Nurses Speak Out Against Debate Audience Members Who Cheered Leaving Uninsured to Die

Saysfaa · Sep 19, 2011

About the car... analogies are never perfect but I think the parallel works anyway. Your some one didn't need care until something unusual happened that he did need it... Ann's guy didn't need a car until something unusual happened that he did need it (her example was that he was in the path of a hurricane, I cut off a bit too much of her article to see it in the clip).

nicurn001 · Sep 19, 2011

"if private financing had worked then , government would not have had to create and pass legislation to cover those who were unable to get care ."
my research (history of medical care, not the standard conservative think tanks) indicates that private financing worked quite well. there were several forms of cooperative organizations that worked somewhat similar to the amish these days.... one form was groups of people who pledged to help each other when the need arose or who pooled money into a fund for that purpose or to hire a doctor and supplies for their group's medical needs. some were organized by employers, many were organized around a community or club within a city neighborhood or religious groups. there were not too many but the concept was growing quickly. the ama saw them as a threat to their power and lobbied (successfully) to not require licenses and to bar the doctors that cooperated with those groups from getting licenses. so a private group the ama worked against the other private groups to get legislation passed ( what piece of legislation are you referring to ?) , that caused this system to fail
the next great blow to funding health care privately was when the fledgling public insurance companies successfully shifted their costs onto people unaffiliated with their companies. they did that by contracting with providers (mainly hospitals) to accept payments in full that were below the actual costs. the hospitals stayed in business by charging unaffliated patients enough to make up the difference. again this sounds like private finance working in its best interest .
both of these had nothing to do with problems with the system, they had to do with some people wanting more power and profit. at least we agree on this .
the next great blow was the wage freezes around world war two. companies were not allowed to raise wages as wages but were allowed to pay for health insurance as additional compensation. related to that is the policy of paying for health insurance with pretax dollars if the employee does it and with aftertax dollars if the employee does it.on this what would have been the alternative , we were at war for goodness sakes , either you ensured the health of your population by more government expenditure ( when you were already having to borrow to pay for war material [ war bonds etc. ], or you related health insurance to labor , that labor could then be directed to the productioof war material [ a win win for government and people] )
therefore, i think it was government involvement that caused the problems with access to health care.

i don't see how you can say the above makes the case that government involvement caused the problems with access to healhcare . if private financing as efficient and adaptive to market pressure as conservatives advocate , that should enable them to find their route to wealth in any market .

nicurn001 · Sep 19, 2011

About the car... analogies are never perfect but I think the parallel works anyway. Your some one didn't need care until something unusual happened that he did need it... Ann's guy didn't need a car until something unusual happened that he did need it (her example was that he was in the path of a hurricane, I cut off a bit too much of her article to see it in the clip).

I agree analogies are tricky things , and I had to think for a while about the above .

But no the car is NOT a need it is his choice of how to mitigated the risk he faces , the risk being hit by the hurricane , the car being his way of avoiding the risk , he could have choose as many do to remain in harms way , if lucky he would be uninjured if not he would be injured only at that time if his injuries are catastrophic will a need have been created ie. he will need health care .

To some extent our discussion is irrelevant as we are both going to justify our political views and probably not effect eithers view . But as will be pointed out ad infinitum it is the lack of any attempt to dissociate conservatives from the appalling cheers that will tarnish the image of conservatives ( many of whom share the abhorrence of this incident ) .

heron, ASN, RN · Sep 19, 2011

Have to say that I tend to agree with nicurn ... the track record of the health insurance industry in keeping costs down and financing our health care needs has been appalling.

As for "failing to dissociate conservatives from the appalling cheers" ... well, not a failure since I believe that many conservatives do not "share the abhorence of the incident". I believe that the attitudes and stereotypes expressed in post #2 - whose author feels so strongly about the poor that he/she joined specifically to post this entry - are more prevalent than anyone is willing to admit.

On the contrary, I think that single cheer let the cat out of the bag. Letting an uninsured person die if he can not pay for care is just one of the more predictable outcomes of the conservative assault on what's left of our social safety nets. Heck ... it's already happening now ... haven't seen much conservative commentary on the situation, either.

Saysfaa · Sep 20, 2011

ate post, I meant to hit "go advanced"

Saysfaa · Sep 20, 2011

"To some extent our discussion is irrelevant as we are both going to justify our political views and probably not effect eithers view." I've found such discussions often do but not always.

" But as will be pointed out ad infinitum it is the lack of any attempt to dissociate conservatives from the appalling cheers that will tarnish the image of conservatives ( many of whom share the abhorrence of this incident ) ." Uh, hm, I assume this is because we are back to the conservatives cheering the hypothetical guy's death. I still don't think that is what was cheered. As for tarnishing the image, that is just funny. There is no way to avoid that other than not being conservative.

It was nice talking to you anyway.

Heron,

I think the second great blow to privately financed health care was the insurance companies.

And that less government management does not mean no safety net... see the first great blow for some of historic safety nets relevent to health care.

nicurn001 · Sep 20, 2011

just listened to the youtube clip of incident being discussed in this thread .

A) it is correct congressman Paul did indeed say no to the hypothesis that the patient should be allowed to die

B) but it is incorrect , that only one member of the crowd cheered that idea , there is one yes , then several others who cheer etc., approvingly .

I'm sorry I cannot accept the apologists view of this incident , it is not because of my progressive views , it is due to a visceral , moral repugnance of anybody who can cheer in support of the idea of letting someone die rather than give them care .

While I respect the right of others to their opinions , in an incident such as this we should be able to seperate political expediency from our sense of common decency .

llg, PhD, RN · Sep 20, 2011

just listened to the youtube clip of incident being discussed in this thread .
A) it is correct congressman Paul did indeed say no to the hypothesis that the patient should be allowed to die
B) but it is incorrect , that only one member of the crowd cheered that idea , there is one yes , then several others who cheer etc., approvingly .

Yes. Exactly. Worth repeating. There were several people in the audience who cheered the suggestion that the man be allowed to die because he didn't have insurance. They were not cheering Paul's muffled "No" answer to the question. Anyone actually viewing/listening to the tape can tell that.

Saysfaa · Sep 20, 2011

I agree the audience cheering for the seconds after that question were cheering the audience guy's "Yes" rather than Ron Paul's muffled "No"... that is not what I meant by them cheering his answer of (paraphrased) *No, society should not just let him die*. The cheers for Paul's answer came fifteen seconds later when he said "[before Medicaid]...We never turned anybody away from the hospitals". And after his whole answer which included "care of ourselves and assume responsibility for ourselves. Our neighbors, our friends, our churches would do it."

Examples of this (mine, not Ron Paul's): the memorial that paid for half of an alzheimers unit in rural community a few years ago and the community donations that paid for the rest of it, the multiple 9/11 funds, the support from mostly strangers to several of the families that had sextuplets, septuplets, and coojoined twins a few years ago, the support from mostly neighbors that paid for the experimental surgury and the support of the family of a man with a brain tumor in my community last year.

I still think the "yes" and its cheers were exasperation over Blitzer's not letting Paul answer by repeatedly interrupting to push yet another left wing set up scenario and was not about letting people die.

nicurn001 · Sep 21, 2011

The idea anyone was setup is risible .As are ,I'm sorry to say , the attempts to justify / reinterpret the audience reaction .