart rate up!)–each of whom was monitoring a specific set of instruments. Then taken into another room and laid on a table whereupon a computer controlled robot arm with a sensing head as large as the two front seats in that ’69 VW Beetle moved back and forth over my body.

    Did I get any better results than the old way? I dunno–all of the tests, of whatever the method said that I was “OK”. But did that last test cost a heck of a lot more than maybe the total cost of all my previous cardiac stress tests? I wouldn’t doubt it.

    People who are insured get Cadillac quality tests (as compared to the old VW beetle quality) because (a) they can afford it; and (b) because it’s possible for modern docs to do it.

    The whole health care issue is a lot more complicated than Pelosi/Obama and their posse of simpletons make it out to be. We need to take more time, and use more thought than has been expended in Congress so far.

    Mike Myers (674050)

  14. Obama’s soaring rhetoric helped him win the presidency and propelled his first months in Washington. But despite his frequent speeches declaring a healthcare revamp is urgently needed to help rebuild the U.S. economy, Americans are still expressing some uncertainty.*

    That’s so weird. Uncertainty? But… Barack Obama has given frequent speeches. WTF??

    happyfeet (c75712)

  15. OMB director Peter Orszag uses road kill as a toupee, and he thinks he’s fooling somebody. How can you believe anything he says?

    Official Internet Data Office (6ac5ad)

  16. Mike, I used to get the 1969 Beetle stress tests then, about 10 years ago, I developed right bundle branch block. The shape of my EKG curve was now distorted by the RBBB. I had to go to the nuclear stress test. Soon you will not have to worry because the country is running out of the isotope for the nuclear test. Even the Canadians are worried which means it’s really, really serious.

    The old fashioned stress test looked at your EKG to see if it went abnormal at high heart rate. The nuclear test shows if there is ischemia, far more sensitive. It doesn’t require increased heart rate and, if you can’t exercise, they do an adenosine stress test by injecting a drug that feels like you just died. Try to stay away from that one.

    I finally had a coronary angio last summer for some weird symptoms, plus a new cardiologist had taken over for my buddy who had retired. Guess what ? They couldn’t find my right coronary !

    I learned about a bunch of new tests you probably haven’t even heard of. It was there all right, just aberrant. It doesn’t come off in the right place.

    Anyway, there shouldn’t be a nuclear stress test done on everybody but, if you are having symptoms, it is far more sensitive and accurate.

    MIke K (2cf494)

  17. The most interesting dynamic to me regarding this story is Obama and his minions calling in the Director of the CB0 in order to browbeat him into issuing another estimate, one much more to their liking. This action was unprecedented, no POTUS has ever attempted to interfere in the CBO’s operations to this extent, not even Nixon (when it first originated). And what did their outrageous behavior earn them in the end? The Director reiterated his earlier estimate – game, set, match.

    Dmac (e6d1c2)

  18. Perhaps it would be more efficient had this article been entitled, “Who Thinks Obama Is Leveling About the Consequences of Changing Healthcare?” ‘Twould certainly be a shorter list!

    The sarcastic Dana (474dfc)

  19. DRJ noted:

    He took a year to pick a church.

    Well, to be fair, Mr Obama hasn’t even been President for a year yet. Then again, he didn’t really pick a church, but simply decided that, like President Bush before him, he would attend the non-denominational Christian services at the chapel at Camp David. Given how attentive Mr Obama was in his last church — he couldn’t remember a single inflammatory thing the Rev Dr Jeremiah Wright ever said — I’m not sure how it matters much.

    The Catholic Dana (474dfc)

  20. Why who’d not believe Obama?

    He is establishing a special “Minority Healthcare Post” for selected minorities to insure that no doctor ever mistakes there care with say a retired cop.

    He has levelled the medical education system. Now “select” minorities will have special rights to enter medical school. Traditional reactionary methods based on merit, excellence, and talent will be eliminated in favor of progressive measures based on criteria imported from more progressive societies where the hue of one’s skin, the texture of your hair, and other relevant measures will insure that no undeserving JOOOS, Japanese, Chinese, Irish midgets, etc make it when one of Rev Wright’s nephews is unjustly ignorned by the man.

    Obama will also insure that the aged get special attention and are conselled regarding the merits of shuffling off this mortal coil quickly without costing the government monies that could be better utilized lining Obama’s cronies pockets and buying Chris Dodd another mansion in Ireland.

    Now who can doubt Obama and his academics when they tell us they can create a new, better, more effective healthcare system when their last project was the brillant stimulus package.

    Thomas Jackson (8ffd46)

  21. The Democrat Party is a criminal enterprise.

    kazooskibum (a4dd38)


Powered by WordPress.

Page loaded in: 0.0894 secs.