Sen. Ted Kennedy is dead.

[Brittain33]

I'm sure she could have been saved if he had gotten help right away, she died quite some time later.

She drowned. How much time is "some time later"? What was emergency response like in that place at that time?

I'm sure the emergency response was top notch, the Kennedy's wouldn't have it any other way

How much time do you claim it took her to die, and how would emergency response have gotten there in that time period? Sketch it out. You're clearly an expert on the Chappaquiddick incident and the area. Share your knowledge.

[fezzyfestoon]

Well, the hospital is about an hour away and over a ferry, for what it's worth.

[12th Doctor]

I'm not going to say anything, anything at all, other than to point out how few liberals on this forum, who are currently up-in-arms about the response of some posters of other political persuasions, how few of them held comment when Reagan, Ford, Buckley, or any other conservative figure died in the last five years.

[Brittain33]

I'm not going to say anything, anything at all, other than to point out how few liberals on this forum, who are currently up-in-arms about the response of some posters of other political persuasions, how few of them held comment when Reagan, Ford, Buckley, or any other conservative figure died in the last five years.

I'm not sure if I'm one of the people you're not talking about, but for what it's worth, I made the comparison with Reagan in my first post here and there has been lots of interesting discussion of the same point here and on other threads. DWDL bumped all of the "_____ dead" for Republicans threads he could find right away. I think the inclusion of Helms is interesting and that's also been the subject of many discussions--I'm curious what you think about whether we can assess different political figures differently.
 
ON REVIEW: You said "Helms" in your first post, and then changed it to Buckley. Why?

[Torie]

John D Ford:  So now we can start just assuming guilt of a crime and judge that person based on our assumptions?

Guilty until proven otherwise:  The Republican idea on justice.

Society can't put him in jail without convicting him, but any person can make their own private judgements about his culpability without waiting for a court verdict to tell them what to think.

True.

And likewise I feel the policies advocated by many conservatives have led to many deaths (far more than Sen. Kennedy was responsible for), and can thus dislike them for that even though they haven't been convicted in a court of law of murder.

I’m sorry, which canard are you introducing into the conversation?  The canard that Republicans kill people by being warmongers or the canard that Republicans kill people by The canard that Republicans kill people by being warmongers or the canard that Republicans kill people by refusing to nationalize the health care system?

lol this is your argument? There are heaps of evidence against the idea of a private health insurance system saving lives.

I would appreciate an expansion by you EMD of the notion suggested in your last sentence that a single payer government system saves lives net. I tend to doubt that if only because the US spends so much more on health care than anyone else.  And one must bear in mind, that one must correct for the percentage of fats in a society, etc.  For example, even though Japanese tend to smoke like chimneys, they also have relatively few fats, and tend not to eat a lot of red meat.

And some preventable deaths might be due more to ignorance than lack of access. In any event, there are ways to afford access without a nationalized system actually, so it is not as if we have a Hobson's choice here.

I'm not necessarily suggesting that singly payer health care saves lives net, just suggesting that our current system sucks. Oh and on fats lowering our life expectancy, gastric bypass surgery on the morbidly obese on the whole saves a net amount of money and would increase that. Seeing as huge amounts of the morbidly obese don't have insurance that would cover for this, we have a problem there. There is also almost no way to get rid of these health problems without severly restricting our populace, which would be much more politically unpopular than universal health care.

Oh sure, I agree with you but there are whole variety of reasons why preventable deaths happen largely because of lack of access.

I understand the need for access EMD, but don't see the necessity for a single payer system to effect that in lieu of subsidized private insurance. Am I missing something here?

[The Dowager Mod]

I'm not going to say anything, anything at all, other than to point out how few liberals on this forum, who are currently up-in-arms about the response of some posters of other political persuasions, how few of them held comment when Reagan, Ford, Buckley, or any other conservative figure died in the last five years.

I usually keep my mouth shut on those occasions, Falwell may have beeen an exception.

[12th Doctor]

I'm not going to say anything, anything at all, other than to point out how few liberals on this forum, who are currently up-in-arms about the response of some posters of other political persuasions, how few of them held comment when Reagan, Ford, Buckley, or any other conservative figure died in the last five years.

I'm not sure if I'm one of the people you're not talking about, but for what it's worth, I made the comparison with Reagan in my first post here and there has been lots of interesting discussion of the same point here and on other threads. DWDL bumped all of the "_____ dead" for Republicans threads he could find right away. I think the inclusion of Helms is interesting and that's also been the subject of many discussions--I'm curious what you think about whether we can assess different political figures differently.
 
ON REVIEW: You said "Helms" in your first post, and then changed it to Buckley. Why?

Two reasons... number one, it was a genuine mistake.  I had meant Buckley, but the last thread I saw before posting here was one on Helms.  Second, after reading that I had written "Helms" I suddenly became ill at the thought of that terrible man, who should indeed be reviled, even in death, and decided that I had to go back and reassert my original intent.

[Democratic Hawk]

RIP Senator Kennedy. My prayers are with the Kennedy family

[Nym90]

John D Ford:  So now we can start just assuming guilt of a crime and judge that person based on our assumptions?

Guilty until proven otherwise:  The Republican idea on justice.

Society can't put him in jail without convicting him, but any person can make their own private judgements about his culpability without waiting for a court verdict to tell them what to think.

True.

And likewise I feel the policies advocated by many conservatives have led to many deaths (far more than Sen. Kennedy was responsible for), and can thus dislike them for that even though they haven't been convicted in a court of law of murder.

I’m sorry, which canard are you introducing into the conversation?  The canard that Republicans kill people by being warmongers or the canard that Republicans kill people by The canard that Republicans kill people by being warmongers or the canard that Republicans kill people by refusing to nationalize the health care system?

Both. Obviously you can argue that Democrats kill people by refusing to go to war or raising taxes or some such as well, and that'd be valid in some cases too.

I never said it was exclusive to the GOP, but if we're going to start blaming people for deaths that they are not legally responsible for, everyone will have some degree of blood on their hands....hence focusing so much attention on Kopechne doesn't really make sense.

[CultureKing]

RIP Teddy. The senate won't be the same without its lion. I will admit I teared up when I heard the news. Then I became furious when I saw what fox was doing.

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

RIP Teddy. The senate won't be the same without its lion. I will admit I teared up when I heard the news. Then I became furious when I saw what fox was doing.

What exactly was FOX doing?

[Marokai Backbeat]

RIP Teddy. The senate won't be the same without its lion. I will admit I teared up when I heard the news. Then I became furious when I saw what fox was doing.

What exactly was FOX doing?

I don't know if he saw anything different, but, when CNN and MSNBC broke to the story in the middle of the night, Fox continue with regular programming for at least awhile.

[Torie]

John D Ford:  So now we can start just assuming guilt of a crime and judge that person based on our assumptions?

Guilty until proven otherwise:  The Republican idea on justice.

Society can't put him in jail without convicting him, but any person can make their own private judgements about his culpability without waiting for a court verdict to tell them what to think.

True.

And likewise I feel the policies advocated by many conservatives have led to many deaths (far more than Sen. Kennedy was responsible for), and can thus dislike them for that even though they haven't been convicted in a court of law of murder.

I’m sorry, which canard are you introducing into the conversation?  The canard that Republicans kill people by being warmongers or the canard that Republicans kill people by The canard that Republicans kill people by being warmongers or the canard that Republicans kill people by refusing to nationalize the health care system?

lol this is your argument? There are heaps of evidence against the idea of a private health insurance system saving lives.

I would appreciate an expansion by you EMD of the notion suggested in your last sentence that a single payer government system saves lives net. I tend to doubt that if only because the US spends so much more on health care than anyone else.  And one must bear in mind, that one must correct for the percentage of fats in a society, etc.  For example, even though Japanese tend to smoke like chimneys, they also have relatively few fats, and tend not to eat a lot of red meat.

And some preventable deaths might be due more to ignorance than lack of access. In any event, there are ways to afford access without a nationalized system actually, so it is not as if we have a Hobson's choice here.

I'm not necessarily suggesting that singly payer health care saves lives net, just suggesting that our current system sucks. Oh and on fats lowering our life expectancy, gastric bypass surgery on the morbidly obese on the whole saves a net amount of money and would increase that. Seeing as huge amounts of the morbidly obese don't have insurance that would cover for this, we have a problem there. There is also almost no way to get rid of these health problems without severly restricting our populace, which would be much more politically unpopular than universal health care.

Oh sure, I agree with you but there are whole variety of reasons why preventable deaths happen largely because of lack of access.

I understand the need for access EMD, but don't see the necessity for a single payer system to effect that in lieu of subsidized private insurance. Am I missing something here?

Great post Snowguy. However, you will be amazed at how few people will end up earning $400,000 in annual taxable income if you make the marginal rate 60%.  There will be much more barter, fringe benefits, expensive restaurant tabs, and income spaced out over long periods, and of course the rich will just work less in industries where their is some flexibility as to how much one works, such as in the legal field. That is what happened when we had marginal rates in that range or higher. And state income and SS taxes to the extent they last forever would be on top of that I assume. In addition, in real dollars, rates above 50% only kicked in at higher numbers than 400K.  It was more like a couple of million in today's inflated dollars.

As I said before, you will get considerably less revenue than you hoped with that regime, and that is even before dealing with capital gains tax rates. If you get those too high, there will be less risk taking, and huge economic inefficiencies as folks refuse to recognize their capital gains, and just hang on to assets until they die. As it is, I will hold on to my real estate until I die, at far lower capital gains rates. It just makes no economic sense to sell it with that transaction costs lurking out there, in the case of real estate about 25%-35%, with a 15% federal capital gains rate (going up soon), and 25% for the recapture of previously taken depreciation, and a 10% state tax on top of that.

[War on Want]

John D Ford:  So now we can start just assuming guilt of a crime and judge that person based on our assumptions?

Guilty until proven otherwise:  The Republican idea on justice.

Society can't put him in jail without convicting him, but any person can make their own private judgements about his culpability without waiting for a court verdict to tell them what to think.

True.

And likewise I feel the policies advocated by many conservatives have led to many deaths (far more than Sen. Kennedy was responsible for), and can thus dislike them for that even though they haven't been convicted in a court of law of murder.

I’m sorry, which canard are you introducing into the conversation?  The canard that Republicans kill people by being warmongers or the canard that Republicans kill people by The canard that Republicans kill people by being warmongers or the canard that Republicans kill people by refusing to nationalize the health care system?

lol this is your argument? There are heaps of evidence against the idea of a private health insurance system saving lives.

I would appreciate an expansion by you EMD of the notion suggested in your last sentence that a single payer government system saves lives net. I tend to doubt that if only because the US spends so much more on health care than anyone else.  And one must bear in mind, that one must correct for the percentage of fats in a society, etc.  For example, even though Japanese tend to smoke like chimneys, they also have relatively few fats, and tend not to eat a lot of red meat.

And some preventable deaths might be due more to ignorance than lack of access. In any event, there are ways to afford access without a nationalized system actually, so it is not as if we have a Hobson's choice here.

I'm not necessarily suggesting that singly payer health care saves lives net, just suggesting that our current system sucks. Oh and on fats lowering our life expectancy, gastric bypass surgery on the morbidly obese on the whole saves a net amount of money and would increase that. Seeing as huge amounts of the morbidly obese don't have insurance that would cover for this, we have a problem there. There is also almost no way to get rid of these health problems without severly restricting our populace, which would be much more politically unpopular than universal health care.

Oh sure, I agree with you but there are whole variety of reasons why preventable deaths happen largely because of lack of access.

I understand the need for access EMD, but don't see the necessity for a single payer system to effect that in lieu of subsidized private insurance. Am I missing something here?

Overall subsidized private insurance would probably reduce costs and deaths but it would not do near as much as a single payer insurance system would. A single payer system would get rid of the billions of dollars in administrative costs used to deny patients care and would also offer optimal coverage for all Americans. Besides, even if subsidized, private insurance would still be unreliable for preventive care unless the government regulated them.

[The Duke]

John D Ford:  So now we can start just assuming guilt of a crime and judge that person based on our assumptions?

Guilty until proven otherwise:  The Republican idea on justice.

Society can't put him in jail without convicting him, but any person can make their own private judgements about his culpability without waiting for a court verdict to tell them what to think.

True.

And likewise I feel the policies advocated by many conservatives have led to many deaths (far more than Sen. Kennedy was responsible for), and can thus dislike them for that even though they haven't been convicted in a court of law of murder.

I’m sorry, which canard are you introducing into the conversation?  The canard that Republicans kill people by being warmongers or the canard that Republicans kill people by The canard that Republicans kill people by being warmongers or the canard that Republicans kill people by refusing to nationalize the health care system?

Both. Obviously you can argue that Democrats kill people by refusing to go to war or raising taxes or some such as well, and that'd be valid in some cases too.

I never said it was exclusive to the GOP, but if we're going to start blaming people for deaths that they are not legally responsible for, everyone will have some degree of blood on their hands....hence focusing so much attention on Kopechne doesn't really make sense.

I didn’t say Ted Kennedy was not legally responsible for the death of Mary Jo Kopechne.  He clearly committed manslaughter.  What I said was that I acknowledge he has never been held to answer for his crime, I never said he didn’t commit a crime.  Key distinction.

And in the cases of both war and health care, a utilitarian argument always exists that war saves lives net or that health care reform will save lives net.  But in the case of Kopechne, there is no argument that Kennedy’s behavior had some greater utilitarian value to society.  His behavior got a girl killed and there is no positive effect from his behavior, direct or indirect.  Therefore, his behavior is actually not comparable to Republican positions on the war or health care (nor, for that matter, is it comparable to Democratic positions on these issues).

I think your intentional effort to confuse the issue just proves my earlier point: You are trying to muddy the waters so you can absolve Kennedy of blame so you can keep the Kennedy myth alive and use it to advance a political agenda and I think its contemptible.  He did a terrible thing and very few people are willing to acknowledge it because they put ideology ahead of truth.

[Torie]

EMD, there will be administrative costs, and huge ones, administering rationing under a single payer system, with appeals and all the rest. There are costs involved in gathering the facts as to whether a procedure is covered under any system. I consider that argument near make weight personally, absent some empirical evidence to the contrary of which I am unaware, and would be surprised if any such evidence exists.

The notion that the government would be more efficient at all of this strikes me as curious. What will save costs if there are any savings, is slashing drug prices thereby truncating future drug research, and more Draconian rationing - period. The rest is mostly smoke and mirrors I strongly suspect.

[CultureKing]

RIP Teddy. The senate won't be the same without its lion. I will admit I teared up when I heard the news. Then I became furious when I saw what fox was doing.

What exactly was FOX doing?

I don't know if he saw anything different, but, when CNN and MSNBC broke to the story in the middle of the night, Fox continue with regular programming for at least awhile.

I was just channel surfing and during the few minutes I was watching Beck labelled Teddy as one of the screw-ups (or humiliations, I don't remember which) of an already unstable family. Basically it was simply disrespectful.

[War on Want]

EMD, there will be administrative costs, and huge ones, administering rationing under a single payer system, with appeals and all the rest. There are costs involved in gathering the facts as to whether a procedure is covered under any system. I consider that argument near make weight personally, absent some empirical evidence to the contrary of which I am unaware, and would be surprised if any such evidence exists.

The notion that the government would be more efficient at all of this strikes me as curious. What will save costs if there are any savings, is slashing drug prices thereby truncating future drug research, and more Draconian rationing - period. The rest is mostly smoke and mirrors I strongly suspect.

Well considering that right now 1/5th of costs is administrative for private insurance companies and only 3% for Medicare, I think that administrative costs on the whole will go down in a single payer system. Obviously there are huge differences between Medicare and a single payer system but with a public option, things would be very similar to Medicare. I could see administrative costs going up somewhat under a bill with a public option but not up to the 15% or higher that exists in the private insurance industry.

edit: okay you got me, VA health care does spend 15.6% of its money on administration but I also found new facts suggesting that administrative costs for private insurance companies is between 25-31%. I have not seen any info to suggest that a public option would spend more on administrative costs, just insurance propaganda that brings up the idea that somehow private insurance spends more money on administration because they are trying to do more for the welfare of society than the government.

[Torie]

EMD, there will be administrative costs, and huge ones, administering rationing under a single payer system, with appeals and all the rest. There are costs involved in gathering the facts as to whether a procedure is covered under any system. I consider that argument near make weight personally, absent some empirical evidence to the contrary of which I am unaware, and would be surprised if any such evidence exists.

The notion that the government would be more efficient at all of this strikes me as curious. What will save costs if there are any savings, is slashing drug prices thereby truncating future drug research, and more Draconian rationing - period. The rest is mostly smoke and mirrors I strongly suspect.

Well considering that right now 1/5th of costs is administrative for private insurance companies and only 3% for Medicare, I think that administrative costs on the whole will go down in a single payer system. Obviously there are huge differences between Medicare and a single payer system but with a public option, things would be very similar to Medicare. I could see administrative costs going up somewhat under a bill with a public option but not up to the 15% or higher that exists in the private insurance industry.

Medicare does not have Draconian rationing, but it soon will, along with the rest. Medicare is collapsing along with the rest of the system, and will be revamped, hook, line and sinker. And in our litigious society, this regime of rationing will involve administrative costs. As it is, medicare does not ration really at all, and that is part of the problem that simply cannot be sustained financially.

[Mechaman]

RIP Teddy. The senate won't be the same without its lion. I will admit I teared up when I heard the news. Then I became furious when I saw what fox was doing.

What exactly was FOX doing?

I don't know if he saw anything different, but, when CNN and MSNBC broke to the story in the middle of the night, Fox continue with regular programming for at least awhile.

I was just channel surfing and during the few minutes I was watching Beck labelled Teddy as one of the screw-ups (or humiliations, I don't remember which) of an already unstable family. Basically it was simply disrespectful.

Bastards.
CNN ultimately has my respect as to how they handled his death: all day long tribute with interviews and documentary about Ted Kennedy. It was amazing programing. I'm not huge on television news but CNN has officially won my nod for most respectful journalism. I wonder though if they had anything remotely that cool for Jack Kemp though....I would hope they did.

I never thought that even Fox would stoop that low though.......

[War on Want]

EMD, there will be administrative costs, and huge ones, administering rationing under a single payer system, with appeals and all the rest. There are costs involved in gathering the facts as to whether a procedure is covered under any system. I consider that argument near make weight personally, absent some empirical evidence to the contrary of which I am unaware, and would be surprised if any such evidence exists.

The notion that the government would be more efficient at all of this strikes me as curious. What will save costs if there are any savings, is slashing drug prices thereby truncating future drug research, and more Draconian rationing - period. The rest is mostly smoke and mirrors I strongly suspect.

Well considering that right now 1/5th of costs is administrative for private insurance companies and only 3% for Medicare, I think that administrative costs on the whole will go down in a single payer system. Obviously there are huge differences between Medicare and a single payer system but with a public option, things would be very similar to Medicare. I could see administrative costs going up somewhat under a bill with a public option but not up to the 15% or higher that exists in the private insurance industry.

Medicare does not have Draconian rationing, but it soon will, along with the rest. Medicare is collapsing along with the rest of the system, and will be revamped, hook, line and sinker. And in our litigious society, this regime of rationing will involve administrative costs. As it is, medicare does not ration really at all, and that is part of the problem that simply cannot be sustained financially.

Some rationing would not be a bad thing but I doubt it would be Draconian rationing. The idea of Medicare being unsustainable has been overblown as of late as well. For instance the estimated worth of Medicare Part D for the 10 year period after it was passed was supposed to be 634 billion dollars but in late 2008 it was estimated to be worth 395 billion dollars over the next 10 years. Of course I am not really a supporter of Medicare Part D and it is only one small part of Medicare but it is something. Some of this is inevitable as well but I fail to see how private insurance would handle the aging of our population any better.

[Marokai Backbeat]

Alot of Medicare's expenses come from private doctors abusing the shit out of the fact that Medicare rarely (I don't even think they legally can) denies anything, such as tests and the like, while the doctors get paid for the additional procedures. So, like EMD says, some rationing and control of procedures isn't a bad thing.

[Torie]

Alot of Medicare's expenses come from private doctors abusing the shit out of the fact that Medicare rarely (I don't even think they legally can) denies anything, such as tests and the like, while the doctors get paid for the additional procedures. So, like EMD says, some rationing and control of procedures isn't a bad thing.

It most certainly isn't indeed a bad thing. But then that was not the point of disagreement between EMD and myself.

[Marokai Backbeat]

Alot of Medicare's expenses come from private doctors abusing the shit out of the fact that Medicare rarely (I don't even think they legally can) denies anything, such as tests and the like, while the doctors get paid for the additional procedures. So, like EMD says, some rationing and control of procedures isn't a bad thing.

It most certainly isn't indeed a bad thing. But then that was not the point of disagreement between EMD and myself.

It probably wasn't, I'm barely paying attention, honestly.

[Torie]

Alot of Medicare's expenses come from private doctors abusing the shit out of the fact that Medicare rarely (I don't even think they legally can) denies anything, such as tests and the like, while the doctors get paid for the additional procedures. So, like EMD says, some rationing and control of procedures isn't a bad thing.

It most certainly isn't indeed a bad thing. But then that was not the point of disagreement between EMD and myself.

It probably wasn't, I'm barely paying attention, honestly.

That's OK. Some of my posts lead to near terminal ennui. I understand.