Polling Ideas
By Mitch Berg
Kouba, after sitting through a very, very long Obamatory, ponders:
Abraham asked God to spare Sodom and Gomorrah if 10 righteous people could be found there, and that after talking God down from fifty. I’d bet my lunch money you couldn’t find 10 people in that audience who really know what Obama’s health care “plan” is. I’d bet most of those people assume that when Obama talks about Guaranteed eligibility, Comprehensive benefits, Affordable premiums, co-pays and deductibles, they think they won’t notice much change in their own health care, they just assume it will be cheaper. Somehow. On the way to the billing office, they’ll just stop by the money tree and pick off a few fresh, ripe bills.
I’ve wondered that about the mile-wide, inch-deep nature of awareness on the left in the past (as in this 2003 encounter with a Code Pink crone who was passionately denouncing the concealed carry bill – about which she knew absolutely nothing).
I wonder what an hour on the street in front of an Obamevent would tell us?
No, I don’t really wonder at all.
February 21st, 2008 at 10:26 am
Mitch, you have some audicity, running that. This is not the kind of change I can believe in. I really hope the my aspirations will raise. Power to the people. Clear the way for paramedics.
February 21st, 2008 at 12:37 pm
“On the way to the billing office, they’ll just stop by the money tree and pick off a few fresh, ripe bills”
Stop by anytime, directions here:
http://www.bluecrossmn.com/bc/wcs/groups/bcbsmn/@mbc_bluecrossmn/documents/public/mbc1_glb_contactus_ofcs.hcsp
They have hordes of cash just waiting for the picking.
I wont link to the others, but there is plenty more ‘money trees’ just like them.
February 21st, 2008 at 12:47 pm
Look on the bright side: once the government-run health care system finds itself as the defendant in a slew of specious malpractice suits, we might see tort reform.
February 21st, 2008 at 2:52 pm
I thought you couldn’t sue the Gov’t. So there will be no legal redress for malpractice cases. Watch the Waaaahmbulance chasers go nuts!
February 21st, 2008 at 4:49 pm
I wonder what an hour on the street in front of an Obamevent would tell us?
Sounds like the NARC equivalent of “Jay Walking.” Send out one of your co-hosts with a recording device to interview Obama fans after an event and ask them basic questions and see how many they get wrong.
February 21st, 2008 at 4:49 pm
Ehh, “NARC” = “NARN”
February 21st, 2008 at 11:31 pm
Lileks says:
“once the government-run health care system finds itself as the defendant in a slew of specious malpractice suits”
The good news, we won’t even have to wait for the lawsuits, specious or otherwise. As this post points out
http://www.nathannewman.org/archives/000575.shtml
clear uniformly enforced standards of care will reduce the grounds for most legal medical disputes.
I would add two more reasons UHC will reduce the costs of malpractice litigation. First, a public insurance system can force much more open information policies on providers. No more need for legal discovery just to get the hospitals records on how grandma dies. Second, a public insurance system can establish an effective internal grievance procedure that will divert most cases out of the legal system.
February 22nd, 2008 at 1:56 am
Rick, I’d like to live in your world. It sounds like a wonderful, logical, frictionless place.
“No more need for legal discovery just to get the hospitals records on how grandma dies.” If you think that’s the pith and gist of discovery requests, I suspect your experience in these matters if rather abstract. Ditto the magic “internal grievance procedure” – do you think we don’t have pre-trial systems in place today? A case doesn’t have to go to the legal system to cost the provider.
Disclosure: I happen to be married to a med-mal attorney, so my opinions may be tainted. And we have two doctors in the family who’ll tell you that “uniformly enforced standards of care” would either be so vague they would be meaningless, or so specific they would provide any plaintiff with a rationale for a suit.
February 22nd, 2008 at 6:31 am
Hm. Now my memory may not be as sharp as some, but don’t we have a system in Minnesota that was designed by, you know, the DFL? We certainly have the cost-increasing coverage mandates, and the lack of choices that tends to drive up costs.
So what makes anyone think that they can do any better this time around?
February 22nd, 2008 at 9:43 am
Lileks:
“your experience in these matters if rather abstract”
I thought reporters were supposed to do research. Here is a nice current article on why people initiate medical malpractice suits.
http://www.strasburger.com/p4p/publications/why_people_sue_hospitals.htm
In one study “the six most common reasons include: . . recognized cover-up (24%) [2nd place], . [and]. . needed information (20%) [5th place].” In another study, “I wanted an explanation” tied as the most common reason for lawsuits. Abstract or not, the desire for more information in a major reason med-mal suits are started.
“do you think we don’t have pre-trial systems in place today”
None with the compulsive power equal to a national health system. Americans take their medical disputes to court, in part, because the courts are one of the few institutions with the power to force insurance companies and providers to disclose information and redress a grievance. With a universal health care system, they would have another faster, cheaper, but still effective option.
February 22nd, 2008 at 12:30 pm
I simply have to laugh.
Lileks: “your experience in these matters if rather abstract”
RickDFL: “Here is a nice current article…”
Convincing, RickDFL. Maybe “convincing others RickDFL is a fool” was not what you were attempting to do, but it is a start… *shrug*
February 23rd, 2008 at 11:45 am
Troy:
Do you have some reason to discount the source I cited or do you just object to evidence in general?
February 23rd, 2008 at 12:07 pm
I entirely discount your “experience” in this matter RickDFL, and I certainly don’t trust you as an information gatherer, so we may have to rely on your ability to construct an argument…
…good luck.
February 24th, 2008 at 9:33 am
Troy said:
“I entirely discount your “experience” in this matter RickDFL”
Fine, but in this matter I have not relied on my experience to assert or prove anything. That is the beauty of independent sources.
“I certainly don’t trust you as an information gatherer”
You don’t need to, that is the beauty of independent sources. Whether the information I gathered on the reason people file med-mal lawsuits is true or false has nothing to do with me. If you think the cited studies published in JAMA and The Lancet are wrong, feel free to give a reason. If you have other evidence that provides an alternative explanation, feel free to provide it.
“so we may have to rely on your ability to construct an argument”
If the question is “why do people file med-mal lawsuits”, then I would think the best argument would start with a scientific opinion survey of people who file these cases published in two peer-reviewed medical journals. It is not the end of the argument, but it is a really good start. How would you “construct an argument” to answer the question?
February 25th, 2008 at 7:41 am
RickDFL, you looked up a couple of articles on the internet. Yay RickDFL!
A “scientific opinion survey”? You wrote that? Wow.
You are a Google mannequin who seems to think his searches translate directly into arguments that others have to counter. And you are wrong.
February 25th, 2008 at 8:26 am
Troy said:
“RickDFL, you looked up a couple of articles on the internet”
It seem beyond your meager capacity.
“arguments that others have to counter”
There is no need for you to counter anything. You are free to wallow in ignorance. But your clear inability to counter evidence or introduce your own, pretty well speaks for itself.
February 25th, 2008 at 10:41 am
RickDFL, you have an elastic definition of the word ‘evidence’, and you have yet to demonstrate a lack of ignorance for all your URL spamming.
A happy Monday to you.
February 25th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
Troy:
Everyone with a neurotic ex thanks you for a refresher course in passive-aggressive posturing.
Far be it from me to ruin the “if it feels good, believe it’ vibe you got going in your own little private hippy commune. Reality is a harsh mistress and probably best left unexamined by tender minds such as you.
February 25th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
RickDFL:
I really don’t want to know about your current or former mistresses, how “real” they were, their mental state, or what kind of posture they had.
And “private hippy commune”? I think someone disconnected from the “reality based community”…