DUMB letters to the Plain Dealer Part DCLXVI: A Repuke Health (s)Care TriFECta!!

[HughBeaumont]

I nominate Cleveland Republicans for Conservative Idiots of the Weak. Here's a trifecta of stupidity from Cuyahoga County's FINEST home-brewed dumbasses, all from well-to-do suburbs of course. The topic is, as usual, "soshulahzed med'sin!" It's really REALLY hard to stomach this garbage, which is one reason why I'm not renewing my subscription to this rag. Far too many letters of misinformation such as these get prominence without a substantial rebuttal to be coincidental.

The article these cretins are responding to would be Dick Feagler's column "Why do we fear socialized care?" http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/dick_feagler/index.ssf?/base/opinion-0/1185618788126740.xml&coll=2

Feagler suggests that America is one of the few countries without socialized medicine. However, we, too, have stumbled down this red road of inefficiency. In America, we have Medicare and Social Security, two programs that should serve as a warning to all who wish to expand the government's power in the health care industry. Not only are these programs underfunded by upwards of trillions of dollars, but experts expect both to collapse before many in my generation can even claim the benefits. They don't work.

The answer is not government; government is the problem. Government mandates and taxes have killed competition across the industry. As "20/20" co-anchor John Stossel says, "Patients rarely shop around, and doctors rarely compete on price or service." We need to bring the market system back to health care, where patients pay for their own services and avoid third-party interference.

Feagler suggests that we dig farther down the socialized medicine hole, but let's be honest about what the effects of socialized care in the United States would be: massive inefficiency, less accountability and colossal taxes. Don't put something so important as health care into the hands of government.

Anthony Miranda, Middleburg Heights

Wow, one only needs to look at the "journalist" he cites to know what side of the fence HE resides on. Unbelievable. It's like the print version of Faux news. And the taxes wouldn't be "Colossal" you cretin. Exorbitant health benefit costs are one of the main reasons US manufacturers, industrialists and the auto industry sent all of their plants overseas, stupid.

Why don't you just tell it like it is and say "I don't wanna pay for some lazy crack addict's drugs or a 'welfare queen's' health care, or for her 10 kids!!!"?? I mean, that's pretty much what you WANT to say, with the whole "creeping socialism", "market-driven", "big gub'mint" (even though government has been found to expand to great lengths during Republican administrations) and "colossal tax" memes.

I have a real issue with Dick Feagler's column Sunday. First of all, why did he wait until he was in his mid-60s, overweight and suffering from diabetes before he decided to apply for long-term-care insurance? It seems to me that he would like to pay some insurance company a few thousand dollars to get hundreds of thousands of dollars in benefits. Plus, he mentioned several times that in other countries, health insurance is "free." Please, there is nothing that is "free," especially health care.

Does Feagler really want the government controlling our health care services? These are the same people who run FEMA, and look at what a great job they did in New Orleans. These are the same people who created the passport fiasco. The same people who run Medicare, due to go bankrupt in the near future. Have you ever attempted to contact Medicare with a question? You can count on holding for 20 minutes. Plus, most people find it necessary to purchase a supplemental policy to cover the gaps in the Medicare coverage. If government intervention is necessary, it should be to require that all individuals purchase a health plan that fits their needs and budget. If the 43 million or so uninsured were contributing to the system, rates would become more affordable and we would not be subject to a program dictated by a Congress that Feagler believes does nothing but perpetuate its own existence.

Chuck Jones Aurora

Uh, DUMBass? Did you ever stop to think that the 43 million aren't insured because maybe, possibly they're TOO DAMNED POOR TO CONTRIBUTE TO THE SYSTEM??? Of course you didn't. You're a Republican. Writin' do'ent MEAN you need ta think first. Stupid. And no one has ever IMPLIED that it was "free", as you weirdly seem to be asserting.

Why do we fear socialized care?" Dick Feagler need only turn the page of Sunday's Forum section to see The Plain Dealer editorial board rail against the Ted Strickland administration's hijacking of taxpayer funds from the Third Frontier initiative.

This is all too typical. Governments at any level have never been responsible stewards of their citizens' resources, and no informed person would advocate turning over one-seventh of the nation's gross domestic product (a recent estimate of U.S. health care expenditures) to Washington lobbyists, insiders, special-interest groups and the legislators beholden to them.

More market-driven solutions, not more government, can fix the U.S. health care system.

David M. Dalton
Northfield Center

Notice how NONE of the white male Republican respondents chose to bring up the 65 ton elephant in the living room in the form of The Iraq Oil OCCUPATION, one that THEIR Presidunce started? One that happens to be vacuuming monies needed for ALL social services . . . including, potentially, universal health care? But they'll gladly pay taxes on that. Soldiers HAVE to die to make Aurora, Middleburg Heights and Northfield Center SAFE from them Ay-Rabs.

[zbdent]

1. The Plain Dealer is a prime example of uninforming the uninformed

when Macheskee (sp?) was in charge, he held a fundraiser for Bush (can you say ... "biased media"????) and forced the editorial staff to keep from putting their choice on the page for the 2004 election ... because it wasn't Bush ...

[WCGreen]

2. Yea there are some nut cases in my neighborhood who listen to

Rush and spout off his shit as it was from god himself...

[Deep13]

3. "...underfunded by upwards of trillions of dollars..."

Trillions? Excuse me while a pull a number out of my ass.

[HughBeaumont]

4. Gee, and WHY are they underfunded by . . . er . . . "trillions"?

[Deep13]

5. I think I know what you are saying with that montage.

The shortage of funds is caused by welfare queens. Yep, that's what it must be. No doubt.

:evilgrin:

[HughBeaumont]

6. Who looks out for the safety and well being of the anointed Suburbanites?? WHO, I ask!??!?11!?

Helping others . . . that's just being a COMMIE!

:rofl:

[unpossibles]

7. these people are grade-A morans

First of all, the fact (and it is a fact) that we in the US pay more for less health care under our current system should be a clue that socialized medicine is not inherently more expensive. In fact, you could argue that it is inherently cheaper - based again on real world examples - because there is not the bureaucracy we have of figuring out who is covered, when they're covered, and fighting for coverage. More than once I have had to make numerous calls to get a bill paid that should have been covered but which my insurance company simply did not want to pay. Eventually they pay it - or some of it - but how many man-hours and dollars are wasted fielding these types of calls?

Secondly, it is also fact that preventative care is cheaper than emergency care, as someone sort of pointed out. What the person doesn't understand is that not everyone can afford preventative care now - again because of lack of insurance or low quality of coverage - thus driving the price up.

Finally, to hold up the shining examples of how the very morans they most likely voted for have ruined social services is laughable at best. Yes, FEMA failed in NOLA, but not because "gubmint is bad!", but because Bush installed an incompetent friend to head it. Period. Same with the problems with Medicare, which are there mainly because (A) our general healthcare is too expensive and limited, and (B) because the "No Gubmint" Republicons in Congress created a system which benefits the Pharmaceutical companies more than the consumer, just like they do with everything.

I wish these morans (and yes, I know I am spelling it incorrectly) would wake up and realize that the problem is not inherent in "Government at every level" but in the fact that We The People - which is the true Government power in this country - need to make more educated and responsible decisions about whom we vote for. We need to elect representatives not based on how well they swagger or whether we'd want to drink a beer with them.

WAKE THE F*CK UP, PEOPLE! If Government is the problem, the solution is more intelligent and better representatives, not getting rid of the government. I can only assume these same people, when their car breaks, leave it on the side of the road because "cars are the problem!!1!" A rational person fixes the car, or gets someone more qualified to fix it for them.