Baby Denied Health Care Coverage For Being "Too Fat"

Well pretty much the evidence shows you are wrong. I could care less if you throw your lot in with the idiot selfish minority. Thanks for expressing your opinion. You have added nothing to the discussion.

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If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --Thomas Jefferson

I hope you know that you are my own person hero at this very moment.The only thing I know how to do when confronted with blatant insanity is to ridicule. You are obviously a much better person than I sir.*hats off*

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If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --Thomas Jefferson

Yay! Baby Alex now has health care! Read more at: Alex Lange Denied Health Care Coverage: "Your Baby Is Too Fat" | HuffPost ImpactSo apparently, all it takes when you get denied is to make a national scandal of the situation. Health care problem solved everyone. Lets all go home now and take a sign of relief.To be completely fair, the company seems like a pretty good shop. They are a state based non-profit. As much as I personally believe in single payer, I would not be opposed to a system like some countries have with private insurers that are forced to be non-profit for basic plans. They made a mistake and fixed it. Good for them.Now feel free to wildly speculate on what would have happened if you replace RMHP with UHC.*makes popcorn*

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If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --Thomas Jefferson

Thanks for adding to the discussion CS. This part of my reply is serious. But for the sake of discussion....I think CS has a point, I mean who wants to the legislature to force other people to put out my house when it is on fire? If my house ever catches fire, me and my own will step up. And if I get into a car crash, heck I am the one who made the CHOICE to drive that day. Why should some government agency some "rescue" me?Irresponsible people who accidently leave on their stove or couldn't tell the difference between a 16 and 18 gauge wire when they thoroughly inspected all the electrical wiring in their home before they bought it should just suck it up a break out the hose. I mean COMMON we already have a public water system to deliver water INSIDE their house. Now these greedy selfish people want more handouts. Giving away this stuff for free will just encourage people to continue to care less and less about their own lives and the safety of the people they love. I mean, if you don't have to pay for it, it doesn't have any value right?Back to being serious. You are making a HUGE presumption here CS. You are assuming that most of the people who would benefit from reform would be people who could otherwise take care of themselves. Do you have ANY evidence for this? Is this just something you believe? If it is just something you believe, why should anybody respect this opinion in the wake of people actually dying?Reform helps EVERYBODY including you. YOU suffer when your neighbor cannot work because of a treatable condition. YOU suffer when he goes bankrupt trying to saying a dying child. YOUR costs go up when healthy people who cannot afford coverage leave the private system. Lucky for both you and me, the majority of our fellow citizens see the ironic and dangerous naivety in your kind of thinking and will take the first imperfect steps forward on this issue to both of our benefit.Don't get me wrong, I don't take back what I said. You are part of a dying and increasingly irrelevant minority in this country. The vast majority of Americans across party lines believe we should have a universal health care system and a staunch majority would even be willing to pay more in taxes to make that happen.My generation and the current generation overwhelmingly support progressive principles. The battle for the heart of this country is a long game and the self-righteous "country of me" relics are literally and figuratively passing away.

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If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --Thomas Jefferson

You seriously do?You think people should be able to opt-out of fire department services? Even if they were your next-door neighbor?

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If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --Thomas Jefferson

I am not trying to pick too much of a fight here, but are you seriously quoting TV ratings as a measure of public opinion?What is popular on TV is what is controversial. Fox news gained in popularity when it gave a voice to Glen Beck and started to disregard any even veneer of an attempt to serve as a legitimate news service.Are you going to argue with me over this? If so we can start to examine some ACTUAL scientific polling and see how things come out but I am hoping that you were just expressing this as a concern and an anecdote.

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If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --Thomas Jefferson

Perhaps I misunderstood. Sorry for the out of order reply.

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If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --Thomas Jefferson

So the thing is that the country has been getting more progressive for a long time and I think it only comes back to "bite you" when we get complacent and allow ourselves to be made afraid by people like CS and Phage. They say "don't take my liberty" when they really mean "don't take my money" and we sissy liberals back down and let ourselves be trampled upon.We are the majority had have been for a very long time. We just don't vote in our numbers and we don't stand up for ourselves. That, I think, is ending. Bush knocked us out of our stupor.So I wholeheartedly stand by my claim. If the only thing they can bring to the table is some notion that this is not a country of "we", the essential component of a democracy, then they deserve ONLY ridicule. There is no other response IMO to purly bankrupt ideas.

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If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --Thomas Jefferson

You certainly were shouting their mantra. Maybe you could have been more clear rather than just... ...When I wasn't even talking to you you volunteered your vitriol to be in opposition to a policy that the vast majority of your fellow citizens support. What conclusion am I supposed to come to? I am not a mind reader.Perhaps your problem is with democracy? Do you have a better way? Anarchy?

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If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --Thomas Jefferson

Ok then, pardon me for being unable to "read between the fucks".Salud.

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If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --Thomas Jefferson

This is generally true on an issue by issue basis. But it is not necessarily true in general. The country has been getting more progressive despite almost total right-wing control of many mainstream news outlets. Political ideological trends are much more sophisticated than that. I don't mind disagreement. I am much more likely to have a good argument with someone where the only issue is a disagreement. Take a look at the "Obama is full of it" thread and the most recent posts there for some proof of that. But if you look back and Phage's replies to me, he was doing more than disagreeing with me. Who said anything about ignoring anybody? In fact I was explicitly saying NOT to ignore them. I was making a call to ridicule them. There a points at which the discussion is beyond disagreement and one side ONLY has a totally bankrupt position. Creationism is a good example. There is a GOOD reason why most prominent science populizers will not debate a creationist. It is because even the fact of the debate gives something which deserves NO legitimacy some minute semblance of it.That is what happend with Phage. I could have ignored him, but instead I mocked him like he deserved. Its not as though he was presenting a serious argument and I was maliciously shutting him down. He was saying that baby with cancer out to get a loan to pay for his health care. There was no serious position of his to listen to even if I could have considered it. I am all for bringing people into the fold of civilized discourse but in some cases that is not possible. In some cases the best thing to do is to bury the nonsense like the crap it is. You really think you are going to extract a rational discussion from the tea-baggers? They have proven beyond any reasonable suspicion that they are entirely incapable of it. So we can either:1. Ignore them, which I don't think we should do. That makes us seem weak and giving them all the spotlight.2. Answer them, mock them, show the world what they truly are which is a sad and bankrupt minority.That is exactly how the Auguest recess went. Town halls were filled with idiots and nobody said anything. The news filled up with only their filth and what changed it was when real people who care about getting this right responded and started showing up in vast multiples of the astro-turf crowd. They didn't show up to "debate" with those morons. They showed up to flex their muscle and put them in their place.Don't get me wrong, if someone wants to legitimatly discuss the issues of a private verus public system I would love to talk about it, and I have. But lets not pretend thats what happened here. I for one am not standing by the sidelines anymore when crazy people try to claim that they are more patriotic or call progressive ideas fascist or against liberty in some way.Freedom is the ability to vote in a government of the people, to decide the people's business. And as long as the Constitution is protected, it is within the right of Congress, ( I would go further to say it is their solemn responsibility ), to provide for the general welfare of the people with a universal healthcare system.If some people feel that "taxes" are impinging on their "freedom" then I suggest they pick up a history book and learn what real freedom means. It does not mean the ability to have unlimited money, or the ability to divorce yourself from responsibility to the society that protects your rights every single day.

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If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --Thomas Jefferson

I think there is a big difference between someone who can't see through the fog and people who deliberatly shut their eyes because they KNOW they have the right answers.It is the former that I am talking about here because they aren't a product of the media, they are trying to drive it. They have a very specific agenda that is contra to the democratic process of open debate and discourse.It is a sad fact that out system can be moved by such blatant manipulation of the media but its a fact of human nature.(total side note, whatever you think of the guy, you should pick up Al Gore's book "Assault on Reason". I never really liked the guy 100% from his public perception but he is a fantastic intellect and this book is absolutly amazing at describing the influence that technological media has had on democracy.)So until we change the way people think and vote ("with their minds" rather than "for their lives"), the only recourse is to fight fire with fire. The media can be pushed by the same forces, outrage and controversy generates ratings and we can tap into that. All the non-crazy commentators using all the inuendo about the tea-baggers (he he) was exactly the right tact to take. Those kinds of people need to be ridiculed beyond recognition and done as publically and outrageously as possible.As for fixing the media, the internet is already helping with that. I only use TV news to suppliment my information intake and often times it really isn't necessary (its just nice to watch certain interviews sometimes). What we really need to fix is JOURNALISM and that is a bigger problem because you really need an institution to support journalists and as the traditional sources are less inclined to do so, at the same time the distributed structure of the internet makes it difficult to do there as well. I think the only real hope there is in the realm of professional blogging, a whole network of co-op and independent journalists that will end up being the primary source for most news in the future. There is a critical mass issue with getting that going but it should be possible.

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If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --Thomas Jefferson

Your seriously going to compare the tea-baggers to war-protesters?I'll tell you one major difference right off the bat, one is funded by the health care lobby, energy lobby, and Neo-conservative PACs and the other is not.The tea-bagger are creating confusion, but they are the only ones because it is a FALSE outrage. It does not match what we know to be true which is why it confuses people.

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If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --Thomas Jefferson

Even with insurance the way it is now you could be screwed. I was and I have pretty darn good private health care. For an accident of nature we pretty much got wiped out to zero even with insurance. If we would not have had insurance we would have been screwed. I make too much to get any government help, and kids aren't covered by government help while they are in the womb. This is called tax fraud and is a crime. How is it the government's fault that this guy is deciding to break the law? What if you can't take care of your own? What if your own is a child and the only thing preventing you from helping your own flesh and blood is money. Would you blame yourself for wanting your neighbors to help you in that situation? Hell, wouldn't you go door to door with a bucket if that is what it took to save your child? What about instead of giving "free shit to people" you say lets get together and all join the same insurance pool that we create via our democracy? Yes some people are going to pay more and/or use less of the insurance but that is the nature of insurance. God bless you if something tragic never happens to you and you end up paying more as a result of your good fortune. But if something does happen to you, I am more than willing to pitch in to help.And for those who can't afford to pitch in, by us helping them we know that more of them get to the point where they can pitch in. The deadbeats where you are are the minority. That IS a fact.

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If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --Thomas Jefferson

Including all those nice things you mentioned it also gets us cold hard cash.Everything the government spends money on has a multipler attached to it denoting how much economic activity it creates. On the low end are things like tax cuts and military spending. Those are about a dollar for dollar investment. Things like food stamps, unemployment insurance, health care, social security, have multipliers greater than 1:1 so they actually put money back into everybody's pocket. If you have a 401k (or save money at all) and are bitching about health care, your also an idiot for not looking out for your own pocketbook. (Liberals tend to ignore this argument because the moral argument is much more important to us).As a side note, the social program with the greatest ROI is education. Don't hold me too hard on this number but I remember somewhere it being listed as a 1:10 (inflation adjusted) or more return. The only problem is that the return happens much later hence the comment about inflation.Beyond the direct economic benefits there are some indirect ones. Our companies are competing with other nations that DO provide universal health care. So while Japan is essentially subsidizing Toyota by paying that benefit to its employees and keeping its workforce healthy, we are telling our car manufacturers to go f' themselves and compete with them anyway. Then when our US manufacturers live off of tini-tiny profit margins in order to compete we yell at them when they tank during a recession.And yet we wonder why manufacturing is leaving this country like it has the plague. There are in fact other reasons besides this but I'll tell you what; if I wanted to build a factory right now I would do it in Canada instead of the US in a heartbeat. If I am going to have a business where my employees are going to be doing potentially dangerious physical work with machines and such you better damn well believe that I am going to want to be in a country that is interested in keeping those employees healthy. It is my bottom line.Conservatives? Aren't you pro-business? Anyone?

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If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --Thomas Jefferson