Patterico's Pontifications

2/10/2013

Dr. Benjamin Carson Talks Fiscal Issues and Fights Political Correctness While Obama Squirms

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 1:53 am



You want a guy talking about how much political correctness sucks while Barack Obama sits six feet away?

You want actual humility?

Watch this (linked by JD the other day, but I have my own comments on it):

Kinda the opposite of Mr. Non-Humility.

Seriously, watch to the end, so you can watch this guy harp on the deficit while Obama has to sit there and take it. So you can watch him extol the virtues of a flat tax, and how you don’t have to hurt rich people just because they’re rich — and Obama has to sit there and take it.

I mean, it’s a great speech by itself. But it’s so much better because Obama has to sit there and take it.

Watch it all.

P.S. Clearly the guy is a racist.

101 Responses to “Dr. Benjamin Carson Talks Fiscal Issues and Fights Political Correctness While Obama Squirms”

  1. It had to be torture for obambi to sit there and listen to someone for such a long time, who was not praising obama.
    Loved it.
    There is hope for America.

    firefirefire (b0457e)

  2. To be clear, I agree with the guy.

    Question: what is the line that defines what this guy did as OK while defining what Obama has done as rude (to Ryan during budget discussions, to the Supreme Court during State of the Union)?

    Or is it simply it’s OK if we agree with the substance and not OK if we don’t?

    steve (e7e6c7)

  3. Anyone notice him looking down at something toward the end of Carson’s speech? I’m betting it was his Crackberry; checking to see if VJ had identified the “tea party” mole at the WH who scheduled him for that event.

    Libertarian Advocate (206681)

  4. Steve – there is a difference between a host and a guest doing this.

    JD (5a02de)

  5. Steve, normally I would agree with your point. But at this stage, I can’t.

    Obama has refused to answer any questions that aren’t softballs. He refuses to show up at any venues/events or shows/interviews that aren’t friendly to him. He won’t respond to any inquiries that aren’t pre-screened. For the last 4 years he has refused to go anywhere that he might be confronted on his policies.

    So he has no cause to complain, if people are now seeking him out, since he has been totally unwilling to explain himself or his actions for the last 4 years. If he doesn’t like it, then he should have chosen a different job.

    Bets (b9ed59)

  6. Carson’s comments strike me as ordinary garden variety conservatism, the only thing that makes them special is Carson’s race and the presence of Barack Obama.

    ropelight (491506)

  7. As I mentioned on the previous thread, I’m sure it took all of the little self-control Teh Won has to keep from “scratching his nose” (it might have had something to do with Michelle being there).

    askeptic (2bb434)

  8. Steve – to expound a bit … At the SOTU, though technically guests of the House, that is the Presidents show, and those that he was lying about and demagoguing have no platform to respond. At the budget negotiations, Ryan was there as a specific guest of the WH, at their invitation, to listen to his host clobber him, and absent an opportunity to discuss or respond.

    JD (5a02de)

  9. steve – Carson also appears to be a subject matter expert on health care and education and his tone was not demeaning or condescending as was Obama’s to the Supremes or Ryan. Obama was not a subject matter expert on either Citizens United or the budget.

    Do you believe Carson was rude? You have not stated a position.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  10. This is a great video, but since JD posted it on Friday, I’m assuming it’s being highlighted again because of how fascinating it is.

    Benjamin Carson is so down-to-earth — so sensible and (in this age of our post-1960s, never-grow-up culture) so mature — that it makes the existence of the guy now in the White House even more pathetic and disturbing.

    I don’t know if the doctor or anyone else who applies the analogy of the Roman Empire to the US will look like either a Cassandra or Chicken Little in the future. But it will be surprising if the election of Barack Obama forever after isn’t considered not just a dramatic sea change in American history but a bad one at that.

    I figure that since I personally have become increasingly desensitized to the socio-economic dumbing down or corrupting of this society, then that phenomenon must be occurring to an even greater degree in various other people (eg, all the people throughout the US who, based on recent polls, give high marks and big hugs to Hillary Clinton). The phenomenon, therefore, must be reaching a crescendo in folks who happily and innately lean left—ie, the types who are the reason (and guarantee) that Argentina is Argentina, Greece is Greece, Mexico is Mexico.

    Mark (eb2f6a)

  11. I noticed around 14:25 in the video Dr. Carson motions towards the President and says:

    “Unless you cared about people, it didn’t matter how smart you were.”

    The passages from scripture truely put his comments in perspective for me.

    felipe (3243af)

  12. “garden variety conservatism”

    Yes, it is one hell of a garden.

    felipe (3243af)

  13. “the only thing that makes them special”

    Riiiight, it couldn’t be the ideas the man expressed.

    felipe (3243af)

  14. There’s that Mussolini picture again.

    AZ Bob (c11d35)

  15. Wow. Are you listening, “elders” of the Republican Party? Someone nominate him for Senate. I want him in office for decades.

    htom (412a17)

  16. I sure hope that all of Dr. Carson’s federal income tax deductions are documented, and in proper order !

    Elephant Stone (f49811)

  17. People are having a meltdown over this. The Lefties are screaming about how he disprespected the president. What happened to dissent being the highest form of patriotism?

    The left demands that we respect the office of the presidency, but the last two Democratic presidents themselves disrespect the office. We all know what type of activities President Clinton used to engage in in the Oval office. And as for President Obama, someone show me a picture of Reagan or one of the Bushs sitting around in rolled up shirt sleeves resting their feet on the Oval office desk.

    gahrie (3fff08)

  18. A pediatric neurosurgeon who thinks we can finance health care by just opening up HSA’s at birth? I suppose then the death panel is the fact that kids can’t afford his rates?

    DaveM (15c8d4)

  19. poor sweetie media whore pickles

    if you think Mr. Dr. Carson’s speech is “disrepecting the president” – meaning the food stamp slut and soros buttboy america has twice elected at your behest – you need to get out more really

    disrespect for the president started with your media propaganda slut assaults on Mr. Bush, and to such a degree that what that did was relieve food stamp of the burden of making any pretense whatsoever of behaving in a respectable manner

    and everyone has noticed this but you

    happyfeet (323d6f)

  20. A pediatric neurosurgeon who thinks we can finance health care by just opening up HSA’s at birth? I suppose then the death panel is the fact that kids can’t afford his rates?

    Is it more sensible to assume that we can finance it by setting up a mammoth federal bureaucracy and write thousands of pages of regulations? At the risk of sounding heartless (which I certainly am), I would rather be denied a life-saving medical procedure because I couldn’t afford it than because some desk-jockey in Washington decided that I wasn’t worthy.

    JVW (4826a9)

  21. The lefties tend to be angry, unhappy people in general.

    But look at the way they save their sharpest knives for those who wander off the proverbial Democrat reservation…conservatives who happen to be black people, women, gays, Hispanics, et al.

    The White House invited Dr. Benjamin Carson to speak at the prayer breakfast, then when he says things that don’t correspond with the Pravda-authorized talking points, they send their rink-a-dink low-class, dumb-ass union members as well as other various Democrat whores and blood-sucking moochers to publicly trash the esteemed Dr. Carson on the internet.

    Elephant Stone (f49811)

  22. Is it more sensible to assume that we can finance it by setting up a mammoth federal bureaucracy and write thousands of pages of regulations? At the risk of sounding heartless (which I certainly am), I would rather be denied a life-saving medical procedure because I couldn’t afford it than because some desk-jockey in Washington decided that I wasn’t worthy.

    Duh

    JD (5a02de)

  23. there is nothing wrong with being angry and unhappy in barack obama’s america

    it’s actually a signifier of a certain civic-mindedness in many instances

    happyfeet (323d6f)

  24. Who’s paying his bills now?

    DaveM (15c8d4)

  25. steve,

    I agree with happyfeet #21. The requirement that Americans treat their President with respect ended for me after I saw the way liberals and the media treated Bush. I will try to be polite because that’s something I do for me, but I don’t expect Americans to show deference or respect if they don’t feel that way.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  26. Having said that, what in Carson’s speech was rude or disrespectful toward Obama? Granted, Carson’s speech outlined ideas that Obama doesn’t support, but is it rude to argue for ideas that a President doesn’t support simply because he’s in the same room when you do it?

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  27. If so, then Obama is the rudest person in the world.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  28. “At the risk of sounding heartless (which I certainly am), I would rather be denied a life-saving medical procedure because I couldn’t afford it than because some desk-jockey in Washington decided that I wasn’t worthy.”

    Likely that folks who earn pediatric neurosurgeon salaries might think along these lines too.

    DaveM (15c8d4)

  29. I think we should demonized successful people.

    JD (5a02de)

  30. Since web did it become rude to hold a view different than Teh One? He said nothing rude on its face, nothing out of line, nothing inherently disagreeable. Is it just because Teh Won was in the room, and it simply must be rude because you could never haw the temerity to honestly disagree with him, much less say so publicly.

    JD (5a02de)

  31. Daleyrocks favorite congresscritter says …

    I think it’s really–not really an appropriate place to make this kind of political speech, and to invoke God as support for that kind of view. But I think of most of all the kind of message that he was giving shows a real empathy gap with where the American people are right now

    Apparently she did not listen to Teh Won

    JD (5a02de)

  32. Court jester DaveM gives away his entire “game” by attributing the proverbial money trail as the motive behind Dr. Carson.

    “The money trail” is precisely why welfare recepients, government employees, and people who stand to make finanacial gain thru government regulations (Warren Buffett, Al Gore, George Soros, et al) are advocating for more government.
    That is precisely why we conservatives want to limit government and government’s expenditures—so fools such as DaveM aren’t carrying water for the government point of view due to the fact that’s where their bread is buttered.
    We want to allow the wisdom of free people and free markets to choose the winners and losers, rather than have results shaped by the blueprints designed by government bureaucrats—who by the way, aren’t even placing bets on horses with their own money.

    That’s why is is so funny to hear lefties shreiking about how conservatives are “fascists !” who want “more power” within government.

    No.
    Wrong.
    The dumb-ass Democrats are the ones who say, “Vote for me, and I’ll make sure you get more candy !”

    We conservatives are the guys whose candidates say, “Vote for me, because I won’t give you as much candy as the Democrats.”

    Elephant Stone (f49811)

  33. “The lefties tend to be angry, unhappy people in general.”

    ES – A happy liberal is an oxymoron.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  34. The requirement that Americans treat their President with respect ended for me after I saw the way liberals and the media treated Bush

    It’s not just that, but also the fact that Obama himself has been such a blatantly partisan, petty, egotistical politician, happily vilifying his opponents in public settings. I won’t even say anything about his habit of mouthing flat-out lies in order to cast doubt on folks on the other side of the ideological/party divide.

    Mark (f1ffc1)

  35. “I think we should demonized successful people.”

    What’s truly bizarre is that the guy works on pediatric brain trauma, spinal cord injuries, etc… the things that don’t happen to every kid. That happen to the unfortunate few. What happens if there is a mismatch between those unlucky enough to need these treatments and those children lucky enough to have enough in an HSA to afford his treatments? There’s no concept of risk pooling in this idea.

    I followed an article’s links to some of his publications. Strong, peer reviewed stuff. Regressions, serious applications of research tools, etc… One wonders if he subjected his HSA idea to the same rigors as other things he puts his name on. There are people who study health care financing — who also have a rigorous method. And they have some important, if not basic, concepts they address. And it took a lot of time. Things like Romneycare didn’t appear out of nowhere. They were batted about the policy world for years before being implemented in MA or even now nationwide.

    One would hope this was not just another example of a smart, incredibly accomplished person in one field denigrating or otherwise pooh poohing the accomplishments of another. Because then we’d have to conclude this guy was just being a jerk.

    DaveM (15c8d4)

  36. By the way, Mr. Court Jester DaveM, neurosurgery is a highly specialized discipline.
    You’re probably not informed enough to know the liability issues inherent in that discipline, particularly once it involves high-risk surgery.

    When ambulance-chasers such as John Edwards are waiting to pounce on the slightest deviation from the desired outcome, it elicits the cost of consultations and procedures to skyrocket. And if a neurosurgeon realizes he risks being dragged into court as a result of a surgery, he then must play it smart and pre-empt accusations of incompetency or malpractice by scheduling other tests and examinations prior to the surgery, so that if he’s ever dragged into court, he can then produce various other test results to show that he was proceeding cautiously.

    I know that for left wing shills such as yourself, “inequality !” is your rallying cry. But highly-specialized surgeons who endure the risk and stress as well as years of school and training are deserving of a comfortable income as compensation for their training, skill, and stress.

    I know that someone somewhere earning a “comfortable income” causes a lot of anger and frustration for lower-skilled people such as yourself, but you should be thankful there are people who take on the responsibility of training for neurosurgery.
    If neurosurgeons merely earned the same amount of money as say, a high school math teacher or the guy who writes up the orders at the local auto repair shop, then there would be fewer people willing to take on the stress and responsibility of being a neurosurgeon.

    Think of it this way, if stressed-out air traffic controllers made about the same amount of money as the chilled-out baggage handlers, why would anyone in their right mind apply to become an air traffic controller ?

    Seriously, Econ 101 requires much deeper thinking than your left wing buddies at Daily Kos could ever imagine.

    Elephant Stone (f49811)

  37. “By the way, Mr. Court Jester DaveM, neurosurgery is a highly specialized discipline.
    You’re probably not informed enough to know the liability issues inherent in that discipline, particularly once it involves high-risk surgery.”

    I’m sure it is highly expensive and the incredibly few people who do it well are worth the cost. That’s why I’m astounded by the fact that the guy thinks we can pay for health care by kids getting HSAs.

    DaveM (15c8d4)

  38. “One would hope this was not just another example of a smart, incredibly accomplished person in one field denigrating or otherwise pooh poohing the accomplishments of another. Because then we’d have to conclude this guy was just being a jerk.”

    Comment by DaveM (15c8d4) — 2/10/2013 @ 11:54 am

    ———————-

    DaveM, did you forget that your favorite action hero Barry Obama was denigrating the accomplishments of others when he famously stated, “You didn’t build that !”

    Good Allah.
    You lefties really have no shame.

    Elephant Stone (f49811)

  39. Well the tell is someone who never understood the hippocratic oath, Ezekiel Emmanuel, was one of the crafters of the plan,

    narciso (3fec35)

  40. I’m sure it is highly expensive and the incredibly few people who do it well are worth the cost. That’s why I’m astounded by the fact that the guy thinks we can pay for health care by kids getting HSAs.

    You’re doing the typical liberal parlor trick of conflating health insurance with health care. HSAs are largely designed for the latter and should cover your annual checkup, a specialist visit when warranted, any prescription drugs you might need, etc. When you go on about spinal injuries and the like, however, you are talking about health insurance which would be there to cover catastrophic events. Nothing about HSAs would prevent insurers from offering policies for catastrophic coverage.

    If Washington wants to muck-around with offering some sort of taxpayer-financed mandatory catastrophic insurance policy then we should be willing to debate that on its merits. It is simply NOT the same though as demanding that somebody else pay for Sandra Fluke’s classmates’ birth control pills, and liberals have done this country a huge disservice by making those issues one-and-the-same.

    JVW (4826a9)

  41. Well I have a new favorite doctor. Honestly, it’s kind of funny that we’re celebrating a guy for standing up for what he believes, even though Obama is sitting right there. I think it’s the novelty of the situation more than anything. It’s not too often that Obama is forced to sit and LISTEN to people who disagree with him. (which is why he did so poorly in that first debate, me-thinks)

    Book (12be79)

  42. If you thought up every characteristic of a President that the Left purports to reject, Obama would embody it. Which only confirms their hypocrisy and reveals their secret adoption of fuhrerprinzip.

    SPQR (1e3571)

  43. DaveM,

    I usually try to be a little dry and subversive with my insults to lefties, but you’re so mediocre, I don’t think you would grasp the nuance of a backhanded compliment.

    You’re the one who agrees that pediatric neurosurgeons are highly specialized and a consultation with one is generally only necessary for only a smaller pool of youngsters.
    Therefore, you’re admitting that plenty of people can navigate through life without having to pay for a neurosurgeon.
    And if there comes a time when that child needs a consultation with a neurosurgeon, then the parents will cross that bridge when they arrive at it.
    But to throw the baby out with the bathwater, and say, “To hell with all of it, because one day, my child may need a three hundred dollar consultation !” is plain defeatism and quite frankly stupid.

    It all emanates from your bizarre premise that nobody should have a better or more expensive “x” than anyone else.

    Left wing icons such as Nancy Pelosi and John Kerry and George Soros, and the Kennedys all ascribe to your point of view, because everyone knows they’ve all lived lives of sacrifice and modesty !

    Good Allah.

    Elephant Stone (f49811)

  44. JVW, ex ellant rebuttal of DaveM.

    SPQR (1e3571)

  45. That’s why I’m astounded by the fact that the guy thinks we can pay for health care by kids getting HSAs.

    And I’m astounded that the big-hearted, compassionate crowd believes Obamacare must mandate that birth control be handed out to all citizens, and that parents be accommodated in insurance plans even if their adult children are well past their teenage years. I mean what’s that all about?

    Why the hell hasn’t Obamacare been extended to include free food from Whole Foods (because good nutrition is important for one’s health), cable TV (because good entertainment reduces heart-attack-inducing stress), cell-phone service (because calling doctors during an emergency should be as convenient as possible), and friendly transportation (because a nice car will lighten one’s jitters when traveling to the doctor’s office).

    Obamacare is heartless.

    Mark (f1ffc1)

  46. I’d never heard of the man until I saw and viewed this video link. What he said makes a great deal of sense, and he seems to be doing something useful. I used the Amazon search box to find a couple of his books and ordered them. I also donated to the Carson Scholars Fund using the Fund’s online donation page (https). I encourage other readers to do the same. At the very least the donations will help the Fund with the IRS problems that are likely to afflict it in the very near future; and Patterico will get a small portion of your Amazon order.

    And to DaveM, get a life. The key to our country’s survival is to get our less successful more involved in improving their own lives. Adults who are incapable of finding a way to manage an HSA for their child are certainly not fit to be parents. For the very small number of such people who have children, lets do something to free the children from their mismanagement. Meantime, those who are willing to bear the responsibilities of raising a child will be enabled to do the right things with HSAs and the proper kinds of insurance.

    Treating everyone as though they are incompetent leads us to a place where no one wants to live. And for most liberals who support such things for “the less fortunate,” who not coincidentally almost always have different colored skin, it is a shameful racism.

    bobathome (c0c2b5)

  47. Note that Obamacare actually restricted HSA scope and maximuns. Consider why the drafters of the legislation would want to do that.

    SPQR (1e3571)

  48. An excellent speaker! I noticed how the First Lady’s applause petered out around the point the comments around deficits/debt were made… how 0bama appeared to use his Blackberry to order a future drone strike on Mr. Carson at around the 21:45 mark, and how Big Zer0 seemed fairly constipated through the entire speech.

    Colonel Haiku (00144f)

  49. Btw, JD did link this the other day, but I had my own comments on it, so I wanted to put it out there again. I edied the post to make that clear.

    Patterico (9c670f)

  50. Mr. Carson has beach balls.

    mg (31009b)

  51. “You’re doing the typical liberal parlor trick of conflating health insurance with health care. HSAs are largely designed for the latter and should cover your annual checkup, a specialist visit when warranted, any prescription drugs you might need, etc. When you go on about spinal injuries and the like, however, you are talking about health insurance which would be there to cover catastrophic events..”

    You should double check Dr. Carson’s proposal. It’s so that when you’re 85 and have 6 diseases you choose to pass on the HSA to your kids instead of spending it on your health. That’s not a world for catastrophic care. He’s describing a very awful world, except it’s not the liberal doing a parlor trick.

    “And if there comes a time when that child needs a consultation with a neurosurgeon, then the parents will cross that bridge when they arrive at it.”

    What kind of health care policy is “cross that bridge when they arrive at it?”

    “But to throw the baby out with the bathwater, and say, “To hell with all of it, because one day, my child may need a three hundred dollar consultation !” is plain defeatism and quite frankly stupid.”

    It’s not that my child might need it. It’s what we know some children will need it but not which ones. If there’s a baby being tossed out with the bathwater, it’s the concept of risk pooling.

    “Adults who are incapable of finding a way to manage an HSA for their child are certainly not fit to be parents.”

    But the point is the risk that you’ll need Dr. Carson is so small and the cost so great that nobody can manage an HSA to prepare for that!

    DaveM (15c8d4)

  52. Also I’m not talking about 300 dollar consultations. Your kid has a brain trauma that requires pediatric neurosurgery you’re not going to get that surgery for 300 bucks.

    DaveM (15c8d4)

  53. Which is why you should buy catastrophic health insurance in addition to saving in your HSA, DaveM. Just like you buy car insurance to protect you from a catastrophic accident but you pay directly for routine maintenance on your car.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  54. And these are the numbers that should really scare you, DaveM, because they affect everyone.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  55. “Which is why you should buy catastrophic health insurance in addition to saving in your HSA, DaveM”

    Again, pay attention to Carson. That’s not the world he describes.

    DaveM (15c8d4)

  56. You should double check Dr. Carson’s proposal. It’s so that when you’re 85 and have 6 diseases you choose to pass on the HSA to your kids instead of spending it on your health. That’s not a world for catastrophic care. He’s describing a very awful world, except it’s not the liberal doing a parlor trick.

    I’m sorry, DaveM, but I don’t follow this paragraph at all. Just what point are you trying to make? That a world in which an 85-year-old decides not to have a hip replacement in order to pass money on to his grandkids is an “awful” world? Why in the world is a citizen making a rational spending decision that affects himself so abhorrent to you? Would you rather that some bureaucrat made that decision, or do you believe in a world where everybody gets infinite health care, costs be dammed?

    JVW (4826a9)

  57. “That a world in which an 85-year-old decides not to have a hip replacement in order to pass money on to his grandkids is an “awful” world?”

    It’s a world in which if you get hit with a catastrophic illness you decide to die so that your kid can have money in their HSA. Or you bankrupt your family.

    DaveM (15c8d4)

  58. That’s why I’m astounded by the fact

    I think there is likely much that astounds “davem”

    JD (5a02de)

  59. DaveM hearts his benevolent masters.

    JD (b63a52)

  60. It’s a world in which if you get hit with a catastrophic illness you decide to die so that your kid can have money in their HSA. Or you bankrupt your family.

    OK, yeah, but how is it supposed to work in your utopia? Do you think that somebody (read: the taxpayer) should just cough up for any and all medical treatment that anyone could possibly benefit from? Should we spend billions of dollars so that our fellow citizens who get very sick at age 88 can eke out another two or three years before finally inheriting their eternal reward? Do you think that doctors, nurses, technicians, hospital administrators, insurance agents, trial lawyers, etc. should all work for free so that nobody has to make the tough decision of paying for anything?

    It’s super easy to play the big-hearted liberal decrying the greedy corporatization of medicine. It’s a whole hell of a lot harder to come up with any alternative ideas of how this stuff ought to work and who should pay for it.

    JVW (4826a9)

  61. JVW, that’s just what Social Justice is all about.
    National Health Service pays for everything.
    As we see in daily reports, it works so well in the U.K.

    askeptic (2bb434)

  62. JVW – why do you advocate letting old coots starve and die? Why not just push them off a cliff in their wheelchairs?

    JD (b63a52)

  63. “Why not just push them off a cliff in their wheelchairs?”

    JD – The more they breath, the more global warming they cause.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  64. Or you bankrupt your family.

    Other nations with socialized healthcare appear to have that dilemma covered. However, while you won’t end up bankrupt, you also may find the door of the doctor’s office or hospital slamming shut in your face.

    We in the US are merely a prelude to places like Britain, apparently full of people who are unkind and stingy to a variety of folks dependent on socialized healthcare, regardless of their preferences or needs—and not even offering them the joy of being able to bequeath to their kids money from a special savings account!

    Damn, those Europeans aren’t compassionate and liberal enough!

    nytimes.com, Steven Rattner, September 2012:

    [U]nless we start allocating health care resources more prudently — rationing, by its proper name — the exploding cost of Medicare will swamp the federal budget. But in the pantheon of toxic issues — the famous “third rails” of American politics — none stands taller than overtly acknowledging that elderly Americans are not entitled to every conceivable medical procedure or pharmaceutical.

    Most notably, President Obama’s estimable Affordable Care Act regrettably includes severe restrictions on any reduction in Medicare services or increase in fees to beneficiaries. In 2009, Sarah Palin’s rant about death panels even forced elimination from the bill of a provision to offer end-of-life consultations.

    [T]he view of the bipartisan Medicare trustees, whose 2012 report stated: “Actual future Medicare expenditures are likely to exceed the intermediate projections shown in this report, possibly by quite large amounts.”

    …Let’s not forget that with the elderly population growing rapidly, even if cost increases for each beneficiary can be contained, Medicare would still claim a rising share of the American economy. Medicare needs to take a cue from Willie Sutton, who reportedly said he robbed banks because that’s where the money was. The big money in Medicare is not to be found in Mr. Ryan’s competition or Mr. Obama’s innovation, but in reducing the cost of treating people in the last year of life, which consumes more than a quarter of the program’s budget.

    No one wants to lose an aging parent. And with price out of the equation, it’s natural for patients and their families to try every treatment, regardless of expense or efficacy. But that imposes an enormous societal cost that few other nations have been willing to bear. Many countries whose health care systems are regularly extolled — including Canada, Australia and New Zealand — have systems for rationing care.

    Take Britain, which provides universal coverage with spending at proportionately almost half of American levels. Its National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence uses a complex quality-adjusted life year system to put an explicit value (up to about $48,000 per year) on a treatment’s ability to extend life.

    Steven Rattner, a contributing opinion writer, was a counselor to the Treasury secretary in the Obama administration.

    Mark (f1ffc1)

  65. JVW – why do you advocate letting old coots starve and die? Why not just push them off a cliff in their wheelchairs?

    What, and wreck a perfectly good wheelchair?

    JVW (4826a9)

  66. The one moment where I thought that Obama was being accidentally honest in the ObamaCare debates is when he was asked about expensive procedures being performed on the elderly and he acknowledged that maybe Medicare shouldn’t be paying to artificially prolong someone’s life. I think too many conservatives jumped on him for those remarks when the correct response should be, “Yes, Medicare shouldn’t pay for those procedures, but the citizen and his or her family ought to at least have the option of paying for it themselves.”

    About a year ago my parents drew up living wills and sat me down for a talk. They both expressed their wish that my sister and I do not spend money to prolong their lives should they begin to deteriorate. They both want to be allowed to die naturally with dignity at the appointed hour. That’s a tough conversation to have, but in a free society it is one that everyone ought to have with their families. And the government should have no part to play in it.

    JVW (4826a9)

  67. Comment by Mark (f1ffc1) — 2/10/2013 @ 4:42 pm

    I’ll grant this much to our British friends: they openly use the word “ration” when talking about how health care is administered in their country. They are certainly way more honest than our liberal friends here are.

    JVW (4826a9)

  68. “OK, yeah, but how is it supposed to work in your utopia?”

    Can we start by not throwing out the risk pooling baby with the bath water? No reason to make utopia. But Carson was concerned with how much of our GDP goes to health care. So let’s look at how other places get it lower, like Israel.

    “JVW – why do you advocate letting old coots starve and die? Why not just push them off a cliff in their wheelchairs?”

    Not just the olds. Kids who can’t afford Dr. Carson too.

    DaveM (15c8d4)

  69. Of course, Rattner who paid 10 million in fines, misrepresents the death panels, which are really the IPAB, which was in the Stimulus bill, which follow the ‘Complete Lives’ system, which is incorporated as NICE,

    narciso (3fec35)

  70. Apparently DaveM is tone deaf too. I was mocking you.

    JD (b63a52)

  71. DaveM,

    I think Dr. Carson believes the government should cover catastrophic health care and the market/private insurance should cover routine care. I don’t agree that is a good idea.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  72. I’m curious, DRJ, what part of Dr. Carson’s conjecture don’t you think is a good idea? Is it that government would cover catastrophic care? I too am wary of this idea, but if we could have full privatization of routine care I think I would grit my teeth and accept the government running a catastrophic insurance plan provided there are some limits on who can be covered.

    JVW (4826a9)

  73. “Apparently DaveM is tone deaf too. I was mocking you.”

    And yet you still don’t know how folks pay Carson’s bills.

    “I think Dr. Carson believes the government should cover catastrophic health care and the market/private insurance should cover routine care.”

    Could be. That’s not what his speech described, but he did say we would put money in HSAs for poor people.

    DaveM (15c8d4)

  74. JVW,

    I don’t trust the government so I really don’t want it responsible for saving my life or the lives of people I care about.

    DaveM,

    Here is why I think Dr. Carson wants the government to cover catastrophic costs.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  75. “DaveM” was also “Hippocrates” and “beerandcoffee”. Raise your hand if you are surprised. And others.

    Commenters who do not use a consistent name, and/or who use a proxy to post, are subject to banning.

    JD (b63a52)

  76. I don’t trust the government so I really don’t want it responsible for saving my life or the lives of people I care about.

    Well, I can’t fault you for that. Given my druthers, I would want a private plan for catastrophic coverage too, but I think that the temptation for the government to hyper-regulate that industry would be so great that it would end up being a private plan in name only.

    JVW (4826a9)

  77. And yet you still don’t know how folks pay Carson’s bills.

    Trolls are so cute when they get all superior and uppity.

    JD (b63a52)

  78. He had nearly gone ‘full Otto’ but I thought he was just new,

    narciso (3fec35)

  79. “Here is why I think Dr. Carson wants the government to cover catastrophic costs.”

    Are you talking about this part?

    “Dr. Carson gets at the hard issues surrounding the medical field, while sharing with audiences the warm and compassionate perspective that have made him a world-renowned surgeon. He draws upon his knowledge of both interventional and preventive medicines to discuss not only improvements in personal health, but how the passage of health care reform will potentially make life better for all Americans. “

    DaveM (3416ab)

  80. JVW,

    Obviously the government thinks it can control everything about our health care, and I guess it can now that we have ObamaCare. But that hasn’t always been the case. I still remember when people were the ones who decided when to seek out health care, as opposed to today’s doctors aka health care bureaucrats mandating annual check-ups, vaccines, and tests. I even remember when patients decided not to get expensive health care procedures because they or their families didn’t want them or couldn’t afford them. Doesn’t that sound quaint in today’s world?

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  81. DaveM,

    I’m not sure what happened but my link didn’t work the first time. Try this and click on “Solutions for Healthcare Costs” under Videos on the lower right part of the screen.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  82. DaveM – how about you tell us all the other names you have used here.

    JD (b63a52)

  83. DaveM, the claim that Obamacare will stop a catastrophic illness from bankrupting you is a lie – pure and simple.

    People who have catastrophic illnesses seldom end up in bankruptcy from medical bills. They end up in bankruptcy from a loss of income from not being able to work while ill.

    SPQR (768505)

  84. DaveM, what’s the “right” amount of our GDP to spend on healthcare? If people want to spend more of their wealth on healthcare, why is that a bad thing – as Democrats imply but never explain?

    SPQR (768505)

  85. “DaveM, what’s the “right” amount of our GDP to spend on healthcare?”

    Romney liked Israel’s number. I do too. If folks want to spend more of their own money, no problem. That’s not what’s driving the numbers here.

    DaveM (3416ab)

  86. Iamadimwit is so transparently mendoucheous.

    JD (b63a52)

  87. DaveM, you are an idiot.

    If people “spend their own money”, that is counted in the healthcare fraction of GDP of our nation as well.

    SPQR (768505)

  88. DaveM, for instance, $10 billion of healthcare spending is plastic surgery. Almost all of it cosmetic. That’s counted in “healthcare” GDP. Do we have more than Israel per capita?

    Do you bother to think about anything you write, DaveM?

    SPQR (768505)

  89. It is fundamentally unserious, SPQR

    JD (b63a52)

  90. “If people “spend their own money”, that is counted in the healthcare fraction of GDP of our nation as well.”

    But people only have so much of their own money to spend. The problem isn’t that too many people are paying out of pocket for Dr. Carson’s neurosurgery. It should clue you in that this is not the problem that some people want to force more people to pay out pocket as part of their cost control plans.

    “DaveM, for instance, $10 billion of healthcare spending is plastic surgery. Almost all of it cosmetic. That’s counted in “healthcare” GDP. Do we have more than Israel per capita?”

    I don’t know much about cosmetic surgery in Israel, but here health care spending is on the order of like 2.5 trillion. That 10 billion is cosmetic (whether out of pocket or not) isn’t going to be a big factor in controlling costs.

    DaveM (988d6b)

  91. Iamadimwit – how many different names are you up to now?

    JD (b63a52)

  92. DaveM, so you really are without a clue.

    SPQR (768505)

  93. I’m telling you out of pocket spending is not the problem so I’m not worried about controlling it. But it would be nice to reduce costs for those folks.

    DaveM (483db7)

  94. I hesitate to even ask, because iamadimwit is so douchey, but what do you think are the main problems, and how ObamaCare, or your goal of single payer, will fix them.

    JD (b63a52)

  95. I know how to control medical costs. 1964.

    Ag80 (b2c81f)

  96. DaveM,

    This is what happens when you let the government run health care.

    The Sunday Telegraph understands that the report on Stafford hospital, where up to 1,200 people died needlessly in appalling conditions, will call for an overhaul of regulation to ensure poor managers are weeded out, and better training for nurses and healthcare assistants.

    Here’s a series of articles on the subject. Annals of Government Medicine 

    Tanny O'Haley (12193c)

  97. When I looked at this, I thought it was a National Prayer Breakfast talk, not a doctoral dissertation defense on differing models of financing health care…

    Dr. Carson was being polite. He is a strong pro-life, sanctity of life advocate and had he had a mind to, he would have “taken a scalpel to Obama’s knife fight” and taken it to President Infanticide’s record. What Dr. Carson said was pretty predictable for anyone who bothered to research him. Anyone who didn’t like it, whine to the people on Obama’s team who agreed to it.

    Dr. Carson is a very gifted surgeon and does what he is good at, for people I’m sure who can pay or not.

    As I wrote before, he was 1/2 inch away of being locked up as a juvenile delinquent when his life was turned around.

    I heard of Ben Carson more than 20 years ago, heard him in person give a talk in 1993.

    Ben Carson I know, his detractors should humbly sit down, shut up, and learn something.

    MD in Philly (3d3f72)

  98. I have been reading Carson’s book, America the Beautiful, and parts of his prayer breakfast talk are nearly verbatim to the book. So there’s no possibility that his subject matter and his delivery were unforeseeable. In fact, I thought it was interesting that Michele clapped rather enthusiastically at a number of his points. But hte one was nonplussed. The book is readable, and it will refresh your memory of American history. And so far nothing too PC in that history … he does mention that European diseases devasted native Americans, but he doesn’t imply a conspiracy as some of our more ambitous academics are apt to do. That’s just the way things were before Pastuer. I am looking forward to his comments on our current state of affairs.

    And picking up on Tanney’s point to davem about UK health care, there was an incident last summer where a patient, Kane Gorny, 22, in a UK teaching hospital called the police to try and get his nurses to give him some water. The police arrived, talked to the nurses, and told him he was being taken care of correctly and don’t bother to call them again. About 8 hours later he died of dehydration. Look it up davem.

    bobathome (c0c2b5)


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