Science, Society

Not The Onion, Part The Infinity

-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger

Thighmaster General
Thighmaster General

Without a hint of satire, The Wall Street Journal decided to let Suzanne Somers write an article on the Affordable Care Act on their blog “The Experts.” Somers “expertise” comes from her celebrity access to doctors, scientists, and medical professionals in the “alternative and integrative” health-care world. Somers has been on Oprah pushing her concept of wellness which involves taking 60 pills a day and injecting hormones into her vagina.

The CAM (Complementary and Alternative Medicine) health-care world is waging an all out attack against science-based medicine and health care. As Dr. Steven Novella puts it:

The later terms, “complementary” and “integrative,” are deceptions meant to distract from the fact the CAM (as much as general statements can be made about such a loose category) is anti-science, and therefore cannot be integrated into science.

Somers claims that affordable health care is socialized medicine. Princeton University economist Uwe E. Reinhardt notes: “Socialized medicine refers to systems that couple social health insurance with government-owned and operated health care facilities.” Reinhardt uses the Veterans Affairs health system as an example of socialized medicine. When health insurance is coupled with purely private health care delivery systems, it is understood as “social health insurance,” for example in Canada.

Somers provides anecdotal evidence of a long wait time to see a doctor for her sister-in-law. Somers does not mention the wait times for 48 million Americans who can’t go to a doctor at all because they don’t have insurance.

Somers talks about her Canadian cousins who, after becoming doctors, came the U.S. to “reap financial rewards.” Somers doesn’t mention that Canada spends 11.4% of it GDP on health expenditures while the U.S. spends 17.4%.

Somers notes that it’s good that affordable care will cover pre-existing conditions. Everybody loves the coverage of pre-existing conditions. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that the extra cost of that coverage isn’t going to be borne by the insurance companies.

Somers mentions that the news she listens to is all about the increases in insurance premiums. Had Somers examined the stories more closely, she would have found out that most just don’t hold water. Some people have such pitiful, and cheap, insurance policies that they don’t meet the ACA’s guidelines. Insurance companies have no incentive to get the customer the cheapest policy that meets those guidelines. It’s like a car salesman telling a customer their 2010 Toyota Camry needs to be replaced and sending them a bill for a 2013 Toyota Avalon when a 2013 Camry will meet their needs.

Somers is just another woo peddler whose celebrity has faded.

H/T: Daniel D’Addario, John Casey, Sarah Kliff, Steve M., Jerry Coyne.

106 thoughts on “Not The Onion, Part The Infinity”

  1. Yeah, I fell backwards when I woke up, looked at the turleyblog here first off and had to look at the photo of this hormone injection nutcase smiling in her Marine uniform. But. And its a big butt. I am going back to sleep.

  2. Or did I gain an hour? It will be light quicker? And dark earlier? I hope I don’t wake up tomorrow at any hour and see this hormone pumping you know where smiling nutcase on the screen. I might have to go to Scotusblog first.

  3. I woke up early and discovered two things. One, it is now Daylight Savings Time and I have lost an hour. It is only 4:35 a.m. not 5:35 a.m. like my windup clock tells me. Second, I opened the Turleyblog and had to look at the photo above of the smiling broad in the military top who should be topless at this time of her life and at this time of the morning. Nuff said.

  6. Mike S,

    I apologize for being exhausted again.

    Re: David D seems to make fun of Susan Summers for taking vitamins & minerals for health.

    I went to the local Whole Foods last weekend to pick up vitamins/minerals to attempt to boost my own immunity & energy.

    While there I notice a 70+ gal in a cheerleader’s outfit.

    I started to laugh at first & looked away.

    I looked again & he’ll, she didn’t look half bad in that outfit.

    I would have said something to her , but I wouldn’t have known how to get my wife in to agreeing to take her home.

    lol 🙂

    You, me, some of the tea party people, left/right leaning, etc…, we all share many common core concerns.

    My main mentor currently is saying to thousands of us, protect yourselves, remove your assets out of harms way, there’s no saving the current system or safety for any of us, it’s collapsing. We are headed directly to a Banana Republic, anytime from now & the next 2-4 years!!!!! I hope that sinks in because I understand what he is saying & why. Sorry, I hate it.

    He’s made that bet financially as have I.

    And then we both/all, pound the keyboards & in public arguing that our financial positions are wrong & fail.

    As I understand it there are at least 1500-2000 different brands of socialism, commies on the far left, Nazis on the far right. I’m in the middle range somewhere.

    I’ve seen your comments on isms before & understand them, but no disrespect meant, I let that go because I see stats that say 88% of the gen pop flunk history so I attempt to use my words as teaching tools & hope it helps some. I could, as always, be wrong, but I try.

    I seem to think they might understand what a commie is verse what a nazi is? Who knows when they have their faces in their phones texting, driving 80 mpg down the turnpike. It’s crazy!

    My mentor, I & others helped get Obama in office, then once in he turned corrupt we’ve had to pull support from him. Commie or what ever he is, he is not representing the USC & it’s “Bill of Rights” as I & others understand it’s intent.

    Hopefully people that come from all sides of the political spectrum can organize at least around some of the positive core issues this nation was found on, Individual Freedom & Liberty for each & everyone regardless of their unique differences of lifestyles & opinions.

    “Better we get a half a loaf then no bread at all!” TJ.

    1. “I seem to think they might understand what a commie is verse what a nazi is?”

      Oky1,

      You may or may not remember that I’ve written about personally knowing people who were active communists back in the 60’s. I opposed them in my Union and used to be called “A running dog of Capitalism” by them in debates. They were all angry at me because I was a young, up and coming union activist and they all tried to recruit me, but failed. They failed because as I would listen to them drone on about their particular brand of Marxism (there were literally Leninist, Stalinist, Maoist and Trotskyite factions) it struck me that not only were they speaking nonsense, but that most of them were actually lousy at our job of helping poor people. They talked a good game, but didn’t deliver where it counted. The other problem is that Marx is a bore and people who read Marx are boring, of course people who talk Marx are even more boring. Many of them incidentally had sold out to management within ten years and the others I lost track of. My experience with them was such that I’m pretty familiar with what is and what isn’t communist. In my opinion there is not one person in political office today who is a communist. In today’s American political scene Dwight Eisenhower would be called an extreme Left Winger and Richard Nixon a Liberal. Obama is pretty much comparable to Nixon politically, as was Bill Clinton.

  9. lottakatz, you’re certainly right about Murdoch. Most financial news is what it is, but WSJ as an editorial voice will eventually occupy the same level as his other publications.

  10. Mike, LOL. I recall that when Murdoch wanted to buy the paper there were questions regarding the quality of the paper going forward. Same high quality, jewel in the crown (of Murdoch print media) blah, blah, blah. went the assurances.

  11. Wow. You mean to tell me that the Wall Street Journal called on Suzanne Somers for her medical expertise? What, wasn’t Benny Hinn available?

  13. WoW.

    Sussane Summers is welcome to her opinion, it’s America, she can have any opinion she wants and if the WSJ wants to publish it that’s just fine. The WSJ has devolved to just about the level of every other Murdoch tabloid so just consider the source. i don’t know anything about her health advice. If she’s advocating hormones she’s giving bad advice. If she’s an advocate for exercise and vitamins, even 60 pills a day, then she may not be on to something. I did a total nutrition/exercise thing including vitamins- 40 odd pills a day. I became Wonder Woman in less than 3 months. It worked, wonderfully. I couldn’t afford it in either money or time. FWIW.

    I have read about those crappy insurance plans for years. It’s what companies offer employees for the optics. They are great if you never get sick. If you get sick, really sick, and you’re working full time or a couple of part time jobs at MickyD’s type establishments you’ll end up bankrupt and on Medicaid anyway. If the insurance company can find that you had acne, or a sinus infection as an adolescent and didn’t disclose it you’ll end up on Medicaid more quickly because they will cancel you. If you’re a woman, fugetaboutit.

    Obama should have gone on TV and said

    **’I was wrong about keeping your policies if you like them. Insurance companies have used the time between the ACA laws signing and implementation to realign their plans and costs and consumers have taken it in the butt. Our ADA law sets minimums for coverage that are reasonable and humane, the minimum people should expect. I didn’t know just how much crap was being passed of as insurance in America when in fact it was just a scam to skim off money from people, in the main, who were too poor to buy anything better. My fault, I should have known. Next time I’ll ask better questions.

    But hang in there, the plans you will be offered are better; being a woman or being over 55 or having acne as a kid isn’t a pre-existing condition in the future. And if you’re still unhappy with what’s offered just don’t buy it, that’s your choice too. And if you work for WalMart, organize, get yourselves a union, working full time and having your personnel folks help you sign up for Medicaid is just wrong; they need to be paying you a living wage.’**

    Srsly, what is the worst that could happen, somebody might call him a socialist?

  14. bettykath, It is so good to see you back here, I and many hope it is more frequently.

  17. “And this, also from Larry’s IRS report:

    The Departments estimate there are 16.7 million individuals under age 65 covered by individually purchased policies.

    67% of 16.7 million = 11.2 million. Pretty close to leejcaroll’s number.”

    Doesnt matter does it? Since Obama said it would be ZERO.

Comments are closed.