Dr. Jack Cassell, 56, a Mount Dora urologist and a registered Republican, left a message for Obama supporters on his door: heal thyself or at least find a doctor elsewhere.
Cassell posted a sign reading “If you voted for Obama…seek urologic care elsewhere. Changes to your healthcare begin right now, not in four years.” Personally, I am not sure I want a proctological exam with a guy who is really pissed off at Democrats and liberals. Hint: when you visit Dr. Cassell bring a copy of Rush Limbaugh on tape, the exam goes much smoother.
Curiously, Cassell insists that telling Obama supporters to “seek urologic care elsewhere” is not denying them care: “I’m not turning anybody away — that would be unethical. But if they read the sign and turn the other way, so be it.”
This raises an interesting question. It would seem unethical to deny care based on political beliefs but state law only addresses race, religion,
gender, sexual preference or disability. However, as an ethical matter, it would seem rather clear but I am but a juris doctor.
To further his unique combination of politics and proctology, Cassell supplies copies of a health-care timeline produced by Republicans and added a sign that reads “This is what the morons in Washington have done to your health care. Take one, read it and vote out anyone who voted for it.”
For the full story, click here.
Duh:
“The “insurers” are the problem. They are the for-profit “middle men” whose primary concern is to make a profit.”
**************
Well, not really. They been handed incentives to put profits first by our legislators who’ve succumbed to their lobbying. You can hardly blame an industry for trying to get the best deal it can. It’s rather like blaming the kids for eating three ice cream cones before dinner ’cause Mom can’t say “no.”
The key to insurance premium control is standardizing plans and claim forms. I suggest a base plan for young people covering catastrophic and preventative care. A richer plan for folks starting families through empty-nesting, and an expansion of Medicare to folks 50 years and older when sickness is more likely. Then you can allow carriers to compete nationally instead of regionally or at the state level as they do now. With federal regulation of insurance this becomes feasible. You could really do the job right by permitting a public option so that carriers would have to compete with Medicare and its 3% overhead/administrative costs structure.
Believe it or not capitalism works when properly managed by government who can prevent its excesses, and industry’s unwillingness to delve into some markets. It’s really nothing new.
Byron,
Learn to differentiate health care and health care insurance. Insurance companies have had a steady decrease in regulation until now. This is why they’ve been allowed to kill so many people by refusing coverage all the while taking expensive executive retreats so if you think that whole “we haven’t had a free market in a long time” balloon is going to float, it isn’t. Where the Hell do you think that vacation money came from? Thin air? No. It came from the blood of the dying.
And if you want to direct that upset at possible changes in your personal coverage, I suggest you direct it not at the sick (as you are now) but the the Insurers who have been maximizing their profits for 40 years on the backs of the ill and the dying and thus creating the situation we are in now. You often make arguments that assume that business men are all somehow ethical when history shows us they are often greedy sociopaths and that free markets have a logic and wisdom when they clearly do not. There is nothing in providing health care for all that is adequate and fair that would prevent you from paying out of pocket – like you do now in the form of premiums that I guarantee are jacked up with admin costs and other bullshit – for ANY treatment you want but aren’t getting to your satisfaction. People in Canada do it all the time. In fact, every time they go to the dentist as that coverage (like here) is optional and not a state run public trust.
You don’t want your coverage to suffer – even if it’s minimal intrusions like waits (which are called treage when done in an ER or on a battlefield).
That’s a mighty selfish attitude to take toward the ill and dying. You know, those people Jesus spent so much time healing and comforting. The historical Buddha had a thing about charity toward the ill too. Even Mo’ did. Compassion for the sick, when it doesn’t outweigh your desires, leads to bad character. I hate to say it, but your greed is showing. You call it free market capitalism all you like. But in this instance, you’d be hard pressed to show it as anything other than personal greed – you want what you got and got what you want so screw society. That, my friend, is EXACTLY the attitude that is wrong with capitalism. In mild cases, like yours, it causes spotty “topical” blindness. More advanced cases are pure sociopathic and/or narcissistic ego worship ala WellPoint’s criminal CEO, Angela Braly.
But they are both directly related to what the English call that “I’ve got mine, Jack!” attitude.
I’m fairly sure that’s not a good thing for civilization when extrapolated out to a global scale.
By the way happy rites of spring 🙂 Are you going to sacrfice a virgin pig at one of the local BBQ joints?
Buddha:
I think that health care needs to be revamped, there are many problems with how care is provided. We have blue cross and they give lousy reimbursements to our doctors while building modern gym facilities for their employees. So I agree there is a problem. I just disagree with the solution. There really hasn’t been a free market in medicine for some time now. Probably the 50’s or 60’s. In that time period food has become extremely inexpensive and health care has become extremely expensive. Why? One is a free market and the other isn’t.
There needs to be some sort of safety net for people who don’t have health care but diminishing the quality of care for the rest of us so that only the rich and our leaders er masters receive good treatment is not right. You don’t build another up by pounding another down.
But if it works and I pay the same amount as I pay now and the level of care is the same and my taxes are not increased then I will admit I am wrong. But Tenncare and the current program in MA don’t bode well for the outcome.
“on the other you have socialized medicine/national health care that takes 18 months to get someone a new hip.”
Which is worse?
18 months to get a new hip?
Or no hip?
hey turns out (ahem) Dr Cassell doesn’t have a clue what he doesn’t like about the health bill, so maybe it’s something else..?
Cassell: Hospice cuts in 2012…Does the government want people to die slowly?
Colmes: Do you really think the government wants people dead?
Cassell: Well I think that they’re cutting all supportive care, like nursing homes, ambulance services…
Colmes: What to you mean they’re cutting nursing homes?
Cassell: They’re cutting nursing home reimbursements
Colmes: Isn’t what they’re cutting under the Medicare plan what was really double dipping; they were getting credits and they were getting to deduct them at the same time.
Cassell: Well you know, I can’t tell you exactly what the deal is.
Colmes: If you can’t tell us exactly what the deal is, why are you opposing it and fighting against it?
Cassell: I’m not the guy who wrote the plan.
Colmes: But if you don’t know what the deal is why are you speaking out against something you don’t know what the deal is?
Cassell: What I get online, just like any other American. What I’m supposed to understand about the bill should be available to me.
Colmes: It is; it’s been online for a long time; it’s also been all over the media
…
http://www.alan.com/2010/04/03/doctor-against-treating-obama-supporters-admits-not-knowing-whats-in-health-reform-bill/
this guy may have been one of the medical students Reagan saved by invading Grenada to divert attention from the cut and run in Beirut
Mespo,
The “insurers” are the problem. They are the for-profit “middle men” whose primary concern is to make a profit. Giving them more “bargaining power” is the last thing we need to do. They don’t care about the provider of the service. Nor do they care about the consumer of the service. Putting them in a position, where the law requires everyone to subscribe to their service, is an incredibly stupid thing to do. There is no motivation for the insurance companies to lower their prices. They don’t need to participate in a competitive market. All they need to do is work together and they all win. Unlike regular market influences, where you can end up pricing your product so high that the consumers will not be able to justify buying it. When it comes to health needs, there is no realistic ceiling. The need will always be justified. Therein lies the problem.
Slowing the rate of increase (the intent of the bill) doesn’t help much when a majority of those paying for healthcare are making less money.
As for your numbers: You said “It is undeniable that a growing economy thrives on debt”. I’m sure Reagan, the Bushes, and Obama appreciate the compliment. Using the same, Truman, Eisenhower, LBJ, and Clinton put a hurtin on us. 🙂
http://zfacts.com/p/318.html
Truth be told, if we weren’t currently fighting a war, the economy and unemployment would be in much, much worse shape. Don’t take that as a justification for war (that is not my intent), but it may have been the motivation by some to enter into the wars.
Come on, B. Find a fault in that logic about how insurance operates. I double-dog dare you. 😉 You can’t because it is precisely a parasitic relationship to the market, but I’m sure willing to watch you try. And don’t go all preachy about “free market forces” as that’s simply begging the question that free markets are a universally applicable tool when like all tools, they are not universally applicable to achieve the best solution. One can hammer a nail with a screwdriver, but you end up taking ten times the time and effort and still end up with a crappy building.
Byron,
“Your statement, from my experience, is clearly not universally applicable.”
The exact same thing can be said of your statements.
People without insurance are largely simply screwed Byron, anecdotal evidence notwithstanding. I currently live in a state with state run indigent health care: a remainder of the Napoleonic tradition which has always considered public health in concordance with the public good. I have a cousin who has multiple ailments but is unable to work (and almost always has been) due to mental illness issues. However, he’d simply be dead if lived somewhere else as neither he (nor his immediate family) could afford his premiums once the Death Panel Insurance Company started calling his physical problems “pre-existing”. Once one did, they ALL did. And if you think free clinics are such a good deal, I suggest you go to one next time you are sick.
Ever even been inside one much less treated at one?
I have.
It’s much like going to the school nurse for surgery.
If you’re seriously ill, you’re going to die because as charities they do not simply have the funds base or facilities to provide required – REQUIRED – treatments. It is not because the people working there don’t want to help either. They simply can’t. And that’s only half the battle for those without insurance because assuming you can get treatment, most cannot afford the drug prices because the Federal government “won’t negotiate” with Big Pharma – unlike EVERY government EVERYWHERE makes those greedy bastards do in order to have the privilege – and that’s exactly what it is, a privilege – of doing business in their country.
So come on. Try to blow some more smoke up our collective butt about how free clinics are an adequate safety net. All you are doing is illustrating your ignorance about free clinics and their realistic operating parameters. And if you think I’m making this up, feel free to (as I have) take the free clinic challenge. Next time you get sick, and I mean SICK (not just a sinus infection or mild malady), why not try on your local free clinics for size?
Pretend you can’t afford the prescriptions too.
See how you like it.
I predict with almost perfect certainty you’d be changing your tune about the value of free clinics as sole safety net.
The bottom line financially is that insurance companies are a parasite on the dollars allocated to health care and that every unnecessary salary or perk they pay is a dead patient.
No more stories like this:
Angela Braly, WellPoint CEO Pay Jumps By 51 Percent – http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/02/angela-braly-wellpoint-ce_n_523824.html.
The woman is a thief, plain and simple, and the money she stole with her pen writes in with the blood of those denied coverage. So she should 1) be out of a job and 2) be in prison for murder for profit.
Cut the waste. Shut them down. No more sauna junkets. No more CEO private jets. No more multi-million dollar CEO contracts with incentives to NOT treat the ill. Have a single payer system (like the UK) run as a public trust that uses the very largest risk pool possible (the entire country) to reduce overall costs for both payouts and administrative costs by consolidation and make sure it allows for forcing Big Pharma to make up their R&D in volume instead of gouging US citizens by forcing negotiation.
Mespo:
“Right now, folks without health insurance either get health care at the ER or they get sick and die.”
They do get treated at the ER and there are free clinics as well. They also are treated at hospitals if they are sick. We have a friend who has cleaned our house for years and she had a stroke last year, she was given the same medical care that someone with insurance would have gotten and she was sent to a rehabilitation hospital after the initial trauma had passed. She is now recovered from here stroke. Your statement, from my experience, is clearly not universally applicable.
We also have a friend that works for a non-profit that helps Hispanic women find medical treatment. There are many avenues open to people without health insurance.
And by the way my wife just got back from Argentina and told me she spoke with a 60 year old woman, while there, who has to wait 18 months for a hip replacement. So on the one hand we have a partially free market system that is able to absorb people without insurance and on the other you have socialized medicine/national health care that takes 18 months to get someone a new hip. It certainly is a choice. A very stark choice.
Duh:
“How is an insurer required to pay for someone they are not insuring?”
**************
Insurers pay at the prevailing rates less any negotiated capitations. The prevailing rates are determined by the value of services which includes a component for those who are federally mandated to receive services, but who cannot afford the service. (Federal Law requires anyone who appears at an ER to be medically stable before release.) This cost structure is inflated by the large number of uninsureds. The prevailing rate for ER care cold be significantly reduced if the insured pool was larger, thus giving the insurers more bargaining power.
Wow
now I see why politicians use inflammatory subjects to keep people from thinking and focusing on the subject at hand.
Even rational people are more than willing to go down that diversional path…
duh,
Nice job trying to smear goneville-n-keys, a rational poster kicking your ass, as Gerty. goneville-n-keys may not know that Gerty/Wayne/Bartlebee are all the same commonly acknowledged insane poster like regular readers might, but I sure noticed the insult.
That’s just adorable!
Too bad you tried it on someone for simply exposing your clownish teabaggery and not obviously needing mental help.
Psst! If you’re going to intimate that someone is crazy, make sure they are acting like it first. Just a hint.
Mespo,
I’ll look at your numbers tomorrow. However, I do have a question about you statement on healthcare.
You said “Since they cannot pay for the care anyway, it is passed on to those of us who can either afford to pay for the service or to our insurers which drives up the cost of premiums since insurers cannot bargain for capitated costs on persons they do not insure.”
How is an insurer required to pay for someone they are not insuring?
Insurance companies will only pay so much for a service. That means the uninsured who have the ability to pay end up footing the bill. It would seem to me that the people who are uninsured, but otherwise have the money to pay the bill, should be the ones complaining; but they’re not complaining at all. They just don’t go to the doctor unless they really need to. 🙂 They are the ones who die. And it was their choice. They could afford insurance but chose not to.
Duh:
“I want you to take a look at everything you find to be so great about the new healthcare law, and tell me what the long term effect of it is going to be. Tell me how it’s going to reduce my reduce my premiums, while adding more services. Tell me how it’s going to create more physicians to see me. How did it create an incentive for more people to become physicians.”
***********
We can talk healthcare if you like. Right now, folks without health insurance either get healthcare at the ER or they get sick and die. When the use up expensive emergent care at hospital ER’s, they drive up the cost of those services even more due to increased demand. Since they cannot pay for the care anyway, it is passed on to those of us who can either afford to pay for the service or to our insurers which drives up the cost of premiums since insurers cannot bargain for capitated costs on persons they do not insure. Over the course of time, mandatory health insurance drives the costs down for everyone since more costs are captured and managed.
“STOP SPENDING MONEY WE DON’T HAVE”.
***************
Obviously we do have it, hence we spend it. This wailing and gnashing of teeth over the national debt is overblown. We have the largest market and the world’s strongest economy even with the effects of the recession. While China is our largest foreign debtor, most of the federal debt is owed to ourselves (In in the form of securities owned by the Federal Reserve)and I suspect we aren’t foreclosing on ourselves anytime soon, as the Chinese are unlikely to do given we are the largest most affluent market around.
It is undeniable that a growing economy thrives on debt, since debt is actually money loaned. As we saw in 2008, when lending dried up, so did the economy. History shows when the Federal Debt is reduced significantly, the economy suffers. This pattern has held true since 1819:
1817-1821: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 29%. Depression began 1819.
1823-1836: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 99%. Depression began 1837.
1852-1857: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 59%. Depression began 1857.
1867-1873: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 27%. Depression began 1873.
1880-1893: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 57%. Depression began 1893.
1920-1930: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 36%. Depression began 1929.
1998-2001: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 9%. Recession began 2001
In fact, the US ranks 53rd among nations with the largest debt as a percentage of annual GDP. Japan, UK, France, Italy, Germany, and Canada all have a higher debt to annual GDP ration than the US. So for all the tea baggers out there crying that the sky is falling, they’d better make their travel plans to Ethiopia, Gabon, or Iceland to avoid the bugaboo that is the federal debt.
When you can answer that question, then you can tell me the signs not racist.
“Duh 1, April 3, 2010 at 10:00 pm
You’re nothing but a low-life effin liar, Gerty. You have about as much integrity as a jelly bean, and only half the common sense.
You’re too stupid to realize that they’re protesting against a black President, because he is the only President in office. But you, you racist bastard, see him first as black, and then as President.”
Thank you.
As I predicted once you finished painting yourself into a corner you would explode into an illegible hate filled tirade, typical of any good Teabagger. But the question still stands.
What was it about the boy on the bicycle other than the sign he was holding that identifies him as a racist?
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=617eK2XIaLk&hl=en_US&fs=1&]
Gerty,
If you can’t figure out why a sign that points out the lack of people of color in attendance isn’t racist (but may be an accurate account), but the fact that it was pointed out (evidently with pride) would indicate that the person holding it is a racist, you’re too stupid to understand the difference.
To you, nobody can say a word against Obama, because to you he’s a black President. Well I’ve got news for you. I don’t care is he’s purple, blue or even pink. If he’s doing something that I think is wrong for this country, I’m going to say something, and I’ll be gawd effing damned if I’m gonna bite my tongue because I should consider his color to be important. It might be to you, but it isn’t to me.