Paul Ryan!!

[LisaA]

Again, that would fall under the second part of my statement.

Most places would work with patients to create a payment plan.

Of course, this brings up an important rhetorical question - how much is ones life worth? I would gladly pay whatever hospital bill if my child needed chemo.

FWIW the dirtly little secret in this country and the ones the government control addicts don’t want you to know is that people are not denied medical care because they cannot pay. Of course we all know about the emergency room mandate but of course the emergency room cannot provide lengthy treatment or followup. The reality is that hospitals and doctors will work with patients who do not have insurance or assets. Further these patients get the same care as other patients, there is no two tier system as in countries with the one payer (everyone is equally miserable) systems. When a patient is on the OR table the doctor doesn’t know if he’s indigent or has a gold plated Federal Blue Cross plan.

One of the best sources of care for the poor are Catholic hospitals and clinics. You know the ones with which Obama is at war? Instead of helping these organizations help the poor whom they (Left) claim to care about, they make maintaining operations even more difficult with such edicts as the HHS Mandate. The reality is that the Left wants control. I want to think it’s because they don’t think Americans are smart enough to run their own lives which is arrogant but not evil. My evil twin says they want control just as other dictators wanted control and power, the ultimate aphrodisiac.

The whole “healthcare reform” was a ginned up, made up “crisis” that simply masqueraded the true objective. And it has proven to be as effective as it was necessary

Lisa

 

[LisaA]

As I’ve written before,I usually like your well-thought out posts, even though I don’t always agree with you.

This post is not.

My concern is not that people are on entitlements, it’s why are the number of people on entitlements increasing if the jobless rate is decreasing?

Ditto all of the above. The real question is why are standards being dropped, programs being expanded, more and more people are being pimped to apply for these programs. Note the flood of tax dollar supported advertising to promote getting the elderly, nonEnglish speaking, etc on food stamps.

Why is unemployment extended to nearly two years? Why is it that the majority of people on this lengthened unemployment suddenly find jobs right before the benefits run out.

The whole point of the Left is to get more and more people in the wagon while simultaneously flogging those of us PULLING the wagon with ferocious rhetoric and threats of ever increasing tax rates. It’s the best legal vote buying scheme around there and was predicted by both Franklin and Jefferson.

Lisa

 

[ComputerGeek25]

As I’ve written before,I usually like your well-thought out posts, even though I don’t always agree with you.

This post is not.

My concern is not that people are on entitlements, it’s why are the number of people on entitlements increasing if the jobless rate is decreasing?

And 47% do not pay any income tax.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Job growth is usually a trailing indicator of economic recovery as hiring and paying benefits are expensive.

Even though the stock market is up and profits may be up, there is still a bit of uncertainty, especally because of Obama’s policies and unemployment is high and workforce participation is still low.

I don’t know how many “experts” would agree or disagree with me on this, but I have a considerable concern that much of the market is simply being buoyed by the “carry trade”; big traders who can borrow at next to zero interest and invest in something to make an “arbitrage”. The problem is that the “carry trade” can take the market south in a heartbeat. One could make a strong argument that lax lending prior to the recession would not have had such terrible results but for the “carry trade” making junk more marketable than it otherwise would have been. Everybody just thought he would be the last guy to jump into a lifeboat when the ship sank. Some were, some weren’t.

Probably there is no single reason the stock market is relatively good (though still lower than 2007’s high by quite a bit). Anticipation of a Repub victory could give rise to optimism among many. Some say the prospect of a Repub congress alone pleases the market which, some say, likes divided government as long as SOMETHING gets done, but not too radically. Some say there is going to be an improvement in technology that will favor some stocks but not others.

And then there’s the “carry trade”.

 

[qui_est_ce]

The whole point of the Left is to get more and more people in the wagon while simultaneously flogging those of us PULLING the wagon with ferocious rhetoric and threats of ever increasing tax rates. It’s the best legal vote buying scheme around there and was predicted by both Franklin and Jefferson.

Lisa

I don’t know if it’s the whole point of the left, but this is definitely the fruit of President Obama’s policies.

 

[Rich_Olszewski]

I don’t know if it’s the whole point of the left, but this is definitely the fruit of President Obama’s policies.

Agreed, Christine. The Left isn’t composed entirely of blackguards.

 

[Elizabeth502]

FWIW the dirtly little secret in this country and the ones the government control addicts don’t want you to know is that people are not denied medical care because they cannot pay. Of course we all know about the emergency room mandate but of course the emergency room cannot provide lengthy treatment or followup. The reality is that hospitals and doctors will work with patients who do not have insurance or assets.

Lisa, I agree it’s been a secret, although I wouldn’t call it “dirty.” I consider myself quite educated, including when it comes to medicine, which is an avocation of mine (reading medical literature, including technical stuff for professionals only), and including how to become a self-advocating consumer in medicine (and elsewhere). But I only learned recently (for example) that the price of Rx drugs can sometimes be negotiated directly by the consumer with the drug company. (There is also the – literally – fine print now in TV commercials which publishes a message that if you can’t afford the advertised drug, call the company.) In any case, my neighbor who works as a night nurse told me about this.

The reality is that most consumers --I will bet you-- have no idea that the price for services (apart from drug costs) are in any way negotiable, but that all medical services necessitate fixed fees for every patient, insurance or no insurance. I happen to have a physician who has offered me reduced fees, but it never occurred to me to ask for that. Most people would logically assume that if you don’t have the money, you have no access to services – whether the provider is a lawyer, a physician, or an auto mechanic. (Even lawyers approached for a contingency case nevertheless often ask for retainers of some kind.)

I don’t like scapgoating, so I promise I won’t, and I think there’s been too much scapegoating in the national conversations and in CAF conversations. For probably multiple reasons (longevity, advanced medical procedures, litigation, physician/hospital overhead & more), the cost of individual medical coverage has grown exponentially in the last few decades, The average consumer can see that, and can watch the price of insurance premiums “trickle up” () while his or her salary remains constant, and the price of food, fuel/transportation and housing generally increase.

That crisis is real. You and I may agree that the timing could arguably be described as arbitrary, but it has been a building flashpoint which needs at some point to be addressed. As I have said before --agreeing with several posters-- we have a clumsy, patchwork “system” which is very difficult for even the informed consumer to navigate. Again, even I, more literate in this area than perhaps many, “discovered” urgent care clinics only recently. There had been zero publicity about them, and I maintain that given the few patients in there every time I go, and the Ritz Carlton service provided – as if you are the most important patient on the planet – this is still a (very clean ) secret.

Education is a huge factor, both in consumer behavior and in medical care. Institutions could be stepping up to the plate: Yes, the Catholic Church and her own healthcare delivery, the government – locally especially (“Here are some alternatives for you for those who have no insurance coverage…”), and the medical community itself. I do not believe, at least at this time, in nationalized healthcare. I do, however, believe that government has a role in educating the public about options, and possibly in centralizing an information database about that.

 

[_Abyssinia]

Dolan: Ryan Is a ‘Great Public Servant’

The first time Timothy Cardinal Dolan of New York, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, met Wisconsin representative Paul Ryan, the congressman was talking about St. Thomas Aquinas. Cardinal Dolan reminisced about the meeting and their subsequent friendship and correspondence during his Sirius Catholic Channel radio show Thursday

.

The meeting took place at Carthage College, a Lutheran school in Kenosha, Wisc., Dolan, then bishop of Milwaukee, was there to receive an honorary degree; Ryan, a fourth-term congressman, was the commencement speaker that year.

“He gave — I timed it — nine minutes, which is excellent, on St. Thomas Aquinas,” recalled Cardinal Dolan, who himself tends to give concise homilies. “It was tremendous, in front of a Lutheran audience,” the cardinal remembered. “So we really started up a great correspondence and got to know each other very, very well.”

“We go way back, Congressman Paul Ryan and I,” the cardinal continued. “I came to know and admire him immensely. And I would consider him a friend. He and his wife Janna and their three kids have been guests in my house; I’ve been a guest at their house. They’re remarkably upright, refreshing people. And he’s a great public servant.”

Dolan stressed that he was “speaking personally and not from a partisan point of view. . . . But I have immense regard and admiration and affection for him, just personally.” Dolan added that he is “happy” his friend has the “honor” of being on a national ticket.

In his first solo outing this week, Ryan met hecklers criticizing him for policies they believe are against the “common good.” This summer, his budget was criticized on a bus tour by politically active liberal religious sisters, one of whom is on the verge of becoming a talking-head-show regular through Election Day. In his own show, taped Tuesday afternoon and aired Thursday afternoon, Cardinal Dolan acknowledged that Ryan has his critics, but commended the congressman for his efforts to tackle the federal budget deficit.

He recalled exchanges they have had about the Ryan budget plan (exchanges that National Review Online first reported on last May) and paraphrased Ryan:

He did say, “I bristle when any Catholic politician who dares to suggest that we need to get our fiscal house in order, that we need to balance the budget, that we need to show some frugality and restraint, is automatically branded as anti-poor. . . . I am passionate about the poor. That, too, comes from my religious conviction. . . . Nobody suffers more from runaway deficits and a poor economy than the poor. And the best way we can help the poor is by getting our financial house in order — meaning jobs will go up, employment will go up, and they’ll be helped.”

Cardinal Dolan summed up his end of the exchange, saying: “And I wrote back and said, ‘You’ve got a good point.’ ‘And,’ I said, ‘let me applaud some of the things you are doing, namely your call for financial accountability and restraint and a balanced budget . . . and . . . let me also applaud your obvious solicitude for the poor.”

“Once again it comes down to that prudential judgment. How are we going to do it?” Dolan stressed that he was “not trying to be an apologist” for Ryan:

He and I had a good, heated conversation and I offered some criticism which he was gracious in accepting. . . . [Ryan said he believes it is] “probably time to ask a big question . . . whether so-called entitlement programs are the best way to help the poor. . . . I’m for the entitlement programs. We always have to have a vigorous safety net. But if we don’t do something to save them, our huge entitlement programs, like Medicare and Social Security” — to which he is committed, by the way — “are going to flounder. So I’m kind of the only one saying what we’ve got to do to save them. Please don’t say to me that I’m the one about to undo them. Actually, if we don’t do this, they’re going to be undone.”

So I admire him. He’s honest. He’s refreshing. Do I agree with everything? No, but . . . I’m anxious to see him in action.

nationalreview.com/articles/314272/dolan-ryan-great-public-servant-kathryn-jean-lopez

 

[Scott_Lafrance]

Agreed, Christine. The Left isn’t composed entirely of blackguards.

Ya, there’s the moonbats, the greenies, the treehuggers, the Greenpeacers, the “Save the Whales” folk…

 

[ComputerGeek25]

Lisa, I agree it’s been a secret, although I wouldn’t call it “dirty.” I consider myself quite educated, including when it comes to medicine, which is an avocation of mine (reading medical literature, including technical stuff for professionals only), and including how to become a self-advocating consumer in medicine (and elsewhere). But I only learned recently (for example) that the price of Rx drugs can sometimes be negotiated directly by the consumer with the drug company. (There is also the – literally – fine print now in TV commercials which publishes a message that if you can’t afford the advertised drug, call the company.) In any case, my neighbor who works as a night nurse told me about this.

The reality is that most consumers --I will bet you-- have no idea that the price for services (apart from drug costs) are in any way negotiable, but that all medical services necessitate fixed fees for every patient, insurance or no insurance. I happen to have a physician who has offered me reduced fees, but it never occurred to me to ask for that. Most people would logically assume that if you don’t have the money, you have no access to services – whether the provider is a lawyer, a physician, or an auto mechanic. (Even lawyers approached for a contingency case nevertheless often ask for retainers of some kind.)

I don’t like scapgoating, so I promise I won’t, and I think there’s been too much scapegoating in the national conversations and in CAF conversations. For probably multiple reasons (longevity, advanced medical procedures, litigation, physician/hospital overhead & more), the cost of individual medical coverage has grown exponentially in the last few decades, The average consumer can see that, and can watch the price of insurance premiums “trickle up” () while his or her salary remains constant, and the price of food, fuel/transportation and housing generally increase.

That crisis is real. You and I may agree that the timing could arguably be described as arbitrary, but it has been a building flashpoint which needs at some point to be addressed. As I have said before --agreeing with several posters-- we have a clumsy, patchwork “system” which is very difficult for even the informed consumer to navigate. Again, even I, more literate in this area than perhaps many, “discovered” urgent care clinics only recently. There had been zero publicity about them, and I maintain that given the few patients in there every time I go, and the Ritz Carlton service provided – as if you are the most important patient on the planet – this is still a (very clean ) secret.

Education is a huge factor, both in consumer behavior and in medical care. Institutions could be stepping up to the plate: Yes, the Catholic Church and her own healthcare delivery, the government – locally especially (“Here are some alternatives for you for those who have no insurance coverage…”), and the medical community itself. I do not believe, at least at this time, in nationalized healthcare. I do, however, believe that government has a role in educating the public about options, and possibly in centralizing an information database about that.

I agree with you here…

 

[meltzerboy]

Well my concern is that this constant revisiting of plans that were considered and rejected simply muddies the water and gives people the wrong impression. Ryan might well prefer a voucher system in theory but both he and Romney are pragmatic. People need to quit looking at Romney as an idealogue who is married to a certain way of thinking or doing things. THAT is IMO Obama’s biggest flaw, he is often wrong but NEVER in doubt. OTOH Romney is a businessman who focuses on problem solving. He may not seem to “feel our pain” like Clinton but he is willing to look at what works the best. Unlike idealogues he doesn’t have a dog in this fight. “His” plan vs Ryan’s plan…I believe based on everything I’ve seen, read or heard about Romney…that he will look dispassionately on all sides of the issue and focus on what works. That being said, I think he will also adjust if the indications a particular course of action doesn’t work.

I’d much rather have someone who RESPONDS and is willing to change his mind than someone who has put us on the road to perdition and won’t get off because his ego is such that he REFUSES to acknowledge every thing he’s done has turned to rot.

Lisa

In a way, I agree with you that Romney’s not being an ideologue and his practical business sense is a good thing for the country. OTOH, I wish Romney had just a little more ideological bent rather than looking at everything so dispassionately. I want to know whether Romney has a political core. I believe Ryan is more of an ideologue, but he too will adjust to a degree because he wants to ensure his political future. I also think you’re right about Obama’s stubbornness in never changing direction, which I do not view as a positive character trait. I think GWB and Cheney have this kind of stubbornness as well. It is not good for the country; however, at least you always know where you stand with people like them.

 

[Rich_Olszewski]

Ya, there’s the moonbats, the greenies, the treehuggers, the Greenpeacers, the “Save the Whales” folk…

Sure. And on the other side are the knuckle dragging droolers, the ones pointing their guns in your face and telling you to make their day, the ones who go looking for women at family gatherings, the pro-war types who’ve never been in uniform, the ones who think that booze isn’t just for breakfast anymore.

We on the left, and those on the right can proudly display a wide menagerie of the bat**** crazy among us in each camp.

 

[Elizabeth502]

And on the other side are the ones who go looking for women at family gatherings,

 

[Rich_Olszewski]

Years ago, my daughter, then around 14, was lounging in her room with her brothers who were watching television with her. Our 11 year old, Gilbert, got up off the floor and innocently flopped onto her bed next to her. She jumped and exclaimed, “Get off my bed, Gil, this isn’t West Virginia!”

I hope you’re not confused any more, Elizabeth.

 

[Elizabeth502]

I hope you’re not confused any more, Elizabeth.

Um, more confused than ever. Is this a geographic slur?

 

[LisaA]

I don’t like scapgoating, so I promise I won’t, and I think there’s been too much scapegoating in the national conversations and in CAF conversations. For probably multiple reasons (longevity, advanced medical procedures, litigation, physician/hospital overhead & more), the cost of individual medical coverage has grown exponentially in the last few decades, The average consumer can see that, and can watch the price of insurance premiums “trickle up” () while his or her salary remains constant, and the price of food, fuel/transportation and housing generally increase.

Education is a huge factor, both in consumer behavior and in medical care. Institutions could be stepping up to the plate: Yes, the Catholic Church and her own healthcare delivery, the government – locally especially (“Here are some alternatives for you for those who have no insurance coverage…”), and the medical community itself. I do not believe, at least at this time, in nationalized healthcare. I do, however, believe that government has a role in educating the public about options, and possibly in centralizing an information database about that.

DIdn’t clip your whole post in order to save space (ha for my own longwinded reply!) but you are right and it’s apparent that most people don’t know what it is like to have a normal transaction in healthcare. IOW every day we buy goods and services, face to face or screen to screen, some of which are as necessary to life as healthcare. Yet we do not depend on a third party payer system or a myriad of government regulations to “protect” us as we do in medical care.

I heard a great quote the other day “**Insurance companies don’t care about our health and we don’t care how much it costs” **which pretty much sums up the problem. When we have choices and control such as with HSAs and Cafeteria Plans, we make better decisions for our health and our pocketbooks. The current system with its pile of mandates encourages overuse. Eligible for a free check up, screening test, or new pair of glasses? Even if people don’t need them, they think why not? After all it’s “free.” The mandates have been a huge driver in high insurance premiums. If you have no effective competition in the market, if you don’t allow the opportunity for purchasing a bare bones plan, then all of us are stuck with paying for other people’s choices. And one of the worst things about Obamacare is the number of mandates requiring various coverage, screenings and testing. Talk about pushing overuse of an underfunded and understaffed system! Again bureaucrats and would be do gooders doing something that “sounds good” but isn’t necessary or inexpensive.

What i like about the voucher concept is that seniors (and I hope someday everyone) can choose coverage that works for THEM not for “the colletive.” One example, the monks at an Abbey were told they must buy a policy that covers women’s healthcare. There are no women at the Abbey. None of the monks is getting pregnant anytime soon. Yet they had no opportunity to buy a less expensive plan that focused on the healthcare issues they were likely to face.

IOW forcing ALL insurance to be virtually identical as to coverage completely negates the great value of competition in driving down costs. Further as you said, face to face negotiation with doctors, drug companies, and hospitals can provide a person with excellent care at a price he can afford. Another ‘dirty little secret’ is the self pay patients are charged retail whereas the same care will be paid at a hugely discounted rate if that same patient were insured. Hospitals and docs WILL give you a better price if you ask, provide a payment plan and communicate with them…best BEFORE the $50000 bill shows up in your mailbox though!

At any rate the third party payer, heavily regulated, mandated, and litigated system we have is serving neither providers or patients. Change was needed, Obamacare was NOT the right idea.

Lisa

 

[Rich_Olszewski]

Um, more confused than ever. Is this a geographic slur?

No. I have nothing against West Virginians, but 14 year old girls - and boys might not be as broad-minded, and may hold a common misperception of the inhabitants of that state.

I have no trouble with geographic slurs. I have been the butt of less than flattering remarks made on this Forum about my beloved New York City, and my unhostile attitude towards such is a simple “Oh, how little you out-of-towners know!”

 

[Luigi_Daniele]

No. I have nothing against West Virginians, but 14 year old girls - and boys might not be as broad-minded, and may hold a common misperception of the inhabitants of that state.

I have no trouble with geographic slurs. I have been the butt of less than flattering remarks made on this Forum about my beloved New York City, and my unhostile attitude towards such is a simple “Oh, how little you out-of-towners know!”

in Pace Picante sauce tradition NEW YORK CITY?!

 

[Rich_Olszewski]

in Pace Picante sauce tradition NEW YORK CITY?!

Sure. Where else? Fly-over country?

 

[YADA]

I’m a few days behind

But are they practicing Catholics?

They may be practicing -

but many are practicing the wrong skills -

they are not practicing correctly

or perhaps they are practicing the democratic party version of Catholicism - exhibited by their pro-abortion, pro euthanasia, pro 'its just about their private sex lives", pro “oral sex is not sex”, pro gay marriage, pro photo-op Communion, pro-spend, spend spend, pro federal government intervention to solve all personal decisions - support