“UPS and FedEx are doing just fine. It’s the Post Office that’s always having problems”
145 Replies to “Are Your Health Care Working?”
Don’t you just hate it when your TOTUS breaks?
He just shot down his own argument.
In a live debate Sarah Palin would jump in and say “if the Post Office is the problem why don’t we sell it to FedEx and while we’re at it, privatize Medicare and Medicaid?”
This guy is lost without a teleprompter. Why do his handlers let him off-leash?
But.. but.. medicaid, medicare and VA have proven they can’t compete. VA 4 months for an emergency MRI? Medicare had to bribe the AMA 245 billion to get doctors to service it’s clients. One of the dumbest things I have ever heard the man stammer out.
Absolutely; he’s lost without a teleprompter or an earphone telling him what to say and do.
As noted, he just shot his own policy of ‘public health care’ in the foot. The remarkable thing about him, though, is that he doesn’t realize it! He doesn’t think! He doesn’t have any intellectual capacity to understand his own words.
Listen to him. He’s openly saying that a public corporation is a losing project while private corporations operate very well. And he cannot THINK; he has no idea what’s he’s said.
Remember his ‘stimulus=spending’, an equally ignorant remark. After all, doesn’t it depend on what you spend your money..in order to conclude that it has actually stimulated the economy? Obama didn’t understand this.
How about his Honduran statement that it was a ‘military coup’ (it wasn’t); and that he supported Zelaya? How about his Iran statement, rejecting the rights of the dissenters? Oh, and his ‘police behaved stupidly’.
If you unhook Obama from his leash, his obvious ignorance of history, economics and political systems is glaring. What shows? His ignorance and his bias.
And he DID support a single-paying system. There’s video showing him saying exactly that.
Yes, We Can.
No, He Can’t.
The game is over, just needs more time for the hole digging to really get going.
health care insurance need to be mandatory in USA like Canada all people have OHIP
but what USA can do
like most captilism doing now
between Bell and Rogers or sprint canada
to allow people in USA has choice
if the person has mid class and cover with company health insurance does not need to pay tax to for drug from OHIP too
if the person travel need to have insurance outside of USA
minimum like public and private school can open we can have private and public hosptialand doctors
people must have OHIP but waht plan they can buy is up thier but
all must be cover major deseases and if the person want to pay extra can cover more to their insurance
give choose to people is better with minimum and mid and high level based on income of peopel but consider health ethic
talk to public and medical team to find solution
ta;lk to insurance company to find solution
It is so painfully obvious how poorly thought out this whole thing is. It would be amusing to watch if the stakes weren’t so high. Trillions is a really big number.
His whole presidency is about feeling good, wishes and dreams. All those fantasies the left has had about Utopia the perfect world.
Well now they are trying to put the dream into practice the problem being they have never considered the actual mechanics. Cause and effect. There is no plan here just an Idea, a wish, Hope.
Consequences are real they exist and cause and effect is as solid as the results of dropping a 50lb anvil on your foot.
Fedex is definitely the way to go, non union.
Whenever I see a brown shirt UPS guy it reminds me
of the opening scene of Ace Ventura, Pet Dective
Teh Won is going to regret that line.
“One need only refer to the 2005 annual report to get some illustrative numbers. A line item showing as “U.S. government appropriations — received” lists an amount of $503 million. The 2003 annual report shows a similar line item with a similar heading. That line item lists an amount of $762 million.” http://www.lewrockwell.com/alston/alston21.html
Yeah, but the post office provides people with a low-cost delivery alternative to Americans, unlike those private companies. That’s the whole idea behind the proposed changes, low-cost quality healthcare for Americans.
Btw… you guys should watch this and maybe learn a thing or two about how the healthcare system in this country measures up to that in the States. I guess you guys advocate for paying more for less so long as you satisfy your ideological need for a so-called free market solution. http://bit.ly/14JzGU
Just waiting to see how O-media carries that little statement.
“Fed Ex and UPS are doing just fine.” So, let’s set up a Medical Post Office.
The GREAT communicator!
Sorry being a knuckle dragging neandrethal, I was unsure on his comment ” Even if the gov’t. is being subsidized by the taxpayers” WTF is that supposed to mean. Are they not one in the same?
Is Rosie his new economic advisor? I mean if fire doesn’t melt steel and government is self sustaining entity then taxpayers are redundant, so all US citizens can withhold all income taxes.
Congrtas to our friends down south, Obama has just declared a permanent tax holiday.
It is easy to get confused when you are lying. Obama sounds a bit confused …
Nomdeblog has it right, Obama shot down his own argument when he compared the Post Office to the private UPS and Federal Express.
The truth is usually simple and needs little explanation.
Abraham Lincoln said it best .. “No one has a good enough memory to be a successful liar.” My question: Even if Obama gets his health care monstrosity passed will the doctors have the option to participate in either or both of the options … private or public?
That will mean a lot in how this all goes down. .
John
What you miss in that non-argument is that the private companies are choices to get faster service. Combine that with the fact the private companies could offer that same regular mail service as well IF THEY WERE ALLOWED and you have less than no point left.
If you extrapolate it to health care, we have slow (to zero) health care and no choice for an upgrade.
That’s what Obama is attempting. Not Euro-style health which looks very much like the Post office PLUS Fed Ex model, just the post office monopoly circa 1970 during a union strike.
I have felt for quite a while that Obama is an amateur who is in way over his head. This video clip proves it.
Thank you, Barack.
Every American who goes to the counter of a post office on a regular basis stands in line for an undue length of time and observes first hand the inefficiencies in the postal service.
We couldn’t ask for a better analogy from the lips of Lord Ob Almighty.
Jason,
Are you arguing that we have zero healthcare in this country? Really?
Did you watch the clip btw. You can still argue your position. You guys never let facts get in the way of making noise, so why start now?
The worst thing is, he will be totally unable to accept his statement as a gaffe. Much as the “police acted stupidly” comment was never retracted – only clarified – he seems to be unable to say “I’m sorry” or “I was wrong”.
For a politician, he sure says stupid things. For an American president, they are barely forgivable (Much like the unforgivable “bring it on” from GWB, a terrible mistake).
I think it comes from his “community organizer” background – he needs to get the crowd riled up to get validation and the adulation from his “amen chorusers”
What the President is NOT saying is that UPS and FedEx do well because they cherrypick the best and most profitable routes, leaving the small towns and out-of-the-way places to be covered by the post office. Which is why subsidies are needed if mail service to those ‘undesireable’ places is to be affordable.
Similarly, the private health plans will endeavour to cherrypick their subscribers, leaving the old and the ill to the public system. So there is going to have to be a subsidy to this system because it’s going to have greater costs associated with providing health care to that group.
He just shot down his own argument.
Bingo. But, as with any time Obama makes a truthful and damning statement, what he said isn’t what he really meant to say.
We un-patriotic, un-American, Nazi brownshirt health care opposing unruly mobsters will certainly be blamed for taking his comment out of context…
has there ever been anyone who yaks so much with so little substance , ever?
John 4:35
The US Postal Service, by its own reckoning, will lose over $7,000,000,000 this year. This company is also tax exempt! Low cost alternative? This company is simply not viable without it’s umbilical attachment to the American taxpayer. Wake up.
John
No, I’m arguing it’s slow when it isn’t zero. The main point I’m arguing is that we should be able to chose the fed ex option if we don’t want the slower government mail option.
Forget the US. Our health wait times would be unacceptable on the European continent even in the poorer eastern countries (the UK being a pitiful special case of how not to do it. The UK is probably the only country to get it worse than both Canada and the US while still calling themselves civilized.)
The government does deny us care when they please and there is nothing at all you can do if the government decides not to treat you. There is no choice. You are at the mercy of government hacks who are accountable to no one. Your doctor does not have the final say on your treatment where that say contradicts what the government has decreed they will cover. That would be zero health care. Dying on a waiting list waiting to see a doctor or have a test is zero health care. Not a difficult concept.
John we didn’t miss the point. Obama is making the incredibly dumb argument that He too believes in choice and the choice He thinks we are missing is a really really bad choice like Post Health (then he clarifies, Post doesn’t mean “death panel”).
But this is big, this FedEx puppy is now running loose all over blogdom making a mess.
His handlers just ran out of their 6 month supply of poop and scoop gear.
The more the handlers defend Him with comments like dissenters being overdressed in Brooks Brothers, the more the voters realize that in Obama’s case:
The clothes have no Emperor
This is history in the making folks: we just saw somebody shoot himself in the foot in his mouth.
The last thing anyone needs is doctors going postal .
the man is the f–kin dumbest asshole to ever hold the office. the only ones dumber are the people who voted for him.
“No, I’m arguing it’s slow when it isn’t zero.”
I call bullsh!t. It’s slow for some things, but ‘zero’? When has it ever been zero? For who? What bizarre example will you trot out to demonstrate that this problem is endemic I wonder?
Once again, we pay less than Americans, live longer than Americans, and our infant mortality rate is waaaaay below theirs. That said, so is Cuba’s for crying out loud.
You guys are so insanely oppose to anything remotely resembling socialism that you would willingly bend over for corporate profiteering when you’re sick. That’s not rational.
CNN can help Obama rebound by bringing something up about Sarah Palin. Anything. It doesn’t matter. Yes, his health-care plan is a total sham that could never work and he is lost without his teleprompter. We know all that. But if CNN can accuse Sarah Palin of something and/ or cry racism, this will all be forgotten. If they can include George Bush in it in some way, icing on the cake.
Enjoy paying taxes to this bozo, Americans.
(that was schadenfreude)
Actually I think UPS or FedX will serve pretty much any community no matter where it is.
Plus, if you don’t like the Post Office and complain, you may not get your mail regularly after that and the Union Employees don’t care.
Not so with the private firms. They have to care, they cannot extort you as only the government monopolies can.
Why doesn’t Canada have a private option? Because the government runs monopolies only. It will be no different in the USA. It will take a bit of time, but that is where it will wind up.
Obama is a liar and everyone knows it.
John, your attempt to link life expectancy and infant mortality to the health care system is complete nonsense. There are many factors that contribute to that (including racial demographics) and your attempt to make the connection solely to health care is childish and simply wrong. As for Cuba, none of their data is verifiable and is propaganda…nothing more, nothing less.
And, while we “pay less”, we pay more in the sense of waiting in lines for health care like Russians waiting in line to buy what meat there might be at a Russian butcher shop.
OK, so I know who wrote his biographies, but who wrote his high school exams? I mean really no one that dumb could have actually graduated from high school could they???
From nytimes.com/2009/07/30/business
“The debate over how Congress can best ease the financial woes of the United States Postal Service is likely to intensify in coming months as the Postal Service’s record-breaking losses continue to escalate.
Early retirement is being offered to 150,000 workers.
The Postal Service now expects to run a record $7 billion deficit in 2009, up from projections in March of $6 billion.
The Government Accountability Office added the Postal Service to its list of “high risk” federal programs on Tuesday, urging it to work with Congress to find a solution to its financial problems.
Congress (has been asked) to change laws that mandate delivery six days a week, a request that has met strong opposition from some lawmakers.
While some remain dead set against five-day delivery…the initial “frosty reception” from Congress appeared to be changing”
Yup Yup we need more Post Health.
“You guys are so insanely oppose to anything remotely resembling socialism that you would willingly bend over for corporate profiteering when you’re sick. That’s not rational”
At least it’d be by choice. I wonder why the concept of “Freedom of Choice” is so hard to understand with some people.
John….
You musta drank the Koolaid……
Emotions are not facts anymore than myths are “science”…
I think the comparisons with UPS, FEDEX and the Post Office are a perfect example of what the new health care will be like. You’ll be able to choose FEDEX or UPS if you don’t like the Post Office service. What he failed to mention is that UPS and FEDEX employees will now be members of the Postal Union.
Lets see them show a profit then.
and in the same Townhall meeting . . . his Teleprompter must have had a Vista moment.
“President Obama today suggested that the health care reform legislation for which he’s pushing has been endorsed by the American Association of Retired Person.
“We have the AARP on board because they know this is a good deal for our seniors,” the president said.
At another point he said: “Well, first of all, another myth that we’ve been hearing about is this notion that somehow we’re going to be cutting your Medicare benefits. We are not. AARP would not be endorsing a bill if it was undermining Medicare, okay?”
The problem?
The AARP hasn’t endorsed any plan yet.
The country’s largest advocacy group for Americans over 50 issued a statement after the event saying, “While the President was correct that AARP will not endorse a health care reform bill that would reduce Medicare benefits, indications that we have endorsed any of the major health care reform bills currently under consideration in Congress are inaccurate.””
sasq:
Our friend john obviously believes Canadian health care is ‘free.’ How else can anybody with any amount of analytical ability make a the statements contained in at Posted by: John at August 11, 2009 5:32 PM.
This video (20 minutes long, sorry), shows how Canada finances its costs through long waiting lines and higher taxes. http://www.aconservativevoicetoday.com/2009/07/video-steven-crowder-goes-undercover-in.html
First off, perception is reality whether were speaking about lipstick or mail.
That being said, I believe Obama was trying to say that Fed Ex and other private couriers compete very well against the public option.
Good point Barak, but that opens up this can of worms: why are the private models so much better than the public models?
Talk about unintended consequences.
sasq:
Yeah, and Obama truly is a dumbf**k when he trots out the example that private corporations are better at delivering parcels than the public post office … then uses that to make a case public delivery is more efficient.
John:
Let’s clear up a few misconceptions about Canadian healthcare:
1. Well over 40 % of cdn healthcare is not government funded. This includes most pharma and dental and optical as well as paramedical srvices like Physio and chiropractor.
2. It is not cheaper per capita than US private care – the 60 % that is government paid costs the taxpayer for a family of four about 14000 $ cdn per year ( according to the Calgary health region) . To get okay coverage for the rest but with large co-pays and low maximums on things like paramedical services will cost that family or its employer about another 3000 to four thousand. When one considers that torte claims in cda are non-existent/illegal and they cost the US system about 450 billion without the legal overhead healthcare delivery is significantly cheaper in the US.
The key differences in service delivery between cda and the US are in diagnostic and specialist consult wait times, the availablity of cutting edge procedures and the number of those procedures that are actually performed. Day to day issues like doctor shortages are also common in some fast growing larger centres and pretty-much a fact of life in remote rural areas.
Some examples of the above:
PET scans for cancer treatment – less than 10000 a year in cda – routine in the US.
Heart valve surgery is virtually non-existent
elective surgery wait times for things like artificial hips and knees can be as long as 18 months sometimes even longer.
Waitimes for specialists in non-urgent IOW not life-threatening areas – 4 to six months.
Colonoscopy wait time is around a year
In some rural areas there are as few as one GP per 25000 people. New arrival GPs are assigned patients by picking names out of a drum.
How do I know this stuff?I am a private health benefits insurance broker in. Alberta. I also chair a local chamber of commerce health policy committee. I sell insurance to cdns that pays for both consultation services from American Docs as well as procedures in the US such as heart bypass and cancer treatment.
There was another incredible video clip from about a week ago with Obamma at some sort of townhall/lecture event and he could not string three words together he apologized a number of times to the audience and clearly tried to engage some of the audience to deflect from his embarrassing performance
I am surprised it has not had more airtime, it may have been a link from Drudge
john
“I call bullsh!t. It’s slow for some things, but ‘zero’? When has it ever been zero? For who? What bizarre example will you trot out to demonstrate that this problem is endemic I wonder?”
my brother==dead
my sister in law==dead
my daughters father in law dead
all because of O health care
need more examples??/
“Once again, we pay less than Americans, live longer than Americans,”
show the figures, cuz I’ll call you on that one
” and our infant mortality rate is waaaaay below theirs.”
context please
“That said, so is Cuba’s for crying out loud.”
you’ve never been to cuba, or you would state that
“You guys are so insanely oppose to anything remotely resembling socialism that you would willingly bend over for corporate profiteering when you’re sick. That’s not rational.”
socialism isn’t rational, unless you consider stalin’s death list, hitler’s death list, moa’s death list, pot pol’s death list, examples of rationality
John, I for one would like the option to pay for cadillac health care when I deam it prudent to do so, socialism denies ME that, how ever the elite fly off to a far away place and buy such cadillac service for themselves
That’s the key point, Momar, and others.
He’s lying constantly, continuously. That’s also why he stammers so much. The stammer is a kind of pause while testing to make sure the lie doesn’t conflict with previous lies and sufficiently supports the BIG LIE.
He really can’t be stupid. Even with affirmative action, I don’t think you can end up being a Harvard Prof while being stupid. He’s lazy for sure, and completely uninformed about economics, probably thinking it’s an elaborate defense of the MAN’s exploitation. History would be rejected, of course, because after all it was “written by the victors”. Oh, and you knew I’d fit it in somehow: you don’t have to be smart to be a Marxist!
On the subject of competition, the origins of the courier companies were not rooted in competition, per se. They offered a NEW service: Expedited delivery. Apples and oranges. In fact, the Post Office was pushed into offering its own courier service to try and maintain market share.
As to the poster who made the bogus cherry-picking argument, were there no Public Post Office, the private market would provide the same service — lower cost, slower delivery — way more efficiently, and more cheaply for sure. This is a very popular fallacy on the left: that absent government’s participation, a service would disappear.
Off topic, but learned something today from
Posted by: new at August 11, 2009 4:30 PM
Our friend lives in Ontario and believes all Canadians are covered by OHIP.
Methinks a trip to the liquor store would help unmuddy his mind, since the acronym is ONTARIO Health Insurance Plan.
I also believe, and Obama should take note, that the Shouldice Hospital is an excellent example of a private delivery option that’s so sadly under-represented in this country.
When I saw the heading over the video, I assumed it was from somebody addressing Obama. I was shocked to hear The One make the comment himself, thereby essentially arguing against a public health option.
What a dufus.
John “bend over for corporate profiteering when you’re sick”
or
“The debate over how Congress can best ease the financial woes of the United States Postal Service is likely to intensify in coming months as the Postal Service’s record-breaking losses continue to escalate”
That’s one way to look at the choice before Americans.
John, you need to get over the idea that success and profit are sins. Profit is simply a record that shows revenues exceed expenses and if they don’t, the enterprise fails … like the US Post Office is doing now. There is only one source of revenue, the American citizens.
Obama doesn’t care about Health Care or any other program. He’s just lusting after the cash flows for power and control which will allow him to rule and feed his craving to strut on stage.
Do you want profits or do you want run away deficits which are turning America into Argentina?
THIS was a ‘teachable’ moment.
That image… papers manipulate images all the time. They took one they had in their file, and changed it to reflect what everyone knows to be true. Have you ever been to Toronto? On a hot summer day, that’s the colour. Do you deny that? As for the video… yeah, that sucks. But they still didn’t make up a quote. And really… you see this sort of bullshit from every single news organization. Every one of them. The National Post in Canada is notoriously the worst.
~Posted by: John at August 7, 2009 7:14 PM
On the August 6, 2009 from The Sound Of Settled Science thread
John thinks lying, manipulation, and obfuscation are fine because he thinks “everybody does it”.
You can’t argue with someone who has disdain for the truth, and John only wants to win arguments, not arrive at the truth.
The old term “going postal” is going to be changed to “going clinical”.
This ObamaCare scheme should be DOA by September.
Obama, your delivery has been rerouted.
File 13.
Carry on as if you were normal.
Don’t you just hate it when your TOTUS breaks?
He just shot down his own argument.
In a live debate Sarah Palin would jump in and say “if the Post Office is the problem why don’t we sell it to FedEx and while we’re at it, privatize Medicare and Medicaid?”
This guy is lost without a teleprompter. Why do his handlers let him off-leash?
Also note how he denied ever saying he supported a single payer system.
Not just supporting, but even saying he supported it.
Which is untrue. I cover it here:
http://theplaceofbiff.blogspot.com/2009/08/obama-digs-real-deep.html
But.. but.. medicaid, medicare and VA have proven they can’t compete. VA 4 months for an emergency MRI? Medicare had to bribe the AMA 245 billion to get doctors to service it’s clients. One of the dumbest things I have ever heard the man stammer out.
Absolutely; he’s lost without a teleprompter or an earphone telling him what to say and do.
As noted, he just shot his own policy of ‘public health care’ in the foot. The remarkable thing about him, though, is that he doesn’t realize it! He doesn’t think! He doesn’t have any intellectual capacity to understand his own words.
Listen to him. He’s openly saying that a public corporation is a losing project while private corporations operate very well. And he cannot THINK; he has no idea what’s he’s said.
Remember his ‘stimulus=spending’, an equally ignorant remark. After all, doesn’t it depend on what you spend your money..in order to conclude that it has actually stimulated the economy? Obama didn’t understand this.
How about his Honduran statement that it was a ‘military coup’ (it wasn’t); and that he supported Zelaya? How about his Iran statement, rejecting the rights of the dissenters? Oh, and his ‘police behaved stupidly’.
If you unhook Obama from his leash, his obvious ignorance of history, economics and political systems is glaring. What shows? His ignorance and his bias.
And he DID support a single-paying system. There’s video showing him saying exactly that.
Yes, We Can.
No, He Can’t.
The game is over, just needs more time for the hole digging to really get going.
health care insurance need to be mandatory in USA like Canada all people have OHIP
but what USA can do
like most captilism doing now
between Bell and Rogers or sprint canada
to allow people in USA has choice
if the person has mid class and cover with company health insurance does not need to pay tax to for drug from OHIP too
if the person travel need to have insurance outside of USA
minimum like public and private school can open we can have private and public hosptialand doctors
people must have OHIP but waht plan they can buy is up thier but
all must be cover major deseases and if the person want to pay extra can cover more to their insurance
give choose to people is better with minimum and mid and high level based on income of peopel but consider health ethic
talk to public and medical team to find solution
ta;lk to insurance company to find solution
It is so painfully obvious how poorly thought out this whole thing is. It would be amusing to watch if the stakes weren’t so high. Trillions is a really big number.
His whole presidency is about feeling good, wishes and dreams. All those fantasies the left has had about Utopia the perfect world.
Well now they are trying to put the dream into practice the problem being they have never considered the actual mechanics. Cause and effect. There is no plan here just an Idea, a wish, Hope.
Consequences are real they exist and cause and effect is as solid as the results of dropping a 50lb anvil on your foot.
Fedex is definitely the way to go, non union.
Whenever I see a brown shirt UPS guy it reminds me
of the opening scene of Ace Ventura, Pet Dective
Teh Won is going to regret that line.
“One need only refer to the 2005 annual report to get some illustrative numbers. A line item showing as “U.S. government appropriations — received” lists an amount of $503 million. The 2003 annual report shows a similar line item with a similar heading. That line item lists an amount of $762 million.”
http://www.lewrockwell.com/alston/alston21.html
Yeah, but the post office provides people with a low-cost delivery alternative to Americans, unlike those private companies. That’s the whole idea behind the proposed changes, low-cost quality healthcare for Americans.
Btw… you guys should watch this and maybe learn a thing or two about how the healthcare system in this country measures up to that in the States. I guess you guys advocate for paying more for less so long as you satisfy your ideological need for a so-called free market solution.
http://bit.ly/14JzGU
Just waiting to see how O-media carries that little statement.
“Fed Ex and UPS are doing just fine.” So, let’s set up a Medical Post Office.
The GREAT communicator!
Sorry being a knuckle dragging neandrethal, I was unsure on his comment ” Even if the gov’t. is being subsidized by the taxpayers” WTF is that supposed to mean. Are they not one in the same?
Is Rosie his new economic advisor? I mean if fire doesn’t melt steel and government is self sustaining entity then taxpayers are redundant, so all US citizens can withhold all income taxes.
Congrtas to our friends down south, Obama has just declared a permanent tax holiday.
It is easy to get confused when you are lying. Obama sounds a bit confused …
Nomdeblog has it right, Obama shot down his own argument when he compared the Post Office to the private UPS and Federal Express.
The truth is usually simple and needs little explanation.
Abraham Lincoln said it best .. “No one has a good enough memory to be a successful liar.”
My question: Even if Obama gets his health care monstrosity passed will the doctors have the option to participate in either or both of the options … private or public?
That will mean a lot in how this all goes down. .
John
What you miss in that non-argument is that the private companies are choices to get faster service. Combine that with the fact the private companies could offer that same regular mail service as well IF THEY WERE ALLOWED and you have less than no point left.
If you extrapolate it to health care, we have slow (to zero) health care and no choice for an upgrade.
That’s what Obama is attempting. Not Euro-style health which looks very much like the Post office PLUS Fed Ex model, just the post office monopoly circa 1970 during a union strike.
I have felt for quite a while that Obama is an amateur who is in way over his head. This video clip proves it.
Thank you, Barack.
Every American who goes to the counter of a post office on a regular basis stands in line for an undue length of time and observes first hand the inefficiencies in the postal service.
We couldn’t ask for a better analogy from the lips of Lord Ob Almighty.
Jason,
Are you arguing that we have zero healthcare in this country? Really?
Did you watch the clip btw. You can still argue your position. You guys never let facts get in the way of making noise, so why start now?
The worst thing is, he will be totally unable to accept his statement as a gaffe. Much as the “police acted stupidly” comment was never retracted – only clarified – he seems to be unable to say “I’m sorry” or “I was wrong”.
For a politician, he sure says stupid things. For an American president, they are barely forgivable (Much like the unforgivable “bring it on” from GWB, a terrible mistake).
I think it comes from his “community organizer” background – he needs to get the crowd riled up to get validation and the adulation from his “amen chorusers”
What the President is NOT saying is that UPS and FedEx do well because they cherrypick the best and most profitable routes, leaving the small towns and out-of-the-way places to be covered by the post office. Which is why subsidies are needed if mail service to those ‘undesireable’ places is to be affordable.
Similarly, the private health plans will endeavour to cherrypick their subscribers, leaving the old and the ill to the public system. So there is going to have to be a subsidy to this system because it’s going to have greater costs associated with providing health care to that group.
He just shot down his own argument.
Bingo. But, as with any time Obama makes a truthful and damning statement, what he said isn’t what he really meant to say.
We un-patriotic, un-American, Nazi brownshirt health care opposing unruly mobsters will certainly be blamed for taking his comment out of context…
has there ever been anyone who yaks so much with so little substance , ever?
John 4:35
The US Postal Service, by its own reckoning, will lose over $7,000,000,000 this year. This company is also tax exempt! Low cost alternative? This company is simply not viable without it’s umbilical attachment to the American taxpayer. Wake up.
John
No, I’m arguing it’s slow when it isn’t zero. The main point I’m arguing is that we should be able to chose the fed ex option if we don’t want the slower government mail option.
Forget the US. Our health wait times would be unacceptable on the European continent even in the poorer eastern countries (the UK being a pitiful special case of how not to do it. The UK is probably the only country to get it worse than both Canada and the US while still calling themselves civilized.)
The government does deny us care when they please and there is nothing at all you can do if the government decides not to treat you. There is no choice. You are at the mercy of government hacks who are accountable to no one. Your doctor does not have the final say on your treatment where that say contradicts what the government has decreed they will cover. That would be zero health care. Dying on a waiting list waiting to see a doctor or have a test is zero health care. Not a difficult concept.
John we didn’t miss the point. Obama is making the incredibly dumb argument that He too believes in choice and the choice He thinks we are missing is a really really bad choice like Post Health (then he clarifies, Post doesn’t mean “death panel”).
But this is big, this FedEx puppy is now running loose all over blogdom making a mess.
His handlers just ran out of their 6 month supply of poop and scoop gear.
The more the handlers defend Him with comments like dissenters being overdressed in Brooks Brothers, the more the voters realize that in Obama’s case:
The clothes have no Emperor
This is history in the making folks: we just saw somebody shoot himself in the foot in his mouth.
The last thing anyone needs is doctors going postal .
the man is the f–kin dumbest asshole to ever hold the office. the only ones dumber are the people who voted for him.
“No, I’m arguing it’s slow when it isn’t zero.”
I call bullsh!t. It’s slow for some things, but ‘zero’? When has it ever been zero? For who? What bizarre example will you trot out to demonstrate that this problem is endemic I wonder?
Once again, we pay less than Americans, live longer than Americans, and our infant mortality rate is waaaaay below theirs. That said, so is Cuba’s for crying out loud.
You guys are so insanely oppose to anything remotely resembling socialism that you would willingly bend over for corporate profiteering when you’re sick. That’s not rational.
CNN can help Obama rebound by bringing something up about Sarah Palin. Anything. It doesn’t matter. Yes, his health-care plan is a total sham that could never work and he is lost without his teleprompter. We know all that. But if CNN can accuse Sarah Palin of something and/ or cry racism, this will all be forgotten. If they can include George Bush in it in some way, icing on the cake.
Enjoy paying taxes to this bozo, Americans.
(that was schadenfreude)
Actually I think UPS or FedX will serve pretty much any community no matter where it is.
Plus, if you don’t like the Post Office and complain, you may not get your mail regularly after that and the Union Employees don’t care.
Not so with the private firms. They have to care, they cannot extort you as only the government monopolies can.
Why doesn’t Canada have a private option? Because the government runs monopolies only. It will be no different in the USA. It will take a bit of time, but that is where it will wind up.
Obama is a liar and everyone knows it.
John, your attempt to link life expectancy and infant mortality to the health care system is complete nonsense. There are many factors that contribute to that (including racial demographics) and your attempt to make the connection solely to health care is childish and simply wrong. As for Cuba, none of their data is verifiable and is propaganda…nothing more, nothing less.
And, while we “pay less”, we pay more in the sense of waiting in lines for health care like Russians waiting in line to buy what meat there might be at a Russian butcher shop.
OK, so I know who wrote his biographies, but who wrote his high school exams? I mean really no one that dumb could have actually graduated from high school could they???
From nytimes.com/2009/07/30/business
“The debate over how Congress can best ease the financial woes of the United States Postal Service is likely to intensify in coming months as the Postal Service’s record-breaking losses continue to escalate.
Early retirement is being offered to 150,000 workers.
The Postal Service now expects to run a record $7 billion deficit in 2009, up from projections in March of $6 billion.
The Government Accountability Office added the Postal Service to its list of “high risk” federal programs on Tuesday, urging it to work with Congress to find a solution to its financial problems.
Congress (has been asked) to change laws that mandate delivery six days a week, a request that has met strong opposition from some lawmakers.
While some remain dead set against five-day delivery…the initial “frosty reception” from Congress appeared to be changing”
Yup Yup we need more Post Health.
“You guys are so insanely oppose to anything remotely resembling socialism that you would willingly bend over for corporate profiteering when you’re sick. That’s not rational”
At least it’d be by choice. I wonder why the concept of “Freedom of Choice” is so hard to understand with some people.
John….
You musta drank the Koolaid……
Emotions are not facts anymore than myths are “science”…
I think the comparisons with UPS, FEDEX and the Post Office are a perfect example of what the new health care will be like. You’ll be able to choose FEDEX or UPS if you don’t like the Post Office service. What he failed to mention is that UPS and FEDEX employees will now be members of the Postal Union.
Lets see them show a profit then.
and in the same Townhall meeting . . . his Teleprompter must have had a Vista moment.
“President Obama today suggested that the health care reform legislation for which he’s pushing has been endorsed by the American Association of Retired Person.
“We have the AARP on board because they know this is a good deal for our seniors,” the president said.
At another point he said: “Well, first of all, another myth that we’ve been hearing about is this notion that somehow we’re going to be cutting your Medicare benefits. We are not. AARP would not be endorsing a bill if it was undermining Medicare, okay?”
The problem?
The AARP hasn’t endorsed any plan yet.
The country’s largest advocacy group for Americans over 50 issued a statement after the event saying, “While the President was correct that AARP will not endorse a health care reform bill that would reduce Medicare benefits, indications that we have endorsed any of the major health care reform bills currently under consideration in Congress are inaccurate.””
sasq:
Our friend john obviously believes Canadian health care is ‘free.’ How else can anybody with any amount of analytical ability make a the statements contained in at Posted by: John at August 11, 2009 5:32 PM.
This video (20 minutes long, sorry), shows how Canada finances its costs through long waiting lines and higher taxes.
http://www.aconservativevoicetoday.com/2009/07/video-steven-crowder-goes-undercover-in.html
First off, perception is reality whether were speaking about lipstick or mail.
That being said, I believe Obama was trying to say that Fed Ex and other private couriers compete very well against the public option.
Good point Barak, but that opens up this can of worms: why are the private models so much better than the public models?
Talk about unintended consequences.
sasq:
Yeah, and Obama truly is a dumbf**k when he trots out the example that private corporations are better at delivering parcels than the public post office … then uses that to make a case public delivery is more efficient.
John:
Let’s clear up a few misconceptions about Canadian healthcare:
1. Well over 40 % of cdn healthcare is not government funded. This includes most pharma and dental and optical as well as paramedical srvices like Physio and chiropractor.
2. It is not cheaper per capita than US private care – the 60 % that is government paid costs the taxpayer for a family of four about 14000 $ cdn per year ( according to the Calgary health region) . To get okay coverage for the rest but with large co-pays and low maximums on things like paramedical services will cost that family or its employer about another 3000 to four thousand. When one considers that torte claims in cda are non-existent/illegal and they cost the US system about 450 billion without the legal overhead healthcare delivery is significantly cheaper in the US.
The key differences in service delivery between cda and the US are in diagnostic and specialist consult wait times, the availablity of cutting edge procedures and the number of those procedures that are actually performed. Day to day issues like doctor shortages are also common in some fast growing larger centres and pretty-much a fact of life in remote rural areas.
Some examples of the above:
PET scans for cancer treatment – less than 10000 a year in cda – routine in the US.
Heart valve surgery is virtually non-existent
elective surgery wait times for things like artificial hips and knees can be as long as 18 months sometimes even longer.
Waitimes for specialists in non-urgent IOW not life-threatening areas – 4 to six months.
Colonoscopy wait time is around a year
In some rural areas there are as few as one GP per 25000 people. New arrival GPs are assigned patients by picking names out of a drum.
How do I know this stuff?I am a private health benefits insurance broker in. Alberta. I also chair a local chamber of commerce health policy committee. I sell insurance to cdns that pays for both consultation services from American Docs as well as procedures in the US such as heart bypass and cancer treatment.
There was another incredible video clip from about a week ago with Obamma at some sort of townhall/lecture event and he could not string three words together he apologized a number of times to the audience and clearly tried to engage some of the audience to deflect from his embarrassing performance
I am surprised it has not had more airtime, it may have been a link from Drudge
john
“I call bullsh!t. It’s slow for some things, but ‘zero’? When has it ever been zero? For who? What bizarre example will you trot out to demonstrate that this problem is endemic I wonder?”
my brother==dead
my sister in law==dead
my daughters father in law dead
all because of O health care
need more examples??/
“Once again, we pay less than Americans, live longer than Americans,”
show the figures, cuz I’ll call you on that one
” and our infant mortality rate is waaaaay below theirs.”
context please
“That said, so is Cuba’s for crying out loud.”
you’ve never been to cuba, or you would state that
“You guys are so insanely oppose to anything remotely resembling socialism that you would willingly bend over for corporate profiteering when you’re sick. That’s not rational.”
socialism isn’t rational, unless you consider stalin’s death list, hitler’s death list, moa’s death list, pot pol’s death list, examples of rationality
John, I for one would like the option to pay for cadillac health care when I deam it prudent to do so, socialism denies ME that, how ever the elite fly off to a far away place and buy such cadillac service for themselves
That’s the key point, Momar, and others.
He’s lying constantly, continuously. That’s also why he stammers so much. The stammer is a kind of pause while testing to make sure the lie doesn’t conflict with previous lies and sufficiently supports the BIG LIE.
He really can’t be stupid. Even with affirmative action, I don’t think you can end up being a Harvard Prof while being stupid. He’s lazy for sure, and completely uninformed about economics, probably thinking it’s an elaborate defense of the MAN’s exploitation. History would be rejected, of course, because after all it was “written by the victors”. Oh, and you knew I’d fit it in somehow: you don’t have to be smart to be a Marxist!
On the subject of competition, the origins of the courier companies were not rooted in competition, per se. They offered a NEW service: Expedited delivery. Apples and oranges. In fact, the Post Office was pushed into offering its own courier service to try and maintain market share.
As to the poster who made the bogus cherry-picking argument, were there no Public Post Office, the private market would provide the same service — lower cost, slower delivery — way more efficiently, and more cheaply for sure. This is a very popular fallacy on the left: that absent government’s participation, a service would disappear.
Off topic, but learned something today from
Posted by: new at August 11, 2009 4:30 PM
Our friend lives in Ontario and believes all Canadians are covered by OHIP.
Methinks a trip to the liquor store would help unmuddy his mind, since the acronym is ONTARIO Health Insurance Plan.
I also believe, and Obama should take note, that the Shouldice Hospital is an excellent example of a private delivery option that’s so sadly under-represented in this country.
When I saw the heading over the video, I assumed it was from somebody addressing Obama. I was shocked to hear The One make the comment himself, thereby essentially arguing against a public health option.
What a dufus.
John “bend over for corporate profiteering when you’re sick”
or
“The debate over how Congress can best ease the financial woes of the United States Postal Service is likely to intensify in coming months as the Postal Service’s record-breaking losses continue to escalate”
That’s one way to look at the choice before Americans.
John, you need to get over the idea that success and profit are sins. Profit is simply a record that shows revenues exceed expenses and if they don’t, the enterprise fails … like the US Post Office is doing now. There is only one source of revenue, the American citizens.
Obama doesn’t care about Health Care or any other program. He’s just lusting after the cash flows for power and control which will allow him to rule and feed his craving to strut on stage.
Do you want profits or do you want run away deficits which are turning America into Argentina?
THIS was a ‘teachable’ moment.
That image… papers manipulate images all the time. They took one they had in their file, and changed it to reflect what everyone knows to be true. Have you ever been to Toronto? On a hot summer day, that’s the colour. Do you deny that?
As for the video… yeah, that sucks. But they still didn’t make up a quote. And really… you see this sort of bullshit from every single news organization. Every one of them. The National Post in Canada is notoriously the worst.
~Posted by: John at August 7, 2009 7:14 PM
On the August 6, 2009 from The Sound Of Settled Science thread
John thinks lying, manipulation, and obfuscation are fine because he thinks “everybody does it”.
You can’t argue with someone who has disdain for the truth, and John only wants to win arguments, not arrive at the truth.
The old term “going postal” is going to be changed to “going clinical”.
This ObamaCare scheme should be DOA by September.
Obama, your delivery has been rerouted.
File 13.
Carry on as if you were normal.