Above The Borderline: What Idiots Consider "Must See TV"

10/21/2007

What Idiots Consider "Must See TV"

Now THIS is entertainment. Watching Wingnut radio on Internut Tee Vee!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...: I think it's the "Excellence in Broadcasting" production standards of this video that make it Emmy nomination material.; October 21, 2007
Anonymous said...: A great deal of what this guy has to say is true. He points out that he has been in a position earlier in his career where he went out and paid for his own kids' health insurance. He points out they he is in favor of government health care for certain groups. Maybe people need to suck it up and learn how to budget their expenses. If one job doesn't do it, get two.

There is nothing that says I am responsible for paying for someone else's health insurance. That's libera/socilaist doctrine. It's not a proven fact of life. Just like progressive taxes. Why should I pay more taxes because I've got a better job than someone else? I've worked hard for what I've earned and I think I should be able to keep.; October 21, 2007
Anonymous said...: Anonymous,
You're an idiot!
You are paying for everybody treated in an emergency room without insurance now. That cost is passed on to you and me. Add on top of that the profit of the insurance companies who've created a private bureaucracy so complicated that customer service people working for these companies have admitted to me that it's out of control and they don't even understand it. Health insurance used to be run by non-profits it should have remained that way.
Then you have the gall to call what this DUDE does Work? He's another idiot.
As to his claim that churches help enough to make up for government assistance to those in dire need, I say baloney. I attend church every week. This week there were over a dozen people requesting prayers and there was no request or offer for financial assistance for them. Even if there were consider if every person in a 1500 member congregation gave $10. It would not
be enough scratch the surface of the needs of these people. This guy is full a baloney and so are you!
I can't see you but this guy even acts like an idiot. He can't go more than 10 sec. without fondling his microphone!; October 21, 2007
Anonymous said...: How much is the cost that is passed on to us? Evidently, much of the costs of welfare mothers who have babies without the means to support them get passed on to welfare state slaves like me. Is free health care going to make the stop having babies? Can I pay their tubes to be tied, if they have a baby on welfare?

What is the profit ratio in the insurance business? You throw much emotion into your argument but little data to convince me. So should we move from the private insurance beau racy to the government barratry? That won't convince anybody that is sitting on the fence. When was health insurance run by non-profits? When Jesus walked the Earth?

You never did show me what should compel me to get up in the morning and go to work to pay for some one else's health insurance. If your answer was because I'm paying for it at the emergency room then it is at least invisible to me. The question would then be a cost-benefit analysis.

You want the government to be a Big Mother who holds everybody's hand. I want people to stand up on the own two legs and to learn to walk by themselves. Like the Dude said, there are definitely cases where we need government to help the few that can't stand up on their own power, but we definitely don't new to cradle their head a little better so they get a bigger mouthful of the government teat they suckle so skillfully.; October 21, 2007
Anonymous said...: Anon,

You won't find an honest analysis of the cost of the uninsured because those holding that data wouldn't let you have it. There are 40 Million uninsured people in the U.S. Use your head and imagine how much that costs when these people show up at the emergency room. It's gotten so bad that hospitals redirect ambulances away from their ERs if they know the victim is uninsured. Some have been dumped on the street. No lie.
Since Welfare reform in the 90's those people had 5 years to get two or three jobs or die. Why do you blame the poor when the CEO of United Healthcare walked away with $100 Million in one year. But we can't afford healthcare. Bull shit.
The whole idea is that everyone contributes in hopes that they don't need catastrophic assistance.
It's only common sense. Many hands make light work, but you want everyone even the disabled to pull themselves up by their own boot straps. Look at the wounded vets returning from Iraq. We can't "afford" to give them the care they need when they served their country and paid a huge price? But we can pay a bunch of cowboys at Blackwater $100,000 /yr to shoot up a country with no accountability.
Your drinking the wrong flavor kool aid Anon. Start thinking for yourself. How many paychecks would you be from disaster if you became disabled and couldn't provide for your family? We're all a short way away from that kind of disaster, except fools like you don't realize it. Unless you have a couple $ Million in the bank you're closer to financial ruin that you think. All it takes is an illness to put you in the nursing home for a few years. Don't think you'll be in a hospital more than a week or two tops. I know from first hand experience.
I get so pissed off at people like you who blame the poor when you're being robbed by the rich. These are n't people who've worked hard. If they were I'd say more power to them. They are people who've manipulated the system and gain their wealth through political favor and maneuvering. What the fuck is wrong with you thinking? Are you blind? Your damned right I get worked up over this, because people like you are ruining our country.This DUDE is an asshole and if you think like he does, so are you. I'm not trying to convince you because my guess is you're beyond hope.; October 21, 2007
Anonymous said...: OK Anon,

You asked when was health insurance not for profit?

Perhaps your are technically correct that they were not. But as you can see below in reading the history
of Blue Cross Blue Shield, Profit was certainly not the main motivating factor in establishing the Blue
Cross/ Blue Shield model.

It wasn't until conservative hero and amiable dunce Ronald Reagan took office that profit became
the main motivator in the health care industry. As a matter of fact the whole lexicon of medicine changed when he came to power. Prior to his unfortunate reign we had doctors and hospitals, not HMOs, PPOs and
all the other health care jargoneering nobody understands, that we have today.

In theory health care providers like Allina are still technically non-profits.

This is from Allina's website, not the Kremlin.

"Allina Hospitals & Clinics is a not-for-profit health care system of hospitals, clinics and other patient care services that provides exceptional care to communities throughout Minnesota and western Wisconsin and employs more than 22,000 people."

.
Here'a a history lesson for you from the Blue Cross Blue Shield website and below a brief history of it's
founder.
It's obvious to any reasonable person that greed and profit was not his motive in establishing this health
insurance model.

Now you give me evidence were free market health care has cut costs and bettered service!

-------------
Born out of necessity in the Great Depression, the Blue Cross concept was created in 1929 by a pioneering businessman, Justin Ford Kimball. He offered a way for 1,300 school teachers in Dallas to finance 21 days of hospital care by making small monthly payments to the Baylor University Hospital.

Around the same time, the Blue Shield concept was growing out of the lumber and mining camps of the Pacific Northwest . Serious injuries and chronic illness were common among workers in these hazardous jobs. Employers who wanted to provide medical care for their workers made arrangements with physicians who were paid a monthly fee for their services.

Over the past 75 years, we've grown from our humble beginnings assuring hospital care to Texas teachers and providing physician care to lumber and mine workers in the Pacific Northwest. Now we're the largest health benefits provider in America, serving more than 99 million people in all

1929
The prototype prepaid hospital plan upon which Blue Cross Plans were later based is created at Baylor University in Dallas, Texas, established by Justin Ford Kimball. In just 10 years, enrollment in Blue health Plans will grow from just more than 1,300 covered lives to 3 million.

KIMBALL, JUSTIN FORD (1872-1956). Justin Ford Kimball, education official and originator of the Blue Cross hospital insurance plan, the son of Rev. Justin A. and Elizabeth (Ford) Kimball, was born on a farm near Huntsville, Texas, on August 25, 1872. After graduating from Mount Lebanon College in Louisiana in 1890, he attended Baylor University, where he received an M.A. in 1899. After postgraduate work at the University of Chicago and law school at the University of Michigan, he began his career in education as a teacher in rural Louisiana. Subsequently he moved to Mexia, Texas, where he taught, and then on to Navasota, where he was principal. In 1895 he became a principal in the Temple school system, and in 1900 he was hired as superintendent of schools there. In 1902 he resigned to practice law in Waco. Two years later he moved to Austin to become the law clerk for the State Department of Education. In 1905 he returned to Temple as superintendent.

During the next nine years Kimball established a statewide reputation as an administrator, prompting Dallas officials to extend an invitation to him to become superintendent of Dallas public schools. He accepted and during his tenure from 1914 to 1924 strengthened his reputation as a pragmatic, hard-working administrator. His success as Dallas superintendent resulted in his election to the presidency of the Texas State Teachers Association.qv In 1920 he was awarded an honorary doctorate of laws by Baylor University. His busy schedule, however, affected his health. In 1924, on advice from his doctor to reduce his workload, he resigned as superintendent. After retiring he received invitations to be a summer lecturer at Baylor, Southern Methodist University, the University of Texas, and the Peabody College for Teachers at Nashville, Tennessee. He joined the faculty of Southern Methodist University as professor of education in 1925.

In 1929 he became vice president of Baylor University in charge of the College of Medicine, School of Nursing, College of Dentistry, and hospital, all located in Dallas. In his first year in office Kimball designed an individual hospital prepayment plan, adapted from the prepayment plans of the lumber and railroad industries, which became the forerunner of Blue Cross Group Hospital Insurance. After discovering that Baylor Hospital had a large number of unpaid bills, many from Dallas schoolteachers, Kimball developed a plan whereby a teacher could prepay, at fifty cents a month or six dollars a year, for twenty-one days of semiprivate hospitalization at Baylor Hospital. The plan would take effect after a patient's first week in the hospital, with payments being five dollars a day. By December of 1929, 75 percent of Dallas teachers had enrolled in the plan. Within two years employees of the Dallas Morning Newsqv and Dallas radio station WFAA had also joined. The success of the prepayment plan resulted in an invitation from the American Hospital Association for Kimball to present a paper discussing the mechanics of his idea. Although he was unable to attend, his paper was read and well received. Shortly thereafter the association elected him an honorary life member.

In 1939 Kimball, sixty-seven years old, retired as vice president of Baylor University. He returned as an adjunct professor to SMU, where he lectured on educational administration and wrote Our Dallas, a popular history of the city, which was published in 1927 and used by Dallas grade schools for a number of years. Kimball was a life-long Democrat. He served as the chairman of the civil service commission in Dallas and from 1949 to 1952 was a member of the State Board of Education (see TEXAS EDUCATION AGENCY). He was married in 1905 to Annie Lou Boggess; they had two sons and two daughters. Kimball spent his last years revising Our Dallas and supervising the work on his three farms. On October 7, 1956, he died at his home in Dallas. Two years later a new Dallas high school was named after him.; October 21, 2007

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)