Creepy Old Joe wasn’t addled.Originally Posted by blake
I kept thinking he musta ripped 2 lines in the snortatorium backstage like it was the 80’s. He had to be chemically enhanced.
Creepy Old Joe wasn’t addled.
I kept thinking he musta ripped 2 lines in the snortatorium backstage like it was the 80’s. He had to be chemically enhanced.
Joe still had his gaffs calling things the wrong name etc.
Bottom line, Bernie does NOT want to win, he has the heart of a loser, no desire to crush Joe or point out and move on his weaknesses. Trump will do so and destroy him.
The only real question is, what is Bernie's angle, save face?
The guy just doesn’t pander for votes. Take him or leave him. He doesn’t care. The guy has personal integrity in a filthy game. Gotta respect that
The US oil industry and the banks that lend to them just got shook to their knees by ROPEC. He’s up there preaching green and anti-fracking at their funeral. You just shake your head. Stay pure old dude.
He will be remembered like H Ross Perot. An outsider that had a deep run.
The Kremlin will erect a statue and he will have achieved some kind of immortality. He moved the conversation a little.
I think he’s fine with that. I don’t think he wants anything more. This isn’t a pragmatic guy who is gonna swap favors.
He was interesting. Now I’m going to need to be physically threatened before I can muster the energy to vote in the general election. So bad.
Trump was frightening and scary this afternoon after the rate cut. I really can’t believe the Presidential election process. Utter collapse.
Last edited by Sanlmar; 03-15-2020 at 09:20 PM.
honestly its kinda fucking insane that bernie's biggest platform, free medical care for everyone, is what this country needs most right now and somehow hes still not going to win.
"Birds born in a cage think flying is an illness." - Alejandro Jodorowsky
"America is not so much a nightmare as a non-dream. The American non-dream is precisely a move to wipe the dream out of existence. The dream is a spontaneous happening and therefore dangerous to a control system set up by the non-dreamers." -- William S. Burroughs
That's not at all what we need right now.
To expand upon what I posted above, socialized medicine is not known for its availability of care. In fact, it's quite the opposite. In socialized systems, everyone waits longer for care, but the entire cost is covered by the government.
The issues with coronavirus in the US were not caused by lack of ability of people to pay for care. Yes, there were a few isolated stories at the very beginning of people being unable to get tested because they had no insurance, but that was in the infancy of the whole thing, and it only applied to a very small number of people.
Socialized medicine would not have solved any of the problem. We would still have a lack of tests, still have a lack of protocol in place to deal with this unique virus, and still have a lack of coordination between state, local, and federal officials.
The truth is that we were caught with our pants down because disease threats in our lifetime hadn't amounted to any substantial threat, and it was hard to picture that a pandemic could really wreak so much havoc so quickly, nor did anyone take prepping for such a thing seriously. Credit to Bill Gates for recognizing this situation years ago and vocalizing it. Now that lightning has struck, next time we will be far more prepared -- both in terms of emergency response and economic response.
Socialized medicine has nothing to do with that. Socialized medicine is about healthcare in normal times, not times of emergency. In Italy, where they do have socialized medicine, there are complaints that there aren't enough doctors to treat people, because many of the doctors fled the country over the years because they weren't making enough money under the socialized system. Oh, the irony.
The newly unemployed will be thrilled to hear this Druff.
Tying health care to employment is an antiquated idea dating back to its start during the Great Depression. Ironic, huh?
Prior to that folks really didn’t have health insurance so maybe it all works out.
Last edited by Sanlmar; 03-16-2020 at 12:00 AM.
If you were sent home by your employer - are you being forced to use you personal time off?
Particularly small business
I don’t want to hear from those moving files around on their laptop.
You can get tested for free, and hospitals are required to treat people who are in need of care (that's always been the case). Nobody is being denied tests or care when they have coronavirus today because they lack insurance or can't pay. Nobody.
Those who are out of a job can get a subsidized Obamacare plan and either pay nothing or very little for it.
Socialized medicine would not help this one. Two different issues.
Sanlmar, you're an over-50 gentleman, like many of us here. I'm not there yet, but I'm close.
As the years go on, you're going to come down with lots of aches, pains, discomforts, and conditions which don't appear threatening, but definitely require tests and doctor visits.
Are you okay with changing our healthcare system to where it will take you 4+ months to see a specialist or get tests? As opposed to our current system, where you get these things done in days or at most weeks?
Because that's what we are looking at, and leftist supporters of socialized medicine don't really have an answer for that. Instead they crow about how much our system costs and how low our life expectancy is compared to the rest of the first world. The latter is especially dishonest, because our "low" life expectancy is a result of obesity, violence, and drug abuse, and not poor healthcare. If you take those behavioral factors out for every country, we actually rank #1 or #2 in life expectancy.
There's also quality of life.
Sure, you can live if you don't get your chronically aching back looked at or imaged for 4 months, but is that a pleasant way to live?
Other countries are "happy" with their healthcare because they don't know any better. If you grow up believing that it's normal to take 4 months to get tests done, you come to accept it. Until you come to the US and see how the socialized system is horrible by comparison.
The truth is your country is not united. You have 50 states with constitutional rights that work against
cohesion in many aspects of government. It may not be the sole factor in this case but it has to be a
nightmare for the federal government to do it's job effectively. You're not one big team but 50 little ones.
As for getting caught with your pants down that is where the buck must stop at the highest office.
Doesn't matter whether you're under socialized medicine or not a threat to every nation was known
and not handled by some as well as others.
Yea that 4 months really isn't a thing.
I'm not sure of wait times in Europe but in Canada they are very long. My wife needs an MRI on her back, family doc referred her to a specialist, we are on week 6 waiting for a call back and after that scheduling of the MRI averages about 18 weeks. If she needs surgery there's another long wait period, usually another 16-18 weeks. A lot of people here in Alberta will choose to pay and have surgeries done in the USA to avoid the long wait times.Yea that 4 months really isn't a thing.
https://www.nhs.uk/using-the-nhs/nhs...es-in-england/Yea that 4 months really isn't a thing.
Last I checked, 18 weeks is over 4 months.The maximum waiting time for non-urgent, consultant-led treatments is 18 weeks from the day your appointment is booked through the NHS e-Referral Service, or when the hospital or service receives your referral letter.
Before you get pedantic and claim that it says "maximum" waiting time, be aware that the 18-week thing is actually being exceeded in many cases.
That same webpage says you also have to wait 2 weeks for suspected cancer, which already isn't good. In the US, you can get checked same-day for that. But wait! Turns out it's over 2 months to be checked for cancer!
https://www.health.org.uk/news-and-c...-waiting-times
But yeah, that's totally the system we need in the US. What an upgrade!Essential parts of the NHS in England are experiencing the worst performance against waiting times targets since the targets were set. This includes the highest proportion of people waiting more than four hours in A&E departments since 2004, and the highest proportion of people waiting over 18 weeks for non-urgent (but essential) hospital treatment since 2008.
The target for treating cancer patients within 62 days of urgent GP referral has not been met for over 5 years, and survey evidence suggests more people are experiencing lengthening delays in getting GP appointments.
Trust me.. I'm no young buck. If I thought socialized medicine would improve our system during my later years in life, I would be all for it, politics and taxes be damned.
But it would be a disaster, especially in a country using a system not already built for it. (That's a whole separate problem which is rarely discussed.)
It differs from country to country but usually there is a wait time for non acute tests and operations. We also have private option in Finland if you want something to happen fast. The 4 month wait really only applies to MRI type of deals. You can get blood work done in about 15mins and get results in a week. You might have to wait to see a specialist for a month or two (for the first time), but that's after a doctor has seen you.I'm not sure of wait times in Europe but in Canada they are very long. My wife needs an MRI on her back, family doc referred her to a specialist, we are on week 6 waiting for a call back and after that scheduling of the MRI averages about 18 weeks. If she needs surgery there's another long wait period, usually another 16-18 weeks. A lot of people here in Alberta will choose to pay and have surgeries done in the USA to avoid the long wait times.
Not sure if Druff knows, but NHS doesn't cover most of Europe.
Also while we're at it, in most parts of Europe, if you're willing to pay as much as Druff is, then you can see a doctor and whatever test you fancy just as fast.
For unknown reasons we're constantly comparing a wealthy American to whoever can only afford to use universal healthcare.
We aren't comparing wealthy Americans to typical Europeans.
We are comparing to any American with health insurance, which is everyone who signed up for it.
The UK is the best comparison to the US. We can't compare low population countries like Finland (5.5 million) to the US, because that's apples and oranges.
The UK is a good example of a spread-out, large population country with socialized medicine, and you see the results.
Nope. You just keep equating NHS with universal healthcare and seem to be oblivious that private healthcare option is really common in countries with universal healthcare.We aren't comparing wealthy Americans to typical Europeans.
We are comparing to any American with health insurance, which is everyone who signed up for it.
The UK is the best comparison to the US. We can't compare low population countries like Finland (5.5 million) to the US, because that's apples and oranges.
The UK is a good example of a spread-out, large population country with socialized medicine, and you see the results.
Oh and UK is smaller than Finland. They just have 10x the people.
If you bother looking at other countries besides UK...
https://www.americanprogress.org/iss...erage-systems/
...like the study that was quoted in that article, you will find out that the whole waiting time thing isn't really real.
ps. nice of you to remove the 8-10% of American that aren't insured from this comparison btw.
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