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These weirdos can have mine. I have enough to go around for everyone.

Just remember folks that there is no sign of any mental imbalances in this guy/girl/whatever, it's just a natural occurence. sarcasm off. :)

Iraq veteran dies of cancer after lung transplant from heavy smoker

I'll highlight the noteworthy parts:

Because he was a cancer patient, he was not allowed to receive a further pair of lungs, under hospital rules. The soldier had radiotherapy but died at home in Stoke-on-Trent in February last year.

His widow, Siobhan, said: “All Matthew wanted was another set of lungs. He said: ‘They have given me a dud pair, get me another set’. He thought he could beat it, but his condition deteriorated so fast from then.”

When socialized medicine screws up, it is the patient who must suffer.

The bureaucratic rule preventing transplants going to cancer patients was rigidly enforced, causing the death of a man who put his life on the line for his country. This is how his country repays him.

Bureaucrats don't like to waive inflexible rules, even when they are at fault.

A donor was found and the double lung transplant went ahead in April 2007. The cancer was discovered only six months after the operation, because of a lack of communication between radiographers and consultants. The tumour had grown from 9mm to 13mm in that period.

An inquest was told last week that an internal investigation at Papworth pinpointed a string of problems, including difficulties with communication, record-keeping and patient handover.

In Mr Millington’s case a radiographer had failed to highlight the growth of the cancerous tumour.

Here, the NHS negligently transplanted cancer into a soldier, then killed him with their own rules. Admitting the mistake and giving him a second transplant and treatment would have required more common sense, humanity, and compassion than is possible under socialism.

On a somewhat related note, have you ever wondered why there is always a shortage of organ donors? The answer is simple: government is to blame.

Organs are a lifesaving good that is currently subject to a shortage which can be remedied by a basic understanding of economics.

Currently, most countries prohibit any consideration being paid to an organ donor. It should come as no surprise that there is a shortage of donated organs.

This problem could be fixed almost immediately by allowing payments to a donor's estate for each usable organ. The payments would need to be capped to prevent gruesome for-profit harvesting; however, a flat $500-1000 for each organ used would provide a huge incentive for people to donate. This ensures that nobody will get rich off of a ghoulish organ trade, but that people who don't donate out of compassion will sign up as donors to help their families defray some of their final expenses.

If your life was saved by an already expensive organ transplant, would you have a problem with paying a bit more to help keep the pool of available transplants viable and ready? I think not.

Of course, under statist overlords, market economics are not allowed. When statist overlords want more organs, they will simply make donations compulsory, since statist health care already lays claim to ownership of your body. To Big Government, such measures are not draconian, since you are their property and they can do with their property as they please. To hell with religious freedom, statist moonbats don't like it anyway.

Well, we can only wish.........

There are many direct flights from San Franfreakshow to the UK.

One way tickets are cheaper, ya know.

Let's hope a large portion of the Freakshow immigrates to the UK to get this done on the UK's dime.

Don't let the airplane door hit you on the backside...........

I'm a woman and I can't even fill out an A cup. By his/her lawyer's logic, I too should receive free breasts. Good thing I'm not INSANE. Besides, dear, haven't you heard of padded bras?

did anyone else laugh at 'her [sic]' case?

It is the institutionalization of insanity to require the rest of the world to acknowledge, acccept, and pay for your delusions. If I think I am a dog, do I have the right to be provided a tail? If my emotional well-being requires that I have an extra set of kidneys implanted, just in case, must the government provide them for me? That such nonsensical beliefs such as thinking you can change your gender can be held by such a considerable portion of the population is truly astounding. A sane society helps people like this, not by acceding to their illness, but by guiding them back to reality.

Capitalism gave us the technology to at least simulate it somewhat well in many cases, and the wealth to be able to afford it. This gave way to the sense of entitlement, as it has in so many other economic areas.

Oh, and some of us like them little. Don't change.

So, who saw this one?

Trannies aside, you are all sooooo latehered up about blocking any sort of health-care reform... but wtf is your response to this woman? "Tough shit, we only care about your kid until the second it is born, after that - fuck him, die already"?

Look, I know you will all whine about SOMETHING no matter what... but healthcare reform is damned important. Until you stop nit-picking this crap and focus on a REAL SOLUTION to the ACTUAL PROBLEMS associated with completely for-profit healthcare (step one: admit that it is currently a deeply flawed system)... well, let's just say I find it comically absurd that you make fun of the Dems for being eeeeevil, then literally entirely ignore the fact that under the current system the above kind of thing is the norm, not the exception.

Wanna be useful? Ever?

Can't hurt to try... but in the meantime, by all means keep nit-picking the individual crazies, to make sure that nobody changes the truly awful problems associated with the way health in America works now. (After all, admitting that you are a deliberate roadblock in the way of that woman's healthy baby just for political points would make you an army of unfeeling monsters... and you can't be that, can you?)

meth do honestly believe your rants? Sorry to break this to you numnuts but the healthcare that I pay for and that makes a profit off of me took care of my wife when she was diagnosed with breast cancer in April. She is now cancer free and scheduled to have her breast reconstruction surgery in dec. So much for those evil healthcare providers. Do bad things happen? Yes, but those instances are not the norm but isolated.

meth, you and your ilk really don't get it, but all your whining and bitching is probably going to get you your "health care reform" in the end, so you may as well sit back now and enjoy the ride.

I pay $800 a month for health care for me and my wife. It used to be $300, just 5 years ago. That sucks. But that is life. When one of us gets sick, we get fantastic care. A lot of people are in the same boat - alarmed at the cost increases, but wanting the great care. Here is the thing - costs are going to go up, not down, for individuals under ObamaCare. It's not rocket science. Insurance companies are going to be forced to admit people with expensive pre-existing conditions, and they won't be able to boot people with expensive current conditions. Both of those are arguably good things. But that is going to increase insurance premiums. Higher costs for the company will get passed along to consumers. My $800 premium will become $1200 or $1500 or $2000 down the line under the kinds of plans being developed in Congress. The only way out of that would be an inescapable, absolute mandate for young people to get insurance, but then we are in to a whole different issue of the young subsidizing the olds' healthcare, and what right the government has to force anyone to buy something. Any way you slice it, these 'reforms' are not going to be a good thing and most people will pay a lot more for a lot less care, and along the way, government will have taken over an entire industry, when it couldn't even handle cash for clunkers, not to mention Medicare, Medicaid, the post office, Amtrack, Fannie, Freddie, FHA, etc. That is why a lot of people are against this. This is a bundle of upcoming unintended consequences, costly waste, and bureaucratic mishandling the likes of which has probably never been seen before in human history. Only fools and naifs, who believe that you can increase an industry's cost structure by leaps and bounds and not have it passed along to end-users, is buying this health care 'reform' thing. It is not a question of conservatives being stingy or stupid. It's really a question of health care being too important and too personal for people to be willing to go along with the experiments, naivete tinkering, and lack of awareness of unintended consequences that seems to operate at the DNA level of government bureaucrats.

Crazy socialist moonbats refused this lovely baby health care because he was too fat

We don't need this socialist nonsense here in the USA

mega, you miss the point. $300, just 5 years ago. $800 now. so... what? $1500 in a few more years? $2000? $5000? Where does your brain start saying, "Wow. this is absurd. I don't use any more heathcare than I did, but am now paying (20%? 30%? 50%?) of my salary for the same thing".

At what point will you join the rest of the sane people who know that if the healthcare industry's profits rise by 800%... they aren't providing the best possible care to the most possible people.

THEY ARE MOTIVATED TO PROVIDE AS LITTLE SERVICE AS POSSIBLE. THAT IS HOW PROFIT WORKS.

So... where exactly do you draw the line? If you and Farmer Anachronism were slowly going broke for that care you love so well.. would you finally admit that it sucks? Or will you happily lap it up when the existing insurers refuse to cover your wife if she has a relapse? "Thank you, noble Insurance Industry, for your post-claim underwriting department's relentless pursuit of profit over and above my health!" Why do I feel like that might change your tune...

I suppose it must be nice to be so rich that no matter what it costs for your healthcare you will stick up for their $60 BILLION profit this year... i guess that $60B couldn't possibly have saved a life or 2, could it?

Get with the program. Health care is one industry where the capitalist greed-is-good mantra falls apart. They are incented to NOT provide services.

Costs UP. Care DOWN. More conservatives being bad with pattern recognition...

Cheeze 'n' Crackers, we've got -boobs- in the White House and all through Congress...let's get rid of those first...any way we can.

meth if I were going broke paying for healthcare I would shop around,see how easy that is?

Meh, your problem in arguing for government health care is that health care costs began skyrocketing AFTER the government got into the health care business. Do you think we have a private system? If you do, you are sadly mistaken. Over 50% of health care is currently funded by the government, and due to other perversions of the market, like company sponsored health care, which creates a false sense of what health care really costs and results in over utilization by those who are covered (another reason costs have skyrocketed). Until I see some signs that Democrats actually understand the market forces at work in the health care industry, I'm inclined to tell them to shut up and get to work fixing the things they've already created that are clearly broken--like Medicare, Medicaid, and tort law.

Meth, can you define "REAL SOLUTION"?

I wonder if meth read John Mackey's solution...

It probably doesn't consider anything short of full government control a REAL SOLUTION.

Farmer Anachronism pipes up with poorly understood statements... and we are not surprised.

Which word in the sentence "If you have already claimed insurance for a major illness, the post-claim underwriting department will cancel your insurance" is not in the dictionary in the land you come from?

Your wife better stay healthy from now on... or you, too, will get the opportunity to "shop around" ...from company to company that all deny coverage at any cost. Again, what part of that does not compute in your native language?

Someday you will have it happen to you... and on that day I'll be here, to say "I told you so". Small comfort, huh?

Judith -

The problem is NOT with the Medicare/Medicaid itself, it is the corporate interests overbilling, making shit up, and generally misusing the system. Medicare generally pays out faster and more easily than anything else. Is tort reform important? (YES. Very, very important, and easily the single greatest failing in the current bills before congress - but I think no matter what 'side' we are on, we all agree that congress in aggregate is easily the biggest collection of fools, whores, and lazy people to be found anywhere) but that does not mean that removing companies who are in no way interested in your heath from the healthcare loop is a bad thing.

It all boils down to this question: "Would you prefer to have a company that wants profits more than your health, or an option that is designed around the actual 'care' part of heathcare?" (Then ask yourself that same question again next year, when it costs twice as much. And again the year after that.... and so on). Where is it that you will finally see the light and realize that this is NOT a good model of a for-profit industry?

"Medicare generally pays out faster and more easily than anything else."

LOL

Must have missed the news...

Some of the Mackey suggestions are of the 'no-brainer' variety... but the rest of Mackey's solutions are vague platitudes and wishful thinking. And I think you know that.

"make it easier for individuals to make a voluntary, tax-deductible donation to help the millions of people who have no insurance and aren't covered by Medicare, Medicaid or the State Children's Health Insurance Program" - seriously? Yeah... that'll make up the shortfall. Bang-up job so far... I take it you have donated several billion $s yourself to pick up that slack, right?

HSAs are equally retarded... all well and good on paper, but what about those without the initial $2,500 deductible? Oh right... they get to go beg in the street until that 'altruism' thing rescues them. Riiiiight.

The easiest answer is exactly what we are discussing now. A public plan with a massive risk pool, that cannot turn people away, and provides some level of coverage for some amount of $. If you want more coverage, go pay for it. Fine. But if you have literally no other option... this is an option.

The difference between sterile paper-policy and the real world, eh....?

I disagree that Medicare is not a big part of the cost problem, meh. I've read convincing analyses that show that Medicare is far more costly to administer than private insurance, but they fudge their numbers by outsourcing their administrative costs to third party processors and don't treat those expenses as if they were generated by Medicare operations, but they are. It's a shell game and it's the taxpayer that ultimately gets cheated.

As for health care providers cheating the system, what makes you think that won't happen if EVERYTHING is run by the government? People will learn how to game the system, and you mark my words, the government, being a big lumbering entity with no collective intelligence to its name, will sit back and not figure out we are being fleeced until the situation reaches crisis levels and we are too poor to do anything to dig our way out of the hole we have dug for ourselves.

When people pay the true cost of their medical expenses, they are smarter consumers. Honestly, if someone paid 80% of food bills, I suspect I'd be eating a lot more lobster and filet mignon.

The market is as broken as it is because of people like red ted, john edwards, and their ilk loading it, regulating it, suing it, twisting it every which way to cause it to fail so they can come to our rescue with their socialist nightmare as the "only" solution.

Better would be tort reform, and true competition, where the insurance companies don't have to be interested in your health; they pay for your healthcare because that's how they generate their profits. They don't perform, they lose profits. Even with the profits taken out, they will perform an order of magnitude more efficiently than the government. What we really need is a government that doesn't exist to extend its power over us.

Damn you are dumb meth. I still have my insurance and at no time have they threatened me with cancellation. That's after 3 surgeries on both arms for the same problem. You just hate the fact that I presented you with an actual occurence that doesn't fit into "I want the gubbermeint to take care of me because I'm a lazy ass who doesn't want to work" mode of thinking,if you can call it thinking.

Judith -

I am far less concerned with the costs of Medicare... after all, the billion-dollar profits of the existing insurers are clearly not helping anyone's health improve (or if it does, it is only an ancillary sidebar to their true profit-based motives).

They say in Washington "a billion here, a billion there, and soon we're talking about real money" - I think that if we are going to spend the unimaginable fortunes we spend on worthless crap like bank bailouts, we should not gripe about the (relatively) small amounts associated with the short-term costs of universal halthcare. And long-term, even with people 'gaming the system' (i contend that's endemic to life in earth, not really anything to do with govt or private insurance) the effects of a healthier populace can't but improve America.

Isn't that the real goal here? Better lives for those lacking options now?

Evilwrench - you are the problem. The conspiracy-theory 'the governemnt just wants to control me' stuff isn't real. While Judith talks about costs, and concerns in the real world, you are all about the crazy stuff. This is NOT about black helicopters coming to get you. There is no ulterior motive to take over your life. Obama is not secretly trying to harvest your grandmother's organs to sell them to zoos for meat. This really is about providing a viable solution for those lacking any alternative. I'm young and healthy; I pay an absurd amount of $ for the coverage I never use. And always it goes up. But I can't NOT have it, of course... because of the 1-in-a-million chance I do need it. I would LOVE a reasonable public option; even if the coverage it provided came with a 'death panel' (more surreal nonsense) I would love it.

Don't love it? Don't buy into it. Seems simple to me. . .

Don't want government running your healthcare don't allow it....seems simple to me.

Come now Farmer Anachronism, no need to get testy just because you know I'm correct...

And at what point did I say "I want the gubbermeint to take care of me because I'm a lazy ass who doesn't want to work"???

I have a good job, it comes with (what I am told is good) insurance. It costs more and more every year, and I have used it... 0 times. A GREAT return on investment, huh? But can't let it go... because i'd be bankrupt if I had no coverage and got sick. And if I were sick, well, i'd be denied coverage anyway. Would be GREAT if there was a cheaper (here meaning 'fairly priced') option, that could never be cancelled, even if it came with an imaginary 'death panel' or two.

So, one final time, nice and slow in small words you can comprehend: This is about making certain that everyone who needs health care can get it, without spending an ever-increasing fraction of available income to do it. Nothing more. (Are we learning yet?)

Maybe you are the magic case. Maybe your insurance company is motivated by altruistic morality and will cover you forever no matter what. And maybe.... NOT. What happens that day, huh? You act as if it can't possibly happen to you... but it can. It does, to thousands of people every day. If your answer is "Screw them", fine... but remember, not everyone in America is an asshole.

"Don't want government running your healthcare don't allow it....seems simple to me."

Ahh the classic blunder; this IS NOT ABOUT YOU. So, getting in the way of those who do NOT want to be subject to the whims of the for-profit insurance industry is not anything but that same "you aren't me... so screw you" mindset that the flat-earth society is so well known for. Otherwise you would happily let people who want public insurance have it, and you could keep your magic insurance.

Same mistake repubs make all the time, thinking everything is all about them, individually... don't forget, we call this thing here a 'society' for a reason...

HSAs are equally retarded... all well and good on paper, but what about those without the initial $2,500 deductible? Oh right... they get to go beg in the street until that 'altruism' thing rescues them. Riiiiight.

Here's a brilliant idea: save your money in the health savings account instead of blowing it on new cars and flatscreen TVs.

Much of the whining about the "affordability" of health care comes from people whose priorities and budgets are completely out of order.

"I am far less concerned with the costs of Medicare... after all, the billion-dollar profits of the existing insurers are clearly not helping anyone's health improve (or if it does, it is only an ancillary sidebar to their true profit-based motives)."

You seem to think the money spent on Medicare is all spent on medical care; it is not. A lot of it is bureaucratic waste, which helps people even less than corporate profits (at least those are generally spent more effectively by those who receive them).

As for the bank bailouts, I opposed those as well, so that's a bad example to use to persuade those of us who think that government fixes do more harm than good.

Karl Marx said "The population needs to reduced by 20%."

Ebenezer Scrooge said, "...decrease the surplus population."

Obama said, "Nah, nah, nah, I win!"

Each had/has the same purpose.

"...billion-dollar profits of health insurance companies.."

Why can moonbats never grasp the simple concept of supply and demand?

People who expend the time, money and effort to go to business school or get an MBA do so with the goal of getting a good job at the end of it.

If medical insurance firms didn't have "billions of dollars in profits" with which to offer good packages to executives, they would attract fewer qualified people, hence, would tend to offer lower quality of service.

The whole lefty/Democrat attitude on the whole thing is that it's somehow "immoral" to make a profit by doing work that provides a needed service.

Oh and to the idiot rattling on about an overweight baby being denied health insurance: please don't tell us you think rationing problems will get better under socialized health care.

Posted by: Meh at October 12, 2009 12:42 PM

It all boils down to this question: "Would you prefer to have a company that wants profits more than your health, or an option that is designed around the actual 'care' part of heathcare?"

Your application of logic is dreadful.

All companies by definition want and need profits, whether they provide health care or make widgets. No profits equals no company.

The whole idea of the free market is that the demand side has as much bargaining power, or more, than the supply side.

A company that charges too much for its services will not get anyone's business, will thus not earn any money, and will cease to exist.

It's a self-balancing system and one that people like yourself patently fail to understand.

On the other hand, there is precisely zero evidence to support - and abundant evidence to contradict - the notion that having bureaucrats and politicians arbitrarily dictate supply and demand fundamentals is effective in determining standards and costs for medical care. You may trust me on that one - I'm from Australia, I know all about "free" healthcare.

(Then ask yourself that same question again next year, when it costs twice as much. And again the year after that.... and so on). Where is it that you will finally see the light and realize that this is NOT a good model of a for-profit industry?

Maybe you should take a trip to the post office some time, or try making a claim to the IRS regarding a taxation issue. Then ask yourself whether you'd like the same people to be determining your worthiness to receive medical care.

When will you see the light and realise that for-profit, free-market economics works in every instance in which it's applied?

And when will you people stop making bogus claims about why insurance costs are rising, when you know damn well that it's not because the insurance companies are "making huge profits."

And when will you people admit that there's no magic way to "reduce healthcare costs" by having the government say healthcare should cost less. Alternatively you could ask some people in Britain for their opinions on tax rates and NHS service.

You people are so childish. And your longing for a nanny state to wipe your booboos is sickening.

Why can't you moonbats just go live in a country that already has socialized medicine, and leave the rest of us the hell alone?

Have you considered the possibility that maybe the "uninsured" don't want your help?

There is no such thing as a 'transsexual' or 'transgendered'. All there is are professionally mutilated, psychologically damaged men and women.