Required reading for: 1) anyone who thinks the American healthcare industry is doin’ just fine, or should even be allowed to find new and creative ways to screw people over (*cough* hardcore libertarians); and/or 2) anyone who’s ever made a smart-ass quip about depression, thereby proving that they’re an ignorant S.O.B. who doesn’t know what the fuck they’re talking about (redundancy removed).
Dooce always says it best
Of interest
- About Me
- Sex-positive feminism reference
- Carnival of Feminists XXI
- Feminist Carnival of Sexual Freedom and Autonomy V
- Amazon Wish List
Subscribe
- Entries RSS - all
- Entries RSS - actual blog posts only (no Twitter or del.icio.us)
- Comments RSS
Your hostess
78 Responses to "Dooce always says it best"
At both the state and federal levels, the free market is tampered with. Then those who want “universal health care” blame the results of this tampering on “the free market.” Krugmann does this, but that’s nothing new.
Insurance companies are told that they have to offer certain benefits on their health care plans. (We had this debate back in March on this very blog.) This decreases the variety in plans that is available, decreases the “creativity, genius, and sacrifice” that is being put into coming up with new plans, new ways of doing health insurance, etc. This is not the product of the free market, but of government interference in the market.
To become a doctor in this country (and every individual state), you must be “licensed” to “practice medicine.” To get such a license, you must go to a (very expensive) medical school (though I have an uncle-in-law who went pretty cheap to a school in Jamaica, but now he can’t pass his boards). This turns the pracitce of medicine into a sort of guild, with the number of people offering such services held way down (to the benefit of those lucky members of the guild who could afford to get themselves licensed in the first place). This lack of competition on the supply side drives up prices higher than they would otherwise be. Again, this is not a result of the “free market,” but of government interference in the free market (the gov’t allows doctoring to operate as a closed guild profession, with heavy membership fees).
And on and on and on. But we blame the “free market,” because we think that this country has such an economy. But it doesn’t. We have a ‘mixed’ economy, and always have.
I feel for this man and his wife (Dooce) and their child, and the struggles they are having affording health insurance. I also have personal experience with this struggle. The first year I was married, my wife went without health insurance because it was just too expensive (for us) to add her onto my health plan at work. But turning around and blaming the “free market” (where is that?) is a misdiagnosis of the problem. And I’m afraid that the quote above, while coming from a place of understandable frustration, is just utopian nonsense.
Saying that every person alive “deserves” this scenario is like saying that every person alive deserves to be able to walk into DisneyWorld for no more than 5 dollars, whenever they want to go, and have it not be crowded. They deserve this, don’t you see? Even if you’re right, doesn’t make it doable.
What are the two main complaints people have about DisneyWorld? It’s 1. too crowded, and 2. too expensive. Well, what if it was made less expensive? It would become more crowded. How do we make it less crowded, without raising the price? (or using some sort of coersion, like mandating that only certain people can go to DisneyWorld on certain days, and enforcing these mandates with men (or women) with guns?)
In a system where people pay nothing or very little for health care, people will be more likely to seek out care for any and all ailments that come up. They will also (why not?) seek out the very best doctors, treatments, etc. This can, not surprisingly, create long waiting lists for even fairly mundane services. The idea that everyone should be able to just “walk in or make an (presumably short notice) appointment” to any physician they want for any “health-related” problem they have, is simply impossible. Unless a lot more people are forced to become doctors and work for free (or a whole lot less than what the ‘market price’ for their services would be). If health care simply becomes a service of the state (in one way or another), less people will want to become doctors than currently do. (Right now, lots of smart people want to be doctors, but can’t because of the costs involved.) Less cutting-edge research on new treatments and medicines will be done than would have been done otherwise. (I’m not saying that no reserach would be done, but who’s to say what research the state would deem worthwhile, and whether that research really would be worthwhile?…Private groups won’t exactly be clamoring to make new products just so they can be assimilated into the bureaucratic state system).
Forget the damn fat-cats who refuse to let go of any of their millions. Let me be their pastor, and I will deal with their lack of charity personally! (Hopefully without needing and racks or stakes) :-) But let’s be careful that we don’t reject the “free market” simply because these greedy bastards happen to support it.
*Reading…reading…reading…done*
Wait, so medical care can be expensive? So much so that certain people spend some large fraction of their income on it? And some people have depression, too?
Eureka! As a “hardcore” libertarian, I obviously assumed those things were untrue. I guess I can find a new philosophy now… Any ideas?
*rolls eyes*
I’ll say it before and I’ll say it again. My view on property rights: The fact that you so desperately need something that I own doesn’t make it any less mine. Governments should respect that from the smallest bindle on a hobo up to the treasury of the largest corporation in the world.
To become a doctor in this country (and every individual state), you must be “licensed” to “practice medicine.”
God forbid we should force our physicians to receive “training” at the hands of “knowledgeable professionals.” I lament the good ‘ol days when you could go buy a nice flank from the butcher and then have him attend to that gangrened finger or when you could go to the barber for a shave, a haircut and a bit of bloodletting.
But we blame the “free market,” because we think that this country has such an economy. But it doesn’t. We have a ‘mixed’ economy, and always have.
Only idiots blame the free market, those of us who are educated and aware blame the cartel-style behaviour of the insurance companies who collude and price-fix to increase profits while decreasing services provided to fund their executives’ “golden parachute” retirement policies and pay off the results of over-investment in the stock market bubble.
But you go on believing that it’s the big, bad government’s fault and Adam Smith’s invisible hand will fix it all. It obivously makes you feel better.
Wow, really? I’m a little puzzled why the health insurance companies would pass laws requiring themselves to jump through so many hoops, like requiring full access to every possible category of health provider, prohibiting asking about certain types of pre-existing conditions, requiring providers to offer health insurance to people who no longer actually qualify for it, requiring mental health coverage to match any medical health dollar limits, imposing a maximum waiting period, eliminating lifetime dollar limits for coverage, giving every senior citizen all the pills and scooters they need, and thousands of other arcane restrictions that drive up insurance costs.
If only there were some other explanation for all those cost-ballooning restrictions…
behavio(u)r? Are you in England? :-)
Seriously, what free market advocate likes cartels? But cartels are usually the result of (guess what?) governments and particular “private interests” colluding together. This is how the cartel gets its monopoly power. Only monopolies have the ability to “collude and price-fix to increase profits while decreasing services”. Only governments allow such monopolies to exist for long. Without government interference, anyone with the resources is allowed to come along and offer better services than the monopoly at lower prices than the monopoly. And then consumers will start buying from the new competitor, and there is no more monopoly. The only way we get a “cartel” is when the coersive power of the state (or state-like coersive power) is used to back up the monopoly’s claim on its customer base. Hardly a free market state of affairs.
And, since price-fixing is so bad (which I agree, it is), how is it a solution to have the government come in and…fix the price? (This is what nationalized health care inevitably involves).
Private companies who face competition (from other sellers) cannot “fix” their prices at whatever they want them to be. They have to offer their product/service at a price someone else is willing to pay. Only governments truly experiment with “price-fixing”, and the results are always disastrous.
As to Mr. Smith and his invisible hand, I have no time for such nonsense. The Hand that guides the universe is no invisible force, but the quite visible Word Made Flesh who governs all things, including those who do not recognize his claim to the throne. If you want to ridicule my own position, then at least throw your tomatoes at the cut-out my head is actually sticking out of. Taking the personal perichoretic reality sovereignly governed and created by a personal and perichoretic (trinitarian) God and turning it into a giant machine governed by (deistic or atheistic) natural laws (such as the “invisible hand” of the market) is precisely the kind of “modernist” foolishness that I reject, as I wait for the return of the King who suffers fools not gladly. In many ways Smith’s modernism laid the groundwork for Marx’s, and I say to Hell with them both.
And I meant to cut that post up into smaller chunks. My bad.
This may not apply … but how does this …
Only monopolies have the ability to “collude and price-fix to increase profits while decreasing services”.
… mesh with the documented collusion of baseball owners in the 1980s. It was down to suppress the market and increase their own profits, though I suppose it didn’t necessarily decrease their services.
Anywho … are you arguing that collusion can only happen with a private-sector working with a government agency? I don’t think you are, but if you are … that seems a tad silly.
Jmac, it probably works better if you amend it so:
No, I’m arguing that collusion between separate private interests, with no government involvement, simply forms (for all intents and purposes) a new, larger private interest (a bigger corporation, or whatever). If that happens, and the new multi-headed beast is the only seller of a particular good, then of course you have a monopoly. But, also, if we are still assuming no government involvement, then that monopoly will not likely last long (relatively speaking), as some fresher innovater will come along and take away a significant portion of its customer base. There is usually money in competing with monopolies (they’re obviously in an industry that is profitable!), assuming no government interference.
If there is no money in competing with a monopoly, then that is probably because the would-be consumers simply don’t care that only one company provides the product in question. Take Major League Baseball, for instance. To whatever extent MLB gets special favors from the government to maintain its position, we have a “cartel” and that’s not good. But my own suspicion is that pro sports are just the kind of thing where the market only demands one product. We don’t really want a MLB champion and a XLB champion, unless they agree to play each other at the end of the season, and then we’re just back–in effect–to one big company again (the MXLB, or something). This sounds familiar doesn’t it? (NL/AL, NFL/AFL, NBA/ABA)
If there were another pro baseball league that Americans wanted to watch, I’m sure that some network would televise their games. I’m not aware of any particular ‘laws’ or regulations that prevent this.
This isn’t MLB’s fault (and if MLB baseball becomes unwatchably bad, it will probably fold and some other baseball league might very well rise up in its place). But it’s not really “collusion” in any case, because what the owners did in the 1980s was more like a bunch of people within the same company all getting together to talk about how to make the company more profitable (to everyone but labor, of course). It’s not wrong for people to do this, though labor won’t like it and might leave if they get wind of it (and of course, you’d better not end up violating your contractual obligations to your workforce, which I think* MLB did when they “colluded” in the 1980s).
Also, I’m not sure what “the market” is that we’re talking about here anyway. MLB is the only big-time baseball league (but this is how the consumers want it, isn’t it?), but it’s not the only big-time sports league. We can argue that MLB does have real free-marketish competition, from the other big-time sports (NFL, NBA, etc.)
To sum all this up, to my mind “collusion” isn’t bad, as long as nobody is being coerced. Why can’t two competing businesses decide to stop competing and work together, if they want? Practically, that’s just a “merger.” If such a move actually results in higher prices and crappier product/service, then the consumers won’t stand for it and another company will probably rise up (Of course these things take a little time, but we’re stuck in the real world here). Unless, again, the government is there to keep that from happening. When the coersive power of the state gets involved in helping a seller/company (or group of sellers/companies) dominate the market, that’s a cartel and that’s bad. But it ain’t no “free market”.
—
*Again, I think. Very tentative observations here about the inner-workings of MLB, and what it all means from a “libertarian” persepctive.
Xon, I don’t think that comment was too long. Definitely getting close to the line, but I think you were fine with it.
Catchng up - been workin’ all day.
Yes, Garrett’s amendment to my earlier statement is appropriate.
Pity the poor health insurance companies and their rising profits.
Obviously, this over-regulation is sucking their lifeblood out…
Furthermore, the last time I checked, the health insurance companies didn’t pass laws - that was the business of the legislative branch of government Freudian slip maybe?
From those Weiss Ratings (from 1997) epon just linked us to:
First of all, there is a difference between “profits” and “profit margins”. Suppose I run a lemonade stand, and I spend a total of fifty dollars on cups, lemonade mix, and water, (for simplicity’s sake, we will not consider the real cost of my cute little table and two chairs (one for my mommy), and advertising (signs around the neighborhood); nor will we consider the “cost” of the labor it took me to set up, make the lemonade, etc.). Suppose also that I sell all of my lemonade, and I make 60 dollars. So, I made 10 dollars profit. My profit margin is 20% (since $10 is 20% of $50). (This, by the way, would be an unbelievably good profit margin in a “real world” capitalist venture, and would never be sustained for long).
Suppose that the next summer, I decide to do my lemonade stand again. This time I spend $100 on supplies, looking to expand my investment based on my success from the previous summer. Suppose that, for some reason, this summer I don’t/can’t sell my lemonade for quite as much money per cup, and I make a total of $115 selling all my lemonade.
So, from one year to the next, I went from making 10 dollars in profits to making 15 dollars in profits. Hey, my profits are up! But my profit margin is down, as this summer I made only 15% on my original investment of 100 (15 is 15% of 100).
And, of course, profit margin is the more telling of the two figures, since I spent a lot more money the second summer but, proportionally, made less on my investment.
What will I do in summer number 3? Might I decide not to put so much money (and time and energy) into a lemonade stand? Maybe I’ll back off an just put 50 bucks into buying supplies, since I don’t really think it is worth it to do twice that for only 5 extra dollars. Maybe I’ll just give up lemonade standing altogether, since I don’t like the writing on the wall (my profit margins keep going down each summer).
Now imagine that the amount of money I have to spend on getting my lemonade stand up and running is increased by a bunch of bureaucrats standing over my shoulder, “protecting” my would-be consumers, etc. I have to spend more on the front-end (money, but also time and energy complying with the new regulations), which means I need to charge more for my money if it is still to be profitable, which means demand for my lemonade will go down, which means I won’t sell as many as I would have without the regulations, and I most likely will have an even lower profit margin.
But, of course, depending on how things go, I might have higher ‘profits’, even if my profit margin is down. And epon can report that all these regulations obviously aren’t hurting the lemonade stand industry, since I still made my 15 dollars (or whatever). But I had to spend more money, more hassle, etc. just to run my business. Certainly there might be some lemonade stands that keep operating and that manage to find ways to make some profits under these conditions. But how many would-be lemonade stand operators have been discouraged altogether from even trying? We’ll never know.
Sorry, I had to go to lunch (poor me!) and didn’t have time to polish all that up (I meant to cut a good bit out…)
What I am getting at is that profits per se tell us very little; profit margins tell us more. And comapnies rarely experience profit margins in this country of much over 5%. When the health insurance companies make 19 billion (collectively) in profits in a year, that means that they probably spent well over 200 billion dollars in that same year. They spent billions to make billions.
When we regulate and price-fix and otherwise drive up the costs of health care (to both the insurance companies, and (thus) to the insured), we are almost certainly hurting the profit margin of these companies (no matter what happens to gross profits), which makes it likely that less resources will be invested in these kinds of companies in the future. (Investors and such will choose to put capital into other projects, rather than health insurance providers, in hopes of making a better return (i.e., profit margin) on their investment.) But as these companies make less money per dollar of their investment, they might still make more money in “simple profits.” That would just depend on a wide variety of factors. (If the company spends more money than they spent previously, then a rise in profits will not necessarily entail a rise in profit margin. And if the company is using added resources complying with regulations, not to mention cutting down on the kinds of plans it offers because of state mandates, we see where this is going…)
And, yes, this same observation applies to all the “windfall profits” that oil companies are making lately. Their profit margins are actually down, but the gross profits are up. (The oil companies are spending inefficiently-more money to make those profits, and this will only get worse when any/all of the proposed taxes/punishments/etc. are enacted.)
Either you’re being very subtlely facetious or you didn’t at all understand that that was my point.
In other words, Amber, it was said “Health care costs are high because the providers collude, fix prices, etc.” and I said “Here are some of the biggest cost-increasing things that have happened to insurance companies; I’m pretty sure these laws weren’t enacted by the companies themselves.”
Well you’re not the one who said that; I was quoting Xon.
As for not understanding or being facetious - give me a freakin’ break, which do you think it was?
So I’m not really sure what everyone’s talking about here, but I think poor people should be provided with emergency healthcare at a very low cost. Not free, of course, because making things free leads to all kinds of problems with overuse. Emergency healthcare, what I’m talking about here, is the kind where you absolutely have to have this problem addressed or you will be severely harmed. These kinds of things aren’t really like paying the phone bill; they pop up out of nowhere and have a tendency to cost a lot of money. Other things are like this too, a notorious one in my family being car trouble, but these aren’t life or death. Anyways, I think we could swing this, whether it is via government or some other avenue.
Cheaper than it would be under market conditions, free, a nickel, the results are the same, Matt. The same “problems with overuse” will result.
Amber, huh??? Garrett and I are arguing the same (essential) position here. Where did I ever say (to be quoted by you) that health insurance companies passed regulatory legislation against themselves?
Never mind, turns out I was quoting Garrett. Oh well, I’m over this discussion anyway. But feel free to carry on, of course.
So then, back to Garrett’s original response, you completely misunderstood what Garrett was saying.
Whatever, indeed. I suppose this conversation has run its course. Just as long as everyone realizes that Garrett and I clearly ‘won’. :-)
Xon,
You’re a smarmy little prick. Writing obtusely and at great length (i.e. - out-windbagging someone) isn’t a victory. It’s boring people with your own lack of clarity. You’re lucky we’ll never meet in real life, because if we did I’d shove that phony little emoticon directly up your ass.
Hey, I put “win” in quotes! :-)
Get a room you two!
Oh, Argument For Argument’s Sake. How I love thee. Let me count the ways. I would treat you right, if you only let me. I would be good to you, Argument For Argument’s Sake. I would make love to you like a greedy prom queen. A greedy prom queen who swallows.
Forsake thy name, Argument For Argument’s Sake. Abandon thine ambitions and come and live with me in my sacred Den Of Inequity. Let me love you. Let me make you happy. Let us make babies together. We shall call them Depressing For Depressing’s Sake and Artifice for Artifice’s Sake. They will be beautiful and perfect.
Dear Melissa,
Did you mean ‘inequity’ or ‘iniquity’? Either way, I see your point.
Admiringly,
Euclid
Xon,
Quotation marks or not, I say to you, wtf? You ‘win’? What do you want, a cookie and a blowjob? Jesus Pogo Stick Christ. And please, I can’t handle any more emoticons.
Melissa,
In keeping with the gratuitous oral sex metaphor… I would totally suck your cock if you were a dude.
Xon,
Inequity. Play on words, as it were.
Subtlety thy name is Melissa!
Lovingly,
Melissa
Typical liberal humorlessness. As you have often lamented yourself, Amber, it is difficult to communicate mood over hyperspace. This is, I suppose, why some well-meaning cyberfolks came up with emoticons in the first place, annoying as they are. In my recent comment, I resorted to using one to reinforce the quotation marks I had already put around the word “win”. I saw no other way to make it clearer–here in what is ideologically hostile territory–that I was telling, to borrow a term of anthropologists and medieval phliosophers, a joke. Have I ever before said “We can stop this conversation, but it’s obvious that I won?” Is this my normal m.o.? Has nobody here ever heard such tired efforts at oneupmanship as a conversation draws to a close and everyone wants to have the ‘last word’? Is it not at least believable that I was attempting to play on such an experience as we have all had, rather than actually claiming some sort of official victory for Garrett and myself?
But, alas, quotation marks and emoticon aside, I was taken seriously, or smarmily (which is much worse). But what hurts me the most is not that I was misunderstood, but that another joke has been sacrificed on the altar of explanation. It is probably my fault for attempting to be humorous in the first place. But it being MLK day and all, and my having just read through one of his speeches over at Charles’ blog, I suppose the spirit of giving my fellow humanity the benefit of the doubt was upon me. Won’t happen again. Dust and ashes.
Well, bless your hyperbolic heart, Xon. It’s so cute!
And I have to take to task your assertion that the conversation was coming to a close. Au contraire, mon frere! I just got here! Alas, I admit defeat. I am always just one step behind the fun bus.
Crying Inside,
Melissa
Re:
This is either laziness, lack of creativity, or douchery. Rather than write clearly, you choose the path of most resistance: a joke so knee-slappingly hee-larious it needs a three-character emoticon to remind the reader it’s a joke. If you can’t make a good joke, then don’t make one at all. If you’re such an unemotive writer that you can’t indicate mood with words alone, emoticons are going to make you seem smarmy at best and fraudulent at worst. Don’t fake it if you don’t have it.
You guys are harsh. We realize that you hate Xon with all your hearts and lungs as if he was actually Jesus Christ Himself. But can’t you guys have a decent debate without the personal attacks? Wait, here’s one: If you couldn’t tell from Xon’s original post that he was joking, then you’re a FUCKING MORON and/or probably illiterate. :-)
(yes I realize I am taking a certain risk in defending Xon, but I was friends with “the kid that ate his boogers” in kindergarten so I’m used to the position)
Cari,
Anyone who accuses someone of “typical liberal humorlessness” deserves every ounce of shit they get times seven, with an upside-down broken cross and a photo of Jesus sandwiched in fingercuffs between Tom DeLay and Bill Frist thrown in for good measure.
But you called him a smarmy little prick before he said anything of the sort, Rusty. Clearly Xon was joking, but now you want to say that it was a very bad joke, and bad jokes should not be told at all? I mean, not even Ken tells hilarious jokes all the time, but nobody stops him from expressing his sense of humor when it just isn’t funny.
You talk about lacking creativity, laziness, and douchery and that Xon chose the path of most resistance when he should have chosen clarity. Well, why not demonstrate yourself creativity, passion, and clear, refreshing writing? When have you written clearly about, say, choice, consumer economics, the rights of women, and health care that not only engages Xon’s and Garrett’s positions, but produces a workable and practical proposal of your own—all in about four hundred words (which appears to be the limit)? You can link to an entry if that’s more convenient than just saying you’ve got an example. More than just talking shit, there’s doing it.
And you won’t have to go through all the trouble of shoving an emoticon up anyone’s ass, as pleasant or painful that can be.
Re:
Whether he was serious, or whether he was telling a bad joke, he came off smarmy. I never suggested that everyone’s expressions of humor should be repressed, only that Xon should repress his own urge to tell jokes if he is not rhetorically talented enough to tell them clearly and/or creative enough to be actually humorous while doing so.
Re:
As if my criticism of Xon needs to be legitimized by throwing together a catalog/résumé of my writing achievements.
The device you just used is sort of like when a Democratic partisan says “Bush lied about X topic!” and then a GOP partisan responds, “Well, so did Clinton!” The topic then becomes Clinton’s perceived lie, and discussion shifts away from Bush.
Sorry, but whether my writing is clear and/or refreshing has zero bearing on the topic at hand, which is Xon’s lack of clarity. I’m not applying for a job with you, so I’m not going to spend my time assembling a résumé.
PEOPLE! Have we all once again forgotten that often typed bit of wisdom of which we must be reminded all too frequently?
What makes you (Xon, Charles, Cari) think that anything but preferential treatment to the unfunny rants of Ken and the other Amber minions should be found here at this blog? And you dare challenge Amber’s “GDBF?!” Surely, you are deluded! You have no vote! You have no say! You have no chance of getting through to anyone here no matter how well constructed your arguments, no matter how short, long, verbose, or dumb-ded-down they are! HA! Here you thought people claiming open-minds actually had them!
You’ve been flim-flammed and bamboozled!
I see now, Rusty, that when you wrote ‘If you can’t make a good joke, then don’t make one at all,’ you actually were using ‘you’ in that most literal of ways, and weren’t expressing a kind of maxim or gnome. Thanks for clarifying that, because it wasn’t clear before.
But, how serious are we being here? Xon can’t make (so-called) jokes unless he’s not only funny but clearly funny? Maybe Xon can be smarmy at times, but he’s hardly the only smarmy person commenting on this blog nor the smarmiest one. So, why him?
And, certainly you’re not applying for a job with me (Did your comment count as a joke? Because, ‘applying for a job with Charles’ isn’t really all that funny, unless maybe it’s a job for lion taming or chartered accountancy, because those aren’t things having to do with writing ability. Get it? Isn’t that funny? You made a joke about applying for a writing job with me! And over the internet, too!), but it seems pretty damn convenient for you to disrespect someone’s ability to write or tell jokes and then claim you don’t need to prove how well you know what you’re talking about. Like I said, you can talk shit all you want, but it doesn’t mean anything if you’re going to play the supercool route of not having to show just how good you are.
I can agree that one needn’t be an absolute musical genius to know that William Hung can’t sing well, but we’re not talking about singing or rally car racing or painting the Sistine fucking chapel. We’re talking blog commenting, and you seem to think that it’d be easy for Xon to not only be unsmarmy, but clearly hilarious or hilariously clear. Well, damn, that ought to be hilariously, clearly easy for you, too, Rusty.
So, no, the discussion is not going to be about “Clinton’s perceived lie”, this discussion is going to be on what qualifies Rusty as a good judge of humor, clarity, and smarm. If not your own writing, then how about someone else’s? How about anybody whom you think is a good example of a blog writer that writes short, engaging pieces, with humor and clarity, on topics considered political?
Let’s not be negative all the time, but constructive. If the boy needs help, then show him how it’s done.
If you choose to misinterpret “you” as a maxim rather than as addressing Xon directly, then that’s your literary dysfunction, not mine.
No, jackass, it means exactly what I wrote. You asked for a list of credentials (most commonly distributed in résumé form) and I determined that a résumé was irrelevant to this discussion.
No, it’s not.
If I were in a more charitable mood and the terms were different, I would. But I’m not and they’re not, so I won’t.
Perhaps one day you will be in a more charitable mood, Rusty. Until then, I see no reason why anyone should have to write in a clear and humorous way to appease your sense of style and taste. If you want to ask Monk to play a more classical tune, you better be prepared to answer to the blank stares.
But I have some positions available for lion taming, if you’re interested. I’ve got a hat, with neon lights, and a chair, too. Interested?
Had you actually been reading, my first suggestion was for Xon to stop using emoticons. They are douchey when most people use them, but particularly douchey when he uses them since he usually throws one in to attempt to blunt a hyperbolic and/or inflammatory statement. Like this:
Of course, he would never write something as clear as All pro-choicers are goatfucking babykillers. It would read more like:
Point being he uses an awful lot of words to say very little. It’s length for the sake of length, and it makes carrying on any sort of discussion excruciating. It doesn’t take 137 words to say All pro-choicers are goat-fucking baby killers.
You say that Xon should be writing clearly, and this is no maxim that should apply to us all but only to Xon, but I think it’s clear that you should take your own advice, dude. Look, you say that if I had actually been reading, your first suggestion was that Xon stop using emoticons. Then you demonstrate how Xon would use an emoticon, and your demonstration consists of him using ‘an awful lot of words to say very little’, both by not being clear and by being lengthy. As well, your first message in this discussion, where you apparently offer your ‘first suggestion’, begins with calling him a smarmy little prick, and followed with ‘Writing obtusely and at great length (i.e. - out-windbagging someone) isn’t a victory. It’s boring people with your own lack of clarity.’
So, you’re being unclear. Was your first suggestion to amend his writing style to something more clear and less wordy, or was your first suggestion to stop using emoticons? For, as it is, you didn’t say anything about not using emoticons, you only said you would shove the phony thing up his ass. Was shoving it up his ass your way of clearly and humorously suggesting he stop using emoticons? It’s not until your next message that you say something close to not using an emoticon, but not before you remind him that he chose the path of most resistance by using an unfunny and unclear joke. And then suggest to him that if he can’t tell a good joke, he shouldn’t bother with jokes at all.
So, what do you mean that if I had been actually reading I’d see that your first suggestion to Xon is to stop using emoticons? Physicians, self-healing, and all that.
Charles,
Blow it out your ass. Again, this discussion is not about me, and fuck you twice for trying to shift it that way.
Besides all that, you are exactly right that Xon uses emoticons to blunt inflammatory or hyperbolic statements—to demonstrate that he’s not serious, that the statement is blunted and is not meant to be taken seriously. Xon simply is not the sort of person who actually thinks highly of himself that he would say he’s won a debate just by not being responded to, and perhaps if you were to meet him in real life, after the ass-shoving affair, you’d see that about him. He jokes around with statements like that because, frankly, that’s his sense of humor. You probably have a different sense of humor, which, I don’t know, consists of gratuitous use of ‘goddamn’ and such. Who knows?
Either way, supposing he doesn’t use emoticons, how should he tell his jokes? Or should he take your advice and never tell jokes at all? Well, isn’t that kinda what you’re already saying by claiming his writing is boring and lengthy and not worth reading for its little content? That he is just not entertaining at all?—because in this modern age, the only politics worth having is a humorous or comedic one, where all the white people can laugh with it.
Still not interested in lion taming? How about a self-defense class against a man armed with a banana?
Blow it out my ass? Fuck me twice?
What’s with the sexual metaphors? Or, would you like to blow it out my ass, and fuck me? Hey, I’m game, Rusty. I’ve had my shots. We can wear protection.
That he needs emoticons to alert the reader he has switched from “batshit crazy misogynist Christian” mode to “budding comedian” mode is an indicator that humor is not his aptitude. People should stick to their strengths.
Uh, ok–I think you didn’t at all understand what I was saying.
Yeah, you didn’t understand. It’s ok, though; you’re “over this discussion”.
You mean a device like this?
Amber: Health care in the US is fucked up for ABC reasons.
Xon: I think it’s actually for XYZ reasons, and it’s not fucked as bad as it could be.
Garrett: Indeed, I agree with Xon. Here are some more examples of XYZ.
Rusty: You’re a smarmy little prick, and you’re too long-winded. Your long-windedness means you have no argument.
Melissa: Xon is just arguing for argument’s sake.
The topic then becomes Xon’s perceived commenting style problems, and it shifts away from the thing we were trying to discuss in the first place.
Garrett,
Not the same thing. At that point, Amber said she was “over this discussion” and Xon said “I suppose this conversation has run its course.” If the subject is considered closed by both opposing parties, then there’s no subject to change.
I agree, Rusty, people should stick to their strengths.
Are we cool, or just tired?
Well, for the record, I recognized Xon’s comment as sarcastic in intent, but you have a point.
Still, anyone else could have tried to carry on the debate (as Amber expressly instructed us), but I guess people had better points to make about Xon’s comedy skills than about private medicine?
What I’m really saying is that you demand concise, clear statements from Xon, but pointless critical flatulence passes for reasoned debate from you*. Wouldn’t an honest, concise, anti-free-market response of your own go the distance to show that Xon’s comments are pseudointellectual fluff, if that’s indeed your position?
*(Not you you, Rusty, I mean everyone embroiled in this emoticon jibjabbery.)
Garrett, re:
Applying your “you” to “me,” (now we’re really being clear!), you assume I even disagree with him about the original subject, which was never established. Bad form transcends ideology.
Charles,
Cool… tired… whatever works.
Funny…You quoted my “if that’s indeed your position” qualifier, and yet you seemed to ignore it.
I guess it could have been a misplaced modifier…
Anyway, you also clearly ignored where I said “not you you, Rusty”.
Garrett,
I blame being tired.
I didn’t ignore that part (just the “if that is indeed your reponse” part), but suffered from my own momentary lack of clarity in my response.
Wait, is this an accusation toward Xon? Or an excuse for your own words?
;)
Garrett, re:
Neither. Like any good web hack, I separate content from presentation.
And cut the fucking emoticons man!
Jesus, I don’t look at my blog for an afternoon and look what happens. Well, I’m not getting involved. Looks like you kids are having fun sorting it out anyway.
All I have to say is that aside from Rusty saying “fuck you twice”, I had the funniest shit to say in this entire thread. The only reason that what Rusty said was marginally funnier than what I said is because just the other day, I said, “double fuck you” to someone. Ergo, Rusty’s comic insult genius reminded me of my own comic insult genius, and that’s how babies are made and how Christmas is saved.
There’s just nothing like a good meaningless fray over healthcare policy and economic principles to get my mind off of real life shit, like bills, and relationships, and work deadlines. I mean, here’s the beauty part: what is being argued here is an issue that - c’mon let’s be honest - none of the arguers can do shit about! Isn’t that hilarious?? Perhaps I sound awfully apathetic. Politics is my escapism. At least I’m honest about it.
Don’t be alarmed that I am speaking to anyone in particular. Everything I say is mock-rhetorical because I don’t give a two-penny tuppeny fuck for opinions - mine, yours or anyone elses. Okay, I do care about Karl Rove’s opinions. But that’s because he can/has/does/will make shit happen and he doesn’t have to abide by established law. Me and you, though? All we gots is the ballot, and even that, you better hope you don’t get one of Chuck’s machines (unless that was your vote(s), anyway). As they say, vote early and vote often!
I don’t mean to say that I don’t care about your opinions. It’s just that I see how completely irrelevant they are to the whole policy-making forumla, and the idea of a non-Karl-Rove-power-having person protecting these “sacred cows” by raking other non-Karl-Rove-power-having persons across the coals over is…well, it’s funny ha-ha to me, because I’m kind of a sick bitch. But in reality, though, arguing opinions on which you aren’t capable of acting is a bit futile, no? Just way to let off steam? Just a way to keep your mind active and agile? Fair enough.
This is just a stylistic literary device, like fourth-walling it in porn.
Right you are, Russ. In fact, your reiteration inspired me to update the “about this site” page. I now spell out my comment policy in black (#000) and white (#fff) for enquiring minds to peruse.
As always, thank you for your feedback. Your opinion is important to all of us at Being Amber Rhea. Should you have further concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us.
I take ownership of my ‘unfunny’ posts. Why? Because like it or not I’m usually drunk when I do that. I wake up with B.A.R.-guilt each morning after these posts.
It is why I _don’t_ post here often.
At least I’m funny-looking IRL.
–Your luddite-in-training always at the beck and call of emails from the funnier-than-thou,
Ms. Ken
I can’t tell if you’re referring to the traditional fourth wall or if “fourth-walling it” is some kind of crazy sex thing I’ve never heard of involving gypsum board, wallpaper paste, and a stud finder. Sounds fun!
The problem here is that Xon made a light-hearted comment, but apparently forgot that conservatives are humorless and petty by definition. This is in contrast to liberals, who are jivin’ and with it, especially when excessive use of profanity is involved, as it seemingly always is.
That stupidity aside though…
Cheaper than it would be under market conditions, free, a nickel, the results are the same, Matt. The same “problems with overuse” will result.
Making something free vs. making it cost something not insignificant, but cheaper than it would be otherwise are not the same though. If one person has to pay 50 dollars to go to the doctor while another doesn’t have to pay anything, the second person will go to the doctor a lot more often than the first one. I’m not a psychologist, but I think making things free has a mental effect on a person to the effect that they think “why not, it’s free?” and do something they wouldn’t normally do if there was even a small charge involved.
As for problems with overuse, I think my idea takes care of that by limiting it to necessary operations. There’s a lot of unstated practicalities involved there, but if well designed a system could limit the number of frivolous cases to nearly none.
Another thing is that I don’t believe that healthcare really functions on a market like big screen tvs do. For starters, demand for healthcare is usually inelastic; it’s something that people have to buy in some form or another. Secondly, most healthcare transactions go through a proxy: an insurance company. So most people probably don’t even see their bill, nor would they much care what it was if they did. But so what, that just means that insurance companies will bid down the prices in place of the patients. Not really, because insurance companies get huge discounts on these bills, which gives them no incentive to care one way or the other. Uninsured people do not get these discounts though, so their bills can end up being 3 times or more what an insurance company would pay (this is one of the flat-out stupidest arrangements I have ever seen, btw). So the situation for the uninsured is just dire; they don’t have the funds to buy insurance, and so they likely can’t afford the bill either. But added to that is the fact that their bill is going to be a lot higher than what an insurance company would pay anyway, so they’re even more in the hole.
This just isn’t sensible. If there is some sort of government involvement making this stuff be more expensive or creating this situation, then by all means identify and kill it. I’m not a liberal, and so in general I don’t especially care for government intervention. But if not, then we can at least do something for those people who just cannot afford these bills.
Matt, I see you qualified your statement with “I’m not a psychologist…” but nevertheless, just wanted to point out that this strikes me as the same mentality that says, “If abortion is legal, everyone will have unprotected sex all the time!” It’s a theory that you can bounce around and choose to believe if you want to, but without anr research to back it up, it can’t be used as the basis of policy decisions.
As for healthcare, I believe that one of the duties and responsibilities of a government is to provide for its citizens’ basic needs. (Would expand on this but am at work and don’t have time at the moment.) What I find frustrating is that oftentimes people who are opposed to state-provided healthcare fail to see the big picture - that is, not making healthcare universally available ends up costing the state more in the longrun. Just look at Wal-Mart for an example - they don’t insure their employees, so the employees have to utilize government services which cost the taxpayer more.
Okay, gotta go now, boss is giving me more work.
Amber, there are such studies available. One of them involves the health plan that I have, where every cost is visible to the consumer and comes out of a pool that I have to split with my employer. (Sort of.)
What the insurance providers have found is that when a service is “free”, people use the hell out of it and generally don’t notice what the more expensive procedures actually cost. So, this new innovative Aetna plan causes the consumer to keep a very close eye on the costs. As a result, they (we) get the treatments that they actually need, especially the preventive ones, and don’t make any decisions about their healthcare just because it’s “free”.
Consumers on this particular plan actually get preventive exams (source) more often so that they stay healthier, but costs have come down for all parties involved.
Do you need a study to explain that demand for something “free” usually spirals out of control? Do you deny that when you have to pay for things on your own, you prioritize them based on your needs, but if you don’t, not much prioritization takes place?
Supply and demand applies to every good, especially health care, and saying it doesn’t won’t make it untrue.
Right back at’cha. Prove that health care is immune to the economic forces that govern trade in every other good. I’d say the burden is on those who would claim that socialist, $0 health care would be a magic bullet that would somehow skirt around the recognized principles that we learn on day one of Econ 101. It’s a theory you can bounce around and choose to believe if you want to, but even a kid a a lemonade stand understands supply and demand.
I have been reticent about putting my proverbial hat into the proverbial ring, but the time to interject has come.
As Garrett so pithily pointed out, $0 health care is not a magic bullet, but is, instead, a tragic bullet. I mean, can you imagine how those poor people would just bum rush (ha! what a fantastic play on words) the shit out of hospitals for all of the ailments they’ve been too poor to make a priority until we implemented a $0 health care system?? Eventually, we’d have to care for them before their ailments became a matter of life and death. And I cringe upon imagining this, but it might even turn into something like preventative care - the very notion as ugly as the concept of sin!
Can you imagine? Poor people? Preventative care? Even if we did give them preventative care, they’d probably abuse that, too, because poor people are spiteful, lazy, and stupid. Why else would they be poor?
This is why I propose that we try to inflate health care costs as much as possible. The first thing I’d do away with are the cheap-to-free immunizations. If the poor people have to choose between eating and immunizations, maybe they’d put “getting rich” a little higher on their priority list. It would be character-building. (Not that we’d actually ever let them get rich, don’t worry.)
Let me give you a small but incredibly relevant analogy. When I was married to my ex-husband, we live in a massive ultra-custom home on an acre and a half in a very posh new budding area of town. We did not have to rely on city water - we had our own private 180 ft. deep water well. This, of course, means that my water was free. Holy god, do you have any idea how much I abused the shit out of having free water?? I used water for EVERYTHING! Whereas, if I were paying for water, I might have thought twice about using it for keeping my lawn green, or washing my car, or drinking it, but when it was free, oh my rhetorical god, I just went to town. When I would entertain, I would pour my friends glasses and glasses of my free water, and when they said, “No, Melissa, I’ve had too much water. I’m good,” I would insist! “But it’s FREE! How can you turn down a free basic, essential need? How come you are not abusing the free water?” Sometimes, I just left the the kitchen faucet running full blast all night long. Just because I could, yo! I did not prioritize the water at all, because it was free.
In conclusion, applying strict economic theory in lieu of having compassion is my number one priority. And if this country’s going to go belly up doing something, I’d much rather it be by waging the War On Pestering ™ than by helping poor people not be sick so much.
I believe in an America that “walks it off”, not an America that “seeks professional medical treatment”.
The end.
PS. the water story is 100% true except the leaving the faucet on all night part.
Um, yes. I can. There is a serious difference between something free and something that costs $50, and I daresay it’s greater than the difference between something costing $50 and something $100. Your (and Amber’s) failure to understand the economics of “free” may be hilarious, but it was exactly the point of my comment. I am not offering some grand scheme of “Well, an x-ray should cost $68 and a mammogram should cost $73 and so on and so forth…”
All I was doing was refuting Amber’s reasoning, which went something like “There’s no research to back up the idea that free goods get abused, so you are all stupid for basing a policy decision on this ridiculous notion of ‘Supply and Demand’, whatever that is.”
How is it even relevant that you had a private water system that you were able to use in abundance? Was the point that you were able to abuse the “free” nature of the water that you owned without ill effects? An awesome analogy, assuming of course that good medical care is as abundant and easy to acquire as well water.
Ah, yes, the magical land of make-believe where all we have to do is have compassion and the laws of economics will up and vanish! Why, I want to pretend that universal health care doesn’t lead to long lines, massive shortages, unmotivated doctors, decreased research and development, and months-long wait times for simple preventive procedures… I’ll just hum a merry tune about compassion and these problems will vanish!
That’s not what a Canadian friend of mine says. But, that is merely hearsay coming from me, so I’ll have to try to get him to post here.
And take it easy, Garrett, I never callled anyone stupid. But I’m glad you apparently think I’m dim-witted to the point of being hilarious. C’mon, Olsen Twins stick together, etc… jeebus…
Garrett,
You missed the point I was trying to make. Yes, there would be a bum rush of people who could otherwise not afford to medical treatment if we were to reduce the cost of health care to free. This means there was a large number of people suffering before hand. This means that the difference between them feeling good (or, at least better) and them suffering is money, or lack thereof.
Besides, there would be obvious economic benefits to having a healthy workforce. I’ll leave it to my betters to dig up the requisite links.
What I think is that because our healthcare is unaffordable or, at the very least, a financial burden for a large portion of this country’s wage earners, there are lots of people out there who are suffering needlessly. I think that is nothing short of disgraceful. I think we should do something about it. No, let me rephrase. I think we should do something about it at whatever cost. To my mind, access to something as basic and essential as water and access to professional medical treatment are anagolous. To my mind, it should be something that we should demand. By “we” I mean “policy makers”, natch. The funny part is that I’m not a policy maker, and neither are you, and until we are, what is “right” to either of our minds is immaterial. Actually, that’s not funny. That’s sad.
I don’t mean to sound as if there is some moral baseline that is predicated by my or anyone else’s value system. I also wonder where the line might be drawn, then, between what is essential and what is frivolity. I just think it’s kind of fucked up, is all.
To imply that access to a health care professional for every person is not an essential part of modern life is myopic or perhaps duplicitous. Just because something is not in the Constitution or Bill of Rights doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be considered an act of turpitude to deny it’s privation.
Sorry, I was paraphrasing. I took your telling people that “they can bounce around their ‘theories’, but in the end they’re unfounded” as an attempt to diminish them by making them sound silly or stupid. Because, in all honesty, applying any unfounded whim that one might just “bounce around” to our health care policy would be stupid.
OK, so the point you were trying to make was “it’s a disgrace that people can’t afford healthcare in America”?
And you were making that point in response to my point that free goods are nearly always abused, and that supply and demand still applies to health care in any situation? That’s not a very applicable response, though it does continue the “my compassion allows me to ignore observed economic principles” trend.
When did I imply it wasn’t essential?
Feh. You’re right. I’m dumb.