The Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally meets tonight (and every Tuesday), 8PM at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E.
I plan to be there at least some of the time, but it’s not clear whether I’ll be there early, late or the whole time.
Can’t Bring Yourself to Type the Word “Ass”?
Eager to share our brilliant political commentary and blunt media criticism, but too genteel to link to horsesass.org? Well, good news, ladies: we also answer to HASeattle.com, because, you know, whatever. You're welcome!
Trolls are welcome! No need to go under cover!
Swift Boat Vet,
I’d like to see improvement in health care in the country, but the only thing I can think of would be to crank out three or four times as many doctors and limit the # of lawyers. Do you think that would work?
I know it’s off-subject, but what do you think?
You libs sure drink alot. Shouldn’t you be using these funds to help blacks get more $2000 debit cards in New Orleans? Goldy, how many blacks show up at your gathering? Tell the truth! [Rice/J.C. Watts 2008!!]
Libertarian,
I realize you didn’t ask me (and that it is OT), but that seems an overly simple solution to the problem. Lawyers aren’t the problem — just like guns don’t kill people. You need to limit frivolous suits and also make malpractice totally unacceptable (instead of the actuarial equation it is today).
“Universal” healthcare (aka nationalized health care) won’t solve the problem either. In Canada and other places, they’ve ended up with a two-tiered system — flimsy “safety net” for most people and private medicine for the really rich.
The real solution to healthcare problems would be the creation of CDHP’s, consumer directed health plans. Part of the problem with today’s health insurance is that insured people waste medical resources because they aren’t paying for it — especially (ahem, ahem…union) employees who negotiate no-copay or low copay plans. Also, medical insurance isn’t portable and is a major hassle.
Instead, employers (or the government for public assistance cases) purchases high-deductible major medical insurance and then puts something like $2,000 into a health savings account. The covered person can then spend that money however (medically) and with whomever they wish. Want nothing but chiropractic? Sure. Want to see a doctor for a hangnail? Sure. Its your money. And to encourage people to NOT waste medical services — especially the current behavior of “using up” insurance at the end of the year — the money ROLLS OVER and the account is portable. That also means that healthy younger people can save up their medical money for later years when they’ll really need it. And if you get very sick or get pregnant, you have the major medical policy as a backup.
CDHP’s are a win/win/win… People regain their power to choose who provides their medical care and when. Employers, on the whole, will see a decrease in medical benefit costs. Doctors no longer have to deal with insurance (and the SIGNIFICANT cost/hassle of the paperwork). Also, it should free up medical resources because people will have disincentive to abuse the system.
Remember, back in the olden days when people paid for medical care out of their own pockets, doctors would have sufficient time to personally take on charity cases (or take time payments or a side of beef or whatever for compensation).
What do you guys drink?
I mean, over in the red burbs we drink T&Ts, imported beers (not local left wing brews), napa wines
@ 4
how can a beer be left wing?
“Jim McDermott’s Baghdad Brew”?
I drink Mirrorpond, from Deschutes Brewery in Bend, OR.
I’m rather fond of Mac & Jack’s African Amber myself. Pike Pub Brewery’s Brown Ale is a favourite too.
@ 2
“the only thing I can think of would be to crank out three or four times as many doctors and limit the # of lawyers. Do you think that would work?”
Well, its a big subject. I read a book by Matt Miller, “The Two Percent Solution: Fixing America’s Problems In Ways Liberals And Conservatives Can Love”. I agree with Miller. You can check it out at http://www.mattmilleronline.com I don’t want to bore the shit out of ya’ll by going into details, but let me know what you think.
On my own it would be a nice lager, whether Czech, Mexican or Japanese, all are good (none domestic)
If with you guys, I’d need something stronger. T&T would be too sissy, so I’d have to have a good southern bourbon (or 2).
@ 3
I’ve got problems with CDHPs. It just looks like high deductible insurance, which is fine if you are healthy and wealthy, but if you are a sick person, you lose. Unions aren’t to blame, either, because their members have the kind of insurance we all should have. Besides, if big companies were smart, they’d get out of the health insurance game, because they are subsidizing small companies that don’t provide benefits.
whats T & T?
Mark, staying OT @3:
“Universal” healthcare (aka nationalized health care) won’t solve the problem either. In Canada and other places, they’ve ended up with a two-tiered system – flimsy “safety net” for most people and private medicine for the really rich.
This is just plain wrong about Canada. Although there are differences by province, in most (more likely, all) provinces, the universal healthcare system is little different from typical employer-based coverage in the US.
Want to see your doctor? Call her up for an appointment. Sure, you may wait a bit if it’s non-urgent, but that’s the way it is here too.
Want to change doctors? Not a problem … sharply different from US plans with their “preferred providers” and high “out of network” costs.
Referrals to specialists may take awhile, but again that’s little different from the often-interminable delays here. And Canadians aren’t faced with choosing from just the few specialists associated with their specific insurance coverage.
Anecdotes are basically meaningless, but I’ll use one anyway — a friend in Toronto had a brief episode of fairly mild chest pain. She called her primary care doc, who saw her right away. The doc then referred her to a cardiac specialist, who did a stress EKG test (treadmill) that same afternoon, soon followed by cardiac catheterization and a day or two in the hospital. Minimal occlusion, but some abnormalities, diagnosis was acute coronary syndrome. Treatment involves several longterm medications. Time from episode through full workup to treatment plan … about two days. Cost to patient, including prescriptions for years into the future … CDN$5 (I think that’s for the administrative costs of setting up her Rx renewals).
The point is that this isn’t atypical for a Canadian. You may hear the scare stories about people who weren’t well handled, but you don’t hear about the usual care. I know no Canadians who would even think about trading their healthcare system for ours; instead, they’re mystified about how unfair, unwieldy, and expensive we’ve made our (non)system.
Tanqueray and tonic. More elite than plain old gin.
Swifty @ 9
Yes, it is high-deductible insurance PLUS cash in a health savings account. Yes, there is a gap between the cash and the insurance deductible, but that part is negotiable (and could also be met through some sort of “gap” insurance for the perpetually sick).
Unions actually ARE to blame, to an extent. They gave us HMO’s.
You CANNOT have “free” medical care for all. People already abuse the system by “using up” their insurance at the end of each year. I have a few doctors as friends and I’ve heard about all of the people who come in for BS reasons.
Also, a nationalized system requires the rationing of resources, which means dictating who you can see, when you can see them and for what reasons. CDHP’s give you TOTAL freedom.
Henry Weinhardt’s. Hey, it’s brewed in Warshington, now, but the recipe’s and the tradition is Oregon, posers. Go Al Runte!
Pyramid IPA and the seasonal Snow Cap.
@ 14
We already ration resources. Poorer folks can ill afford using high deductible insurance, which means less utilization, and poorer health. Rich folks will always win under the plan you descibe. Instead of a socialist rationing plan, its a free market rationing plan. But its good that conservatives are coming to the table on this.
Swifty @ 6
“how can a beer be left wing?”
What about TsingTao? I’d say French beer as well, but I’m not sure there is such a thing.
bj @ 16
Yep…Snow Cap is worth the seasonal wait, for sure.
Aexia @ 7
The Montlake Ale House does have Mac & Jack’s African Amber on tap.
Will any of the young Toledo looting and rioting Democrats be joining your cozy group? How about a few New Orleans homeless? Where is your compassion??
ConservativeFirst-17 ‘I’d say French beer as well, but I’m not sure there is such a thing.’
There is, but it is a rip-off. You have to surrender it as soon as you get it.
N @ 12
Hmmm… I’ve also known people from Canada who’ve had to come down to the US and pay out of their own pocket for care. The fact remains that care is RATIONED in Canada. Just like generally healthy people here in the US have few problems with the healthcare system, I’m sure generally healthy people in Canada are happy with their system, too. Or they’re just too stoned on legal pot to care. ;)
And you still don’t address the problem we have here in the states of wasted medical resources on BS visits.
@2
What do you think would happen if the legislature passed a law immunizing motorists from lawsuits? Do you think people would drive more carefully?
So … are doctors cut from different cloth than the rest of humanity, or do they have the same human nature as everyone else? If doctors got their wish — no more lawsuits, no more lawyers — do you think they would practice medicine more carefully, and patients would be better off?
That’s bullshit, and so is Initiative 330.
By the way, I see the KING 5 web site today has an item that says there’s no proof malpractice caps lower doctors’ insurance premiums. They cited examples of cap states with much higher doctor insurance premiums than non-cap states.
Roger Rabbit rarely appears at DL, and never announces his apperances in advance due to traffic problems caused by the crush of admiring fans, papparazzi, and process servers.
Roger @ 21
I think… you might… actually be… r-r-r… r-r-r… i… gh… t.
23
There, there … that wasn’t so hard, was it? BTW, who did the Heimlich Maneuver on you at 9:36 pm?
Hey, ya know what’s funny? Smart ass republicans making fun of democrats who drink micro-brew, when their preferred beer is piss water, uh, I mean, Budweiser, PBR, Miller and all the other All American beers that TV ads infer are patriotic and will get them laid while drunk pigs watching football. Go Al Runte!
What’s wrong with Budweiser? I like Budweiser.
I’ll take a crisp, clean shot of premium vodka over beer any time.
American beers like Budweiser are mass produced for quantity, not quality. Oh, nevermind. Ya know why American beers are like screwing in a canoe? They’re like fucking close to water. Ya know what’s a really important thing to do after you’ve had a few American beers? Go drive somewhere. What? Don’t look at me like I’ve had too much to drink! This is America and I’m American an I can drink as much as I want. So screw you gimme another beer bartender OK? What? Screw you too, fucker! Where’s my beer?
Mark @ 20
I don’t really care how many times you tap the CAPS LOCK key to spell “rationed”. I remain unconvinced. Health care is rationed in the US as well. It is rationed by wealth. If you have it, you get all the health care you want. No wealth? No health care for you, buddy.
Health care is a messy complicated issued, but pulling out old right wing cannards like the rationing card and playing them moves the discussion exactly nowhere.
RJP @ 29: “No wealth? No health care for you, buddy.”
Really? Hmmm… Considering I personally know both people who provide care to people on DSHS and people who are on DSHS, I call bulls**t.
What I find interesting is that the only solution you Lefties want is nationalized healthcare (“universal” is just a marketing word). I mean, look how well the government does with education! Yeah, I want those guys running all of the medicine in the country.
Are you really saying that under the nationalized system there would be unlimited healthcare for all? Whatever you want, whenever you want and from whomever you want? Part of the problem we have now is that people have zero incentive to take care of themselves and stay healthy in the first place. Take a look at the obesity statistics! People also waste health resources on BS visits, extra visits because they don’t follow directions and on “using up” their insurance at the end of the year.
Socialists out in force. None familiar w/ simple economics.
Somebody rations resources. Either the market, or some human, agency.
How should my doctor decide to spend his time? By some rulebook imposed by Olympic, or by his judgement and my willingness to pay him.
If you can tell me how you defy the laws of gravity (that is, allocation has to happen, somebody or some system has to allocate time, money, drugs, xrays, hospital beds)….i’m all ears
Roger and others:
I think we face a triple threat: doctors have lots of money from their practices, which attracts trial lawyers, who’d like to sue the bejeepres out of the docs, but then there’s malpractice unsurers who’d like to keep the premiums paid by the docs. The ones getting hosed down are the rest of us.
Forget I-330 & I-336 for now. My contention is that more docs would mean more competition and lower doctor fees (i.e., less money for docs). If there’s less money to get, trail lawyers might focus on other areas to garner their wealth. With lower probablity of lawsuits, insurers might be forced to lower premiums for their doctor clients.
OK, I Know it’s simplistic, but the system is not working now, and on that point I think we’ll all agree. Swiftboat Vet has some idea in the link he posted above. Not a bad place to start, and we need to start somewhere!
As far as beer goes, I brew my own at Heads Up Brewing in Sivlerdale. Right now i’ve got a nut brown fermenting and it’ll be ready to bottle in a couple of weeks. If you’re serious about beer, you should give one of the brew-on-premises shops a try.
Libertarian @ 31
Some of my friends are (or were) doctors. They ain’t all rich like they used to be.
Lawyers go after malpractice suits because the victims are often very sympathetic and juries want to award significant amounts for the (semi-)permanent damage or death that is caused. What would your child be worth? How much money would a healthy 30-year-old take to saw off a leg?
The fact is that insurers, doctors and hospitals will very quickly circle the wagons. It takes a blatant screw-up (or the rare doctor) to admit that something has gone horribly wrong.
What the nationalized healthcare folks won’t admit is that medical resources are limited (although not fixed). With a “national HMO” system, there will be little incentive to enter medicine. Doctors — especially good ones — are already frustrated by the restrictions placed upon them by insurers. [example: Insurance would rather have me make two $100 Dr. visits for an issue than a more thorough one-time $150 visit]
I will also beat the drum of personal responsibility to death if I have to. If people really saw what medical care cost, instead of the $10 copay, they’d use the resources more wisely and would likely take preventive care more seriously.
Take a look at the CDHP (consumer directed health plan) system and tell me what you think.
We need The Democrat trail lawyers to put all the doctors, hospitals, and drug firms out of business. Note that John Edwards made his living sueing health care providers. Too bad every doctor didn’t walk away when John Edward’s wife had breast cancer. They had a great opportunity to tell Democrat Edwards to get a trail lawyer to provide care. [hehe] [Edwards walked into Walter Reed or Bethesda and the doctors MUST provide care]