Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for April 28, 2010

It’s beginning to make sense now…

Dr. Sowell believes the “death panels” claim - I report, you decide:

http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell081809.php3

Not familiar with the second claim. GIMF (Google is my friend)…GOP claims that ObamaCare doesn’t protect Tricare.

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=N2YzOTNiNmIyMjI5NWJjOTQwODU3YzJmZTdkOTc4YzM=

Don’t know what to make of the charge. “Losing” and “in danger of losing” are two different things, so Trudeau gets at least a half point.

About the non-compliers claim…

“Sec 7203 of the code provides that if there is a willful failure to file, pay, maintain appropriate records and the like that the taxayer may be charged with a misdemeanor with a penalty of up to $25,000 and not more than one year in jail.” - Joint Committee on Taxation Chief of Staff Thomas Barthold

http://www.politico.com/livepulse/0909/Ensignreceiveshandwrittenconfirmation.html?showall

Canada did much the same, they put a DNR on an old man in one of their NHS hospitals, despite his protests and those of his family. About 5 years back. I guess when the government looks at you, they figure if you’re a good NPV or not, and an old man who is going to pay no more taxes, and instead is going to suck up healthcare money like a sponge, was a bad investment. In the UK, they withhold many proven anti-cancer drugs because of the cost.

We all know that the House and Senate will exempt themselves from all this and get their Cadillac plans anyhow, with all the treatment and fancy therapy they want. But to do this, they will decide who gets what, and the general public is on the brown end of the stick in that decision.

I like the irony of the some of the comments during this series vs. the comic. It works out perfectly.

Canada doesn’t have NHS (National Health Service) hospitals - that would be England. There would have been quite the uproar if somebody was forced to have a DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) against his will, and I do not remember one.

Hawgowar - thanks for proving Trudeau’s point.

Woodsy Owl (“Give a hoot — don’t pollute!”) is correct & I’ve been a fan for years. It figures “pig” doesn’t like you - they like to wallow in slop.

AKHenderson - Section 7302 of the tax code is the penalty for not paying your taxes, not for refusing to buy health care.

“None of what you just said is remotely true” funny, some of it sounds close enough to the truth to be concerned about, especially when Congress is involved and trying a “one size fits all solution” to something that would be better served by tackling the individual issues. How much of a backlash do you think there would have been if Congress had simply enacted a law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of pre-existing conditions? How much of a backlash would there have been if the requirements for Medicaid and Medicare has been revised so as to allow those without insuance to qualify for benefits? But nooooooooooo, a whole new bureaucracy has to be created, with all new means of coercion for compliance, and new multiple levels of money sucking funds away from actual health care. Why not just make hospitals and health care facilities like utilities, allow them to make a nominal profit, but allow local public utility commissions aegis over hospitals and their parent corporations.

Why, it all MUST be true! I read it on the web, and they wouldn’t let them PUT it on the web, if it weren’t true!

As AKHenderson pointed out, the first claim might be true (time will tell), the second claim Palin didn’t actually make, and the third claim IS true. When the fine is added to your tax bill and you don’t pay it, you’re subject to a jail sentence.

So Garry, who’s lying here? It’s not “intelligence and common sense” if it’s simply more propaganda. Garry, have you been enjoying your rides on Air Force One?

None of these claims are true!!!

Not yet.

Sarah’s claims are only true on Fox News…every place else there not…but then again that holds true for about anything she says

Ummm MisngNOLA, what you suggest makes even more bureaucracy… URB’s have their own problems. And the government health care in the USofA is not at all like the national health care in Canada or Europe. It is for people who currently do not have health care coverage, and if ill suck tons of money out of hospitals and physicians causing people who do have insurance to pay more. I’ve been involved with health care in both systems (the old USA one and the Canadian) both have their problems, and in all honesty I think the USA is getting closer to the fine balance that is needed. But Government employees/politicians should not be allowed to have more then the minimum paid for with our taxes, they should have to pay for their own “upgrades” (and not with a corresponding increase in income!) I find it very ironic that many of the “teabagger” complainers (people who are complaining about “obamacare”) are actually on what we would call pogey and already have government health care. They just don’t like to share….

Ya know what? I’m starting not to care anymore. Maybe that’s the whole idea of the 2-party system… if enough of us stop caring because both sides are lying and obfuscating and oversimplifying, then they can do what they want in the end.

I am from Canada and I don’t think your claim about DNR is true. If you have a media link I’ll check it out - but I suspect it would have been a very public case and I didn’t hear about it. The recent case of the woman from Ontario to US for health care that Republicans used in ads had major fact problems too.

Mbalkwill: What about the premier of Newfoundland coming to the U.S. for his heart surgery last February? Google shows plenty of links for you to check out.

To defend government-provided healthcare for the general population is no different than an old Soviet defending the USSR’s government-provided sausage – on the days they had sausage.

Well, pschearer, I checked out some of those links, and it seems just about everybody’s mystified at the premier’s decision to go to Florida for surgery that’s available in Canada (the “minimally-invasive, through-the-armpit” procedure for fixing a leaky valve). The premier refuses any comment beyond “it’s his heart and his decision.” OK…

But, maybe the answer’s pretty simple: Where would you rather be in the middle of February–Newfoundland or Florida?

Ugh.. this storyline is going nowhere. Can’t wait to see if he will touch the Arizona debacle. I can’t fo there for fear of DWB! Guess the canyon trip is off until the next century.

As a proud “intellectual elitist”, I would much rather be in Newfoundland. NASCAR and Disneyworld? Ugh!

No one reads the Bible, do they? Genesis, this thing comes along with half the truth and we bite because we weren’t even listening to one sentence telling us not to eat.

Both sides of the issue tend to deal in half-truths.

Chinese health care involves killing prisoners for their organs. Then selling the organs to US and other foreign citizens at prices cheaper than the other systems. Socialism gets perverted by capitalism gets perverted by socialism.

Both sides engage in the preposterous lie that we don’t already have a socialism-infected system and that it hasn’t worked fairly well over the years for our older citizens. It is now, because of illegal immigrants and unemployment, not functioning as it should. (not to mention congress raiding it for every war they have fought since WW II)

The pretense is that either side has a real solution. When taxes are cut so are services. when taxes are raise, businesses flee to Mexico.

Palin raised the oil company taxes in Alaska and we pay for it here while they get bonus checks.

Our Dem gov got a tax cut for movies being made in MI and we’ve become a mecca for film-making. So the Reb. head of the Senate wants to GET RID OF THE CUT. Apparently only tea brains are allowed to succeed with the idea.

Problem is the “invading’ movie moguls don’t hang around ans spend any of the massive profits here and any local jobs are temp. So the benefit is minor. Some are trying to get the cut made permanent so they’ll move here. But one Michigan winter and I suspect they’ll be back in CA.

Both raising and lower can produce revenue, but everyone pays for the results down the line. Several of our local factories got tax cuts to stay. Many used the saved money to build in the south and move there. Others keep demanding the cuts be renewed. Meanwhile, property taxes for the rest have stalled out since no one wants to raise them at the ballot box and 25 teachers and vocational specialists were just laid off. That’s 25 less paying into the system. More lost revenue to save revenue.

The only Gov. bail-out that has actually pumped money into the economy is unemployment. The rest built up the FED RES and the gov coffers. That’s about the only extension that makes any real, grass roots sense and that will likely be the one to get cut ahead of the rest.

As a citizen, I would sincerely appreciate real solutions being talked about instead of the name calling and the Commie baiting.

Communist China is killing us in the free market so pretending the socialist programs that take health and retirement care off the businessman’s load aren’t appealing to business is just foolish. Comp cost my boss $250,000 two years ago for a plant using 25 workers. Gut the insurance and health care costs and a lot of us would still have jobs. That was Obama’s original plan. Then it hit a committee of insurance and rich doctor peons and O folded and we have this mutant. I’m not fond of it, either. But it is a start that can be tweaked.

Death squads came from the provision to pay docs for their time of talking about DNRs for older terminal patients. Pleas, if you have ever cared for an dying relative or client (I’ve done both.) the DNR is not an evil thing. It allows the doc to NOT put the patient on a machine and keep them breathing, not really alive, while the hospital drains the family finances. It doesn’t pay for people outside the family to decide life or death.

A DNR is placed on the person by that person. I can get a DNR on myself at the local hospital. No one else can. A doctor , not an EMT, reads the plan and puts it into motion. If the DNR is not there or is not recorded, they don’t let the patient pass on. It’s the patient’s wishes. It can be added by someone with a power of attorney for someone with serious dementia, but that’s it. The rest is fear mongering. (Note: I know of several young EMTs who have DNRs on them simply because they’ve seen the results of not having one.)

AARP is acknowledged as left leaning, however they have been pretty objective on this issue - I can’t seem to figure out why ;)

At issue is a 10-page section of a 1,000-page House health care reform bill on “advanced care planning consultations.”

These consultations would reimburse a doctor for talking with a patient once every five years about what kind of care they want near the end of life.

^^^^ puddleglum - thanks for dealing with this continual misrepresentation. I’ve been trying it seems like forever to get the facts out on the editorial side, but the story just keeps coming back. There are real issues about health insurance and health care in both the US and Canada, and these silly misrepresentations just keep people from talking about the real problems.

Orgelspieler said,

“Ya know what? I’m starting not to care anymore. Maybe that’s the whole idea of the 2-party system… if enough of us stop caring because both sides are lying and obfuscating and oversimplifying, then they can do what they want in the end.”

DING DING DING - we have a winner!!!

I still haven’t heard anyone explain specifically what good ObamaCare is supposed to accomplish.

Does anyone actually think that a comic strip is what’s wrong with this country? And not the morass of ignorance, blind-and-deaf opinion, half-truth, and outright bilge that’s above – multiplied times a million?

Dear Lord….

In both Canada and the US, the rich have many more choices and better health care, and this is not going to change. Williams (the Premier of Newfoundland) is a multi-millionaire, he can go anywhere in the world for treatment. This will not change for rich Americans.

An urban legand is an urban legand. DNR orders are not related to public health care in Canada. There was a recent case in Alberta of a baby being removed from life support, the parents fought the order, and won a delay. After recieving a second (or more) oppinion that the baby was in fact brain dead, the parents withdrew their objection, The hospital made thier recomendation base on sound medicine, it was not based on public funding.

If you are covered then you may have no idea of what health care reform is supposed to accomplish. All you have to do is think of yourself. If you are living paycheck to paycheck and trying to use the American health care system then you know exactly what it is supposed to accomplish. The problem is that many Americans are only one job loss away from becoming without health care themselves and are foolishly looking the other way. I am sure that LBJ was once called a socialist too. And now you couldn’t possibly take away Medicare. USA is the only modernized country in the world that doesn’t have affordable health care available to everyone. Maybe the opponents of health care would be happier in someplace like Zimbabwe where they don’t have it. Of course, there are also many other things that they don’t have. I am sure that the rest of the modernized world thinks we are a bunch of buffoons to have the debate at all. If you think England, France, Germany, Switzerland, Canada, Australia and many other countries are Communist I guess you think the USA is really all alone in the world of free countries these days.

“Does anyone actually think that a comic strip is what’s wrong with this country? And not the morass of ignorance, blind-and-deaf opinion, half-truth, and outright bilge that’s above – multiplied times a million?”

But SCATTY, what if it’s the comic strip that’s propagating the ignorance, half-truths, and outright bilge?

There’s 2 sides to every issue. Trudeau used to comment on the absurdities of both, but that was back when he was a relevant editorial cartoonist.

My daughter has a problem with her health insurance not allowing a procedure recommended by her doctor. She now has to go through a lengthy appeals process or change to a pricey alternative. All due to an insurance-ocrat. Not a bureaucrat.

Americans are too dumb to have a caring and intelligent president like Obama. Why does this nation have such a fascination with making the dumbest, loudest most uneducated idiots into their leaders?

montessoriteacher said, “I am sure that the rest of the modernized world thinks we are a bunch of buffoons to have the debate at all.”

The rest of the modernized world came to that conclusion when we elected George W. Bush. Twice!

(Yes, I realize that, to some posters, this instantly labels me as one of “them”. I’m okay with that.)

“It is what it is.” - Coach Bill Belicheck

None of it really matters. We are a capitalist society. Those with the money have the power. Insurance and pharmaceutical companies have the money, so they will always find a way to keep the rest of us begging. Personally, I don’t see why everyone is so afraid of socialism. I see no reason why you can’t have a socialist republic. In fact, I think it would work much better, because economic equality would promote political equality. I know that statement is going to make a lot of people angry, but that’s just how I see it.

“So? Who gives a hoot?,” says it all!!

Tell a lie often enough and too many people will believe it.

The Tea-Potty (misspell deliberate) goal is not truth, it is mind control. The sad truth is that they are very very good at achieving that goal.

thanks montessoriteacher.

reigning in the power of health “insurance” companies regarding pre-existing conditions, their ability to drop you from coverage if you dare to get old or sick and their obscene rate increases (mine was raised 70%/month when i turned 60) are great accomplishments, thanks to Obama.

Coverage for ~35 million people who previously weren’t .

Most of whom will be shuttled to Medicaid, which already has a shortage of docs who will accept below-cost payments, and which the states do not have the ability to fund.

An end to pre-existing condition clauses.

Which could have happened without Obamacare. As it is, this requirement will simply shift the burden onto you and I and our employers who will have to pay for the costs. In Massachuesetts, this simply allowed people who did not wish to pay their share of insurance to buy it once they got sick. Someone pays for it, and it won’t be the insurance companies.

*An attempt to reign in out-of control prices

That’s just untrue. The new law does increase access (in theory), but there is nothing in Obamacare that even attempts to control prices. Most people in the business think it will increase those prices even more than before.

But it’s ok. We’re now like Europe in that we offer this kind of plan while increasing government and its associated expenses. If we’re lucky, we’ll one day be as successful at it as are Greece and Portugal!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SK5jGaexMjM

Watch this interview with Canadian patients about how bad the Canadian system is.

This is what Obamacare is modeled after.

There is a reason that companies like Timely Medical have popped up in Canada. You’re covered in Canada, but that does NOT mean you actually receive care. http://www.timelymedical.ca/

It is true that the system of Medicare in Canada is not prefect, wait times are an issue. But do take any public venting with a grain of salt, we all need to remember the grass is greener on the other side. Elective surgeries can have wait times of over a year. That is why some private clinics (for things like hip replacements and eye sugery) have sprung up. The Canadian system is evolving.

The high cost of medicine is an issue on both sides of the border, and will continue to be whether pubic or private. There are two main cause: inflation of public expectations of medical care and high drug costs. When demand is rising, so will the costs.

If only 3 people vote, they only have to convince their momma. What really scares them is a high turnout election with a lot of independents who think donkeys & elephants are both stinky. Then you might see change.

puddleglum1066

Frankly, I wouldn’t want to be either place if they were doing the surgery outside. If it were to be done in a hospital, it would be the choice of who had the better health care. I guess we know what the Premier thought.

Sarah for guv of Az

Garry Trudeau doesn’t “hail from Canada originally”. He was born and raised in the States.

Well I’ll be danged. The teabagger, birther, wingnut crowd really ARE pod people.

Now we just have to find that danged tea-pod patch.

In any case Sweet Sarah is still really really cute.

Stebon? The “death panels” were never in the bill, and the numbskull who first made this claim (and was unable to provide any corroboration for it) was Betsy McCaughey, not Sarah Palin. Palin then adopted it as part of her trademark gibberish.

Hey jrmerm: I have lived in Canada for 46 years, and I can assure you there are no panels making life and death decisions. The private insurance companies are the real death panels. As a Canadian, I have never seen anyone turned away from the hospital for any reason. We get first rate service and there is no user fee. Yes, our taxes are higher, but it is worth it.