LGP Political Discussion Thread - Latest news at top

[Grunthy]

No it's not

Best comeback I ever heard.


have you ever worked in healthcare? Do you know how much malpractice insurance costs doctors? Do you know how much that cost is built into tests and checkups? I could keep going but it looks like you wouldn't understand.

Actually, LITT is one of the few people ITT that fully understands the impact of the health bill. To me, it looks like he's definitely in the healthcare biz, so yeah, he definitely knows what he's talking about.

Does he understand that doctors administer unnecessary tests just to cover their asses in case, god forbid a 1 in a million, problem occurs from a relatively simple diagnosis? This costs insurance companys money. A lot of money. My father is a doctor, practicing for over 30 years. Before all this crap started with the government getting involved, his insurance was low and it was relatively cheap to go to the doctor. A small example, I know how small this is but bear with me, people coming in with stomach pain, thinking they had appendicitis. All doctors then would just push on your abdomen to see if the pain went away, if it did most likely appendicitis. If it didn't go away, they would keep you for a couple hours to make sure you were ok and then send you home. 999 times out of a 1000, everything was fine with the people that were sent home. But that one person that got appendicitis had to be rushed back in to get their appendix out. If a doctor did that now, they would sue the crap out of them. So now everyone that has stomach pain whether the doctor knows the patient is fine or not orders a abdominal scan to cover his ass from malpractice. CT scans are not cheap by the way, the annual cost for these is about a billion dollars.

[Letang Is The Truth]

He does understand this

[Grunthy]

He does understand this

you don't think it is a big driver of costs then directly and indirectly?

[columbia]

He does understand this

You're getting into KtK territory.

[Hockeynut!]

He does understand this

you don't think it is a big driver of costs then directly and indirectly?

So do you think the government should get involved and not allow people to sue over misdiagnoses?

[Grunthy]

He does understand this

you don't think it is a big driver of costs then directly and indirectly?

So do you think the government should get involved and not allow people to sue over misdiagnoses?

I don't think people should get millions for errors. There needs to be caps on what one can sue for based on severity.

[TheHammer24]

I don't remember the statistics, but increases in malpractice insurance have been significantly below the overall rate in health care cost increases. Simply put, it's not the cause. It ain't helping? Sure. But view it like we made a decision to compensate those that have suffered horrible accidents in medicine.

[Grunthy]

I don't remember the statistics, but increases in malpractice insurance have been significantly below the overall rate in health care cost increases. Simply put, it's not the cause. It ain't helping? Sure. But view it like we made a decision to compensate those that have suffered horrible accidents in medicine.

A lot of malpractice is not what you think it is. Most mistakes are relatively harmless. The egregious neglectful errors,i agree that is terrible.

[steelhammer]

UPMC opens food bank for employees
http://m.pghcitypaper.com/pittsburgh/bl ... &year=2012

Reads like an Onion article. The company that spends millions of dollars on an anti-union PR consulting firm throws some crumbs to its least fortunate employees. In an age of shameless greed, they took it to 19th century levels.

[Grunthy]

UPMC opens food bank for employees
http://m.pghcitypaper.com/pittsburgh/bl ... &year=2012

Reads like an Onion article. The company that spends millions of dollars on an anti-union PR consulting firm throws some crumbs to its least fortunate employees. In an age of shameless greed, they took it to 19th century levels.

Wasnt the food bank started by fellow employees, not upmc directly? Or am i wrong in that?

[Letang Is The Truth]

No it's not

Best comeback I ever heard.


have you ever worked in healthcare? Do you know how much malpractice insurance costs doctors? Do you know how much that cost is built into tests and checkups? I could keep going but it looks like you wouldn't understand.

Actually, LITT is one of the few people ITT that fully understands the impact of the health bill. To me, it looks like he's definitely in the healthcare biz, so yeah, he definitely knows what he's talking about.

Does he understand that doctors administer unnecessary tests just to cover their asses in case, god forbid a 1 in a million, problem occurs from a relatively simple diagnosis? This costs insurance companys money. A lot of money. My father is a doctor, practicing for over 30 years. Before all this crap started with the government getting involved, his insurance was low and it was relatively cheap to go to the doctor. A small example, I know how small this is but bear with me, people coming in with stomach pain, thinking they had appendicitis. All doctors then would just push on your abdomen to see if the pain went away, if it did most likely appendicitis. If it didn't go away, they would keep you for a couple hours to make sure you were ok and then send you home. 999 times out of a 1000, everything was fine with the people that were sent home. But that one person that got appendicitis had to be rushed back in to get their appendix out. If a doctor did that now, they would sue the crap out of them. So now everyone that has stomach pain whether the doctor knows the patient is fine or not orders a abdominal scan to cover his ass from malpractice. CT scans are not cheap by the way, the annual cost for these is about a billion dollars.

so we are talking about defensive medicine. is your contention the cost for these unnecessary CTs are a billion dollars/year? the us spends about 3 trillion dollars a year on health care related items. TRILLION. we are talking about less than .1 % of total expenditure. i am not saying that med mal reform and defensive medicine aren't issues, because i believe they are as well, but to say it is driving our health care costs is off base.

[Letang Is The Truth]

We've been down this road before...

The national average for ob-gyns' annual premiums, according to Strunk, is $30,000, although in some areas it can reach a staggering $140,000. In comparison, premiums for internal medicine physicians can range from $3,782 in Arkansas to $28,548 in New York's Nassau and Suffolk counties, according to the monthly newsletter Medical Liability Monitor.

It sure ain't helping.

what are you getting at? the premiums for an obgyn are higher than that of an internist? of course they are, you will have that with any specialist.

[Grunthy]

The US spends closer to 2 billion on Healthcare. So you are saying that even though how much insurance premiums are for hospitals and doctors, how much defensive medicine goes on through all levels of care. It is a lot by the way, not just for CT scans... That it wouldn't add up hundreds of billions of dollars spent on healthcare a year? I would say that could be considered a big driver in rising costs. Not the only driver but one of the many that are fueling a ridiculous drive of costs in the system.

[Troy Loney]

I think the issue is the seperation between the consumer and the payments. Every time you go to the doctor, the procedures you do have to be paid for. You have no idea what your getting done and what you are actually paying for, think about it like this, we're so anal about not getting into an accident because we're afraid that our auto premium is going to go up. If we start running up massive hospital bills your health insurance is going to go up. Insurance companies don't simply eat the money if your an unpofitable client.

More accountability from the doctors and the patient.

[Letang Is The Truth]

The US spends closer to 2 billion on Healthcare. So you are saying that even though how much insurance premiums are for hospitals and doctors, how much defensive medicine goes on through all levels of care. It is a lot by the way, not just for CT scans... That it wouldn't add up hundreds of billions of dollars spent on healthcare a year? I would say that could be considered a big driver in rising costs. Not the only driver but one of the many that are fueling a ridiculous drive of costs in the system.

i am in a meeting right now so i will type up a response to this when i am out but i have a feeling that it will be fruitless because whatever i say you will come back and say BUT ITS DEFENSIVE MEDICINE! but the real issue is that there is no onus on the patient in your example to be fiscally responsible with their decision making.

for my own curiosity - is your dad a private practitioner?

[shafnutz05]

18 Democratic senators have asked for a delay in the implementation of the medical device tax, a significant part of Obama's healthcare bill. If they didn't want the tax, why did they ram it through Congress so quickly?

http://www.atr.org/dems-delay-obamacare-med-device-tax-a7380

Signed letter here:

http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/MedDeviceLetter12102012.pdf

[Troy Loney]

So....this happened in Michigan a little earlier today:



This is far from the first instance of union mob violence/threats, and I doubt it will be the last. Remember when we were told how radical and dangerous the Tea Party was, and how they were going to incite violence at some point? Funny, I am still waiting for that dire prediction to come true.

The stuff in this video is the definition of rabid radicalism. Of course, it doesn't fit the typical narrative that they are simply hard-working wage fighters rallying to save their livelihoods and their families. This stuff happens.... ALL. THE. TIME.

I especially loved when the one guy, when asked why he opposes right-to-work laws, started screaming about "parasitic people taking his benefits".

El oh el.

If this is the same video I saw, just another perfect example of fox news lunacy. The best part of this is that that goober head who was picking a fight at the rally refuses to show the lead into that "sucker" punch. From what I understand, the people that witnessed the event say that the MMA idiot posing as a news correspondent should be arrested for inciting a riot.

[shafnutz05]

If this is the same video I saw, just another perfect example of fox news lunacy. The best part of this is that that goober head who was picking a fight at the rally refuses to show the lead into that "sucker" punch. From what I understand, the people that witnessed the event say that the MMA idiot posing as a news correspondent should be arrested for inciting a riot.

lol...so naturally we are going to give the full benefit of the doubt to the obviously angry protester that physically assaults a guy multiple times in the face, the others that tear down a tent with a woman still inside it, because "eyewitness" accounts state that it was actually the correspondent's fault and he should be arrested for "starting a riot", as you say. Not to mention the other protesters that are screaming threats, including the guy that says "I have a gun, I am going to shoot this MFer".

Yeah, this reminds me why I've tried to stop posting in this thread. I fondly remember when a picture of one or two nutjobs wearing racist clothing was an indictment of nearly the entire Tea Party movement as a bunch of racist, backwoods yokels that just hate Obama because he's a black president. el oh el indeed

[Troy Loney]

Then why wont this d-bag release the entire video instead of just the clip of the guy punching him? No one is stopping you from going back to the bubble.

[shafnutz05]

So now he's a D-bag? Wat?

http://www.forbes.com/sites/gregorymcneal/2012/12/11/union-protest-assault-victim-challenges-assailaint-to-mma-fight/

It’s important to note the context surrounding the shoving and assault. While the shoving and punching were occurring, protesters were pushing down a tent filled with people. Some individuals in and around the tent were trying to stand their ground in an effort to protect the individuals inside the tent and protect themselves. That fact means that the shoving was not some form of mutual combat, but rather was a group of people peacefully assembled, who were surrounded and assaulted by an angry mob.

The tent he was standing in and by (among other right-to-work advocates) was an Americans for Prosperity tent. Angry mobs of union supporters were surrounding the tent, and started tearing it down with the AFP counter-protesters (including women and possibly children) inside. They were completely surrounded by a screaming mob. Your attempt to display Crowder as the aggressor in the midst of 100s of angry people comes off as pathetically biased.

Is Crowder a conservative activist? Of course he is. I am just stunned, even acknowledging your strong pro-union leaning, that you are so readily convinced that this guy is a manipulative "d-bag" that incited this entire event, and little or no blame falls on the frothing group of people that were surrounding the counter-protesters. I guess we will wait for the whole video, but it just amazes me how quickly you are to forgive physical assault if it's in the name of a cause you endorse.

What about the guy at the end that is screaming about the fact he had a gun and would shoot the MFer? If he had went ahead and put a couple bullets in him, is it still Crowder's fault then?

[Troy Loney]

lol..my pro union standing. And that guy is definitely a d-bag.

[shafnutz05]

lol..my pro union standing. And that guy is definitely a d-bag.

I have no idea if Crowder is a D-bag in his personal life....he certainly could be, TBH. That doesn't, in any way, forgive the aggression and destruction of property as was displayed at this rally.

[Troy Loney]

And there's no way I'm going to debate the event with you. From the video it looks like he picked a fight with a group of people at the protest and got socked by a guy half his size, who seems to have been scuffling with him before the punch.

The fact that he's only showing the edited video means you shouldn't give this any more attention, except the fact that this former MMA guy is a major d-bag strutting around with that meathead leather jacket picking fights with old men.

But this is somehow a political news...thank you fox news.

[ExPatriatePen]

Then why wont this d-bag release the entire video instead of just the clip of the guy punching him? No one is stopping you from going back to the bubble.

There's ZERO excuse for throwing a punch at someone when you yourself are not in physical harms way.

PERIOD.

[Troy Loney]

From the video I saw, there's nothing to show that the guy wasn't threatned in some way, he had definitely been pushed and was recentereing himself when he threw the punch. Of course, if that doofus would release the who video...it could clear up the position the guy was, but he wont.