Le Connard du Jour
I can’t think of anyone I’d rather read on health care reform than Betsy Newmark, a frumpy high school teacher and quiz bowl coach from an overwhelmingly white charter school in North Carolina. For those who may not hold the same interest in reading Ms. Newmark’s musings on health care, here’s the executive summary: “Just like you can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs, you can’t have a good health care system without letting a few poor people die.”
Betsy’s launching pad for her lunatic ideas on health care is a Wall Street Journal article that she selectively quotes to suggest that the French health care system is on the verge of collapse. In particular, she latches on to this statement:
The problem is that Assurance Maladie has been in the red since 1989. This year the annual shortfall is expected to reach €9.4 billion ($13.5 billion), and €15 billion in 2010, or roughly 10% of its budget.
Let’s put that into some needed context, shall we, before we start peddling disaster scenarios. Here’s a chart on the evolution of Assurance Maladie’s deficit straight from la bouche de cheval, i.e. Assurance Maladie itself:
Source: Assurance Maladie, Chiffres & repères 2007
As you can see, the deficit of the French health care system began to be systematically and significantly reduced starting in 2005. So why the sudden increase to 9.4 billion euros in 2009? Well, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist or even a quiz bowl coach to guess: the economic crisis and the unemployment caused by it. Duh. Of course, in France, unemployment doesn’t result in more uninsured people as it does in the United States, but it does mean less payments to Assurance Maladie et, voilà, a bigger deficit for Assurance Maladie. To project these deficits, caused by current increases in unemployment, to increase indefinitely into the future is une montagne of merde de taureau.
More context: the French deficit for 2008 was 65.9 billion euros or 3.4% of France’s GDP. Assurance Maladie’s deficit is only 14 percent of the entire deficit or 0.47 percent of the GDP. Those are not numbers, even were they to continue, that would force France to choose between hocking the Eiffel Tower or throwing old ladies with cancer out onto the cobblestones.
But, oh no, Ms. Quiz Bowl Coach thinks that providing 100 percent coverage will be the end of the space-time continuum as we now know it:
And once we start down that road, we’ll find that, like France, it becomes politically impossible for a democracy to cut costs. Too many people will become accustomed, as the French have, to seeing low-cost health care as their right and scream bloody murder if politicians try to trim costs.
That’s all well and good for the recipients of that 100% coverage, but it is not economically feasible in the long run.
Bzzzzzzzzt. Wrong answer, Ms. Newmark. Your team loses 50 points. Nothing in your figures warrants any conclusions about what is economically feasible in the long run.
More importantly, our quiz bowl whiz is saying straight out that the problem is having everyone insured. Health care, she thinks, is a zero-sum game, and every Viagra pill given to an unemployed person is a Viagra pill taken away from her husband (although I suspect that more than a blue pill would have to be involved to convince him to roll over in the marital bed and have at it with Betsy).
Once again, the only argument that these wingnuts have against health care reform and universal coverage boils down to this: “I’ve got mine, bitchez. Sucks to be you.”
That’s the standard glibertarian mantra: all responses are a variation on, “fuck you, I got mine”, “nyah-nyah boo-hoo” and “suck it up, losers.”
But thanks for playing, Besty! What consolation prizes do we have for our dumb-as-stump-with-a-box-of-rocks-on-it contestant, Hugh…?
Health care, she thinks, is a zero-sum game, and every Viagra pill given to an unemployed person is a Viagra pill taken away from her husband…
Standard winguttien:
The Federal Government can give nothing to anybody unless they take it from someone else first.
Works for all values of nothing = anything that helps anyone besides the tycoon class, anybody = suckers who aren’t tycoons, and someone else = the tycoon class,
“although I suspect that more than a blue pill would have to be involved to…”
Then give him the red pill and let him wake up. Give her one, too.
Even if her points weren’t ludicrously easy to rebut, is anyone within 5 furlongs of any actual power arguing for a French-style system?
Yeah. The bill on Congress which has been neutered by blue dogs, is so totally gonna make you Government’s bitch.
The French system wouldn’t be bad because it’s a single payer system that preserves autonomy. Assurance Maladie doesn’t interfere in treatment decisions made by doctors in the way that, under the American system, an insurance bureaucrat second-guesses every decision that your doctor makes.
Most everyone has a better system than we do.
(Of course, typing this proves I hate Freedom™ and want the terrarists to win.)
P.S. Speaking of terrarists...
(Warning: pictures of wingnuts, proudly posted by wingnuts. HA HA!)
It wouldn’t be a bad way to go, but is it being mentioned by politicians as anything but an example of what we won’t be doing? I was under the impression that this sort of system was already off the table.
It is off-the-table, but it shouldn’t be. Single-payer is the only way to control costs, and it certainly has kept French costs down. The French system shows that you can still have patient choice and a single-payer. It’s not a perfect system, but as anyone who’s been in France and used it can attest, it’s much better than ours. Consider this: doctors still make house calls.
Frumpy and gray-haired is not the reason why Betsy is wrong. Could we please try to stay out of the “our side is sexy” mindset?
Oh, what, I can’t even post pictures now?
“We are proud crazy people laughing at you” is somewhat unsettling.
This is the only picture you need, SOCIALIST!
ah I’d lay any odds she also loudly proclaims herself a good Christian….
No, it shouldn’t be off the table, but unfortunately it is, which seems to make her article an exercise in baying at the moon. That’s what I don’t get, why does she bother to inveigh against something that isn’t in the cards for the foreseeable future? I guess I should just shrug my shoulders and say to myself, “wingnuts, eh?” but dang.
Oh, what, I can’t even post pictures now?
Five years of hard labor for thought crimes.
Next!
I’ll bet the fix is in.
My friends from France told me about the “house call van”, even before it was featured in “Sicko”. A French woman friend who was in the US a couple years ago while pregnant, had a severe pain in her abdomen and was taken to the hospital (this was in Miami.) It turned out to be no danger, everything was fine BUT… she sat for hours in an emergency room (something almost all Americans take for granted) before being seen, and since she had no American health insurance, she was presented a bill for $2000.00! This was to take a blood sample, an ultrasound, and inform her that nothing was wrong.
Of course, an American in France with in the same situation would have been presented wit a bill for rien.
I have never heard a woman so loudly and continuously cursing in French before. Quite lovely and frightening, actually.
ifthethunderdontgetya
well, i went over and made a comment. wonder how long it’ll stay up. teh stupid there was mighty.
But our side is sexy! I mean, you’ve seen those wingnut townhall pictures….
Frumpy is as frumpy does. It has nothing to do with being “traditionally” good looking, whatever that means. It’s an attitude. I know plenty of people who are “traditionally pretty” with all the charisma and sensuality of a wet bag of potting soil. And I know people who are not traditionally pretty who radiate sex appeal and have no lack of willing bed partners.
A friend of mine defines conservatism as the sneaking suspicion that someone, somewhere, is getting something they don’t deserve.
Frumpy and gray-haired is not the reason why Betsy is wrong. Could we please try to stay out of the “our side is sexy” mindset?
That just triggered me.
We just spent (quick maths) $37+ billion dollars on a useless air superiority plane, and lord knows how much building a new floating target, er, super carrier.
But yes, god forbid we spend money on keeping the population healthy. That won’t help us blow up foreigners!
Frumpy and gray-haired is not the reason why Betsy is wrong. Could we please try to stay out of the “our side is sexy” mindset?
Maybe it’s all the inner ugly just bubbling to the surface. Ever stop to think about that, eh? Liberals are just better looking on the surface because they aren’t filled with rotting hatred and atrophied brains of the type that do not even tempt zombie rotten mcdonald. This inner loveliness seeps out to the surface, see. And that’s why it’s ok to talk about how ugly wingers is – because the ugly is all leaking out from the inside.
An extra helping of nuts on your Saturday cereal:
http://www.stopmedicare.org/
Elderly teageezers support this, that’s how dumb they are.
A friend of mine defines conservatism as the sneaking suspicion that someone, somewhere, is getting something they don’t deserve.
Yes, plus a couple corollaries:
– The conservative is not getting what he or she deserves because of it.
– The reason the person who doesn’t deserve it is getting it is that liberals are unfairly giving it to them because the undeserving receiver is black / Mexican / liberal / female / etc.
Man, that wingnut website is full of teh crazy, but the best is this:
The [San Francisco Mime Troupe] has an extremely influential history and has caused incalculable damage to America.
Mimes. Destroying America. Damn you, France!
http://www.balloon-juice.com/?p=25171
The [San Francisco Mime Troupe] has an extremely influential history and has caused incalculable damage to America.
Thousands of avoidable invisible-box suffocations have been traced back to them.
And who do you think pays for those invisible-box suffocations? Hmmm? We do, through ER visits, and mimes are notorious for being uninsured.
And don’t even get me started on the dangers of “walking into a high wind.” {shudder}
The weird thing is she almost stumbled, by accident, upon the only problem single payer systems are plagued by: not that it’s politically impossible to cut costs, but the opposite. It’s politically difficult to spend enough on it. Just as with every other government program with the exception of war-making, the powerful will try to starve it. Witness NHS in the UK, witness AM in France.
And who do you think pays for those invisible-box suffocations? Hmmm? We do, through ER visits
I have it on good authority that opening those boxes can severely damage the jaws of life, screwing local fire departments’ budgets for months.
Not to sweep in and change the topic but oh your God Sadlys and Sadlyettes, meet your new favorite winger: Christopher Miller.
Wow.
I think you’ve just given me the idea for the start of a porn empire: ChicksCursingAtYouInRapidFireFrench.com. Watch as foreign women drive around in a van, stopping to randomly curse out strange dudes. Buy a membership now and you’ll also get a membership to the whole ChicksCursingAtYou family of sites: Italian and Spanish for those of vanilla tastes; Cambodian, Hungarian and Albanian for those that prefer the rough stuff.
And why should I b expected to pay out of my hard-earned money to support some Frenchified clown and their choice-related occupation?
If you’re going to wear pancake make-up and pretend to cry, become a Republican’s trophy spouse!
Buy a membership now and you’ll also get a membership to the whole ChicksCursingAtYou family of sites
Roma. You need Roma.
Buy a membership now and you’ll also get a membership to the whole ChicksCursingAtYou family of sites: Italian and Spanish for those of vanilla tastes; Cambodian, Hungarian and Albanian for those that prefer the rough stuff.
And the premium of premium sites, Arabic, German and Russian chicks cursing at you.
.And the premium of premium sites, Arabic, German and Russian chicks cursing at you.
I’ll thank you to leave my marriage out of it.
A friend of mine defines conservatism as the sneaking suspicion that someone, somewhere, is getting something they don’t deserve.
Make that someone poorer, or otherwise less worthy by reason of skin color, sexual preference, etc.
Uh, did anyone give the Hawaiians the all-clear and that they can come out of the bomb shelters now?
Again, we’ve WON.
Again? When the fuck did you win before – that you predicted?
The vote hasn’t happened yet, and you know how accurate your predictions are…. PIEFILTER!
Played by Miriam Margolyes.
Big profits, big CEO bonuses, and the free market will continue. So suck on it.
All as Jesus would have it, especially the sucking.
Business week said we’ve won.
They don’t know the vote hasn’t happened yet either?
(Oh yes. Nymjack = admission of loss. No take-backs. LLLLLLLLLLLL.)
Though I didn’t mention the velocity, you’re spot-on: it was astoundingly rapid-fire. I could only make out the occasional “salop stupide” and many instances of “merde merde MERDE!!!”
But yeah, it was kind of hot, now that you mention it…
Vote? There’s not going to be any vote.
Yet more of the Conservatard devotion to democracy that led us to kill a million people in Iraq.
Fixx0red.
(and because nymjack = admission of loss, you’ve lost three more times. No take-backs. LLLLLLLLLLLL.)
Was it subverting democracy when you prevented Miguel Estrada and Social Security Reform from coming to a vote?
No. And it didn’t kill two million people in Iraq, either.
(and because nymjack still = admission of loss, you’ve lost again. Address my point. No take-backs. LLLLLLLLLLLL.)
(you’ve lost again.)
Where do you get your “news” from, ANSWER?
Business Week. They’re always right.
It isn’t an admission of lost
It is. So are typos, so you lose again. Ping!
“Social Secruity reform” never had 3/4ers of the population in favor of it, Troofie.
But please, keep making predictions. We know how good you are with predictions – whatever you predict, the opposite will happen!
BTW, are you scared to attend your local town hall?
No.
Does it make you wet your pants to be standing next to a salt-of-the-earth American who may be armed?
No.
Are you guys that easy to push around?
No.
Republicans support healthcare reform, but not socialized medicine.
If their vision is so great, why are they stooping to threats and bringing guns to peaceful meetings to intimidate people?
Or in short, terrorism?
There’s no such thing as “Obamacare”, Troofie. He’s not offered any legislation.
You know, here’s a tip: you really ought to call it “Pelosicare” instead. After all, her poll numbers are much lower. Obama’s are higher than any other national politician.
You’re welcome.
And don’t say you’re using terrorism because the president is at war with the people. That’s drunken abuser bullshit.
Terrorist.
Troofie, since you appear to think you would benefit from the Republicans getting everything their own way, that obviously means you’re a billionaire. If I were a fucking billionaire, I could find something more entertaining to do than trolling some random political humor blog. Therefore, I’m as sure as I am of anything that you are not in fact a billionaire. That means you are certifiably insane. Well? Well? Press my coats, con!
Our tactics are no different from ACORN, MoveOn.org, ANSWER, Cindy Sheehan, or other left wing groups.
Cindy Sheehan is a left-wing group, check.
No wonder you’re a supply-sider – you can’t count!
Show me where ACORN says to bring guns to “town hells” and intimidate people – like terrorists. Where they say it, not where one of your wankstain rightie heroes says they say it.
No different from what we’re doing now.
So, if your enemy does it, it’s OK. That’s why we bombed Saddam for being a torturer, then started torturing?
all of a sudden you’re hiding under your desks like little girls?
Who’s doing that? All those people showing up to town halls that the terrorists are trying to intimidate with guns they bought to try to make their weenies look bigger? Clearly not.
Or are you saying a lot of people are staying home hiding because the town halls would have a zillion supporters if your terrorism hadn’t succeeded?
Doesn’t that mean you’re admitting that there’s great popular support for Obamacare?
Caught lying again, Troofie. Unless you’ve got something to back that up.
If you idiots want to march around in the streets with your silly “Obama=Nazi” signs, knock yourselves out. Hell, we on the Left encourage you to do so. It worked so well for you at the Palin rallies, after all.
We won’t even make you stay in a “designated free speech area.”
But when did the Left ever pack heat and scream lies at people inside Congressional town hall meetings?
George W. Bush was worse than Hitler, should have been assassinated, wasn’t threatened enough, but still got 1/4 the death threats per day that Obama does, was a liar, was stupid, Cheney was worse than Darth Vader, was the Evil Emperor, and we’ll take just so much of your brownshirt tactics at town halls and then show you what it’s all about! Impress my goats, Troofus!
DeMint’s plan is socialism.
Provides Americans without employer-based health insurance with vouchers of $2000 for individuals and $5000 for families to purchase health insurance.
DeMint’s plan encourages people to be lazy and unemployed.
DeMint’s plan is free market oriented
Nope. Communism and fluoride. You lose.
I just deleted the troll’s nymjacked comments. If trolls want to debate any of the troll feeders here on topic, they’ll have to use a unique nym.
Fuck the “free market” shitstain! Anybody who thinks that health care should be part of the money economy, well, enemies of the people like that are what bullets and brick walls were invented for!
DeMint is just fooling you into supporting the real socialism.
I just deleted the troll’s nymjacked comments.
Thank you.
A new supply of ramen must have made it into the house. But the meds didn’t. Or the right ones, anyway.
If trolls want to debate any of the troll feeders here on topic, they’ll have to use a unique nym.
Can you make them dance, too? I’d really love to watch trolls dance…the badgers no longer thrill me.
Again, if you want French health care, move to FRANCE. You obviously don’t like this country anyway.
My boyfriend is so good at fucking my in my asshole. I’m such a dirty little faggot!
Anybody who thinks that health care should be part of the money economy, well, enemies of the people like that are what bullets and brick walls were invented for!
I’m at a loss as to how anything touching on life and safety should be based on a free-marketing thinking. Health care, fire protection, policing, food inspection…failure means someone is sick or dead and free-market philosophy requires failure. Then again, these are the same shit-bags who have supported privatizing the army, so why am I surprised?
If French healthcare is so good, then why is Julia Child, famous for popularizing French cuisine in this country, now dead?*
Explain that one, libs.
*also, Jacques Cousteau. Also dead.
Then again, these are the same shit-bags who have supported privatizing the army, so why am I surprised?
Yeah, true. It was such a shock to find that the leader of that private army is a religious-fanatic murderer, too.
I wish I could move to France, maybe their single payer system would force taxpayers to cover my AIDS.
I wish I could move to Somalia, where the free market reigns.
It was such a shock to find that the leader of that private army is a religious-fanatic murderer, too.
I reacted to that news by having an extra rum and coke. A Cuba Libra, if you will. Communist liqueur. Castro’s Snot. DEMON RUM AND COCAINE-DERIVED SOFT-DRINK.
Somalia isn’t a free market, because they don’t have a way of enforcing property rights (i.e., and army, police, and courts system).
Ah, picking up on my idea of blaming Pelosi, eh? Again, you’re welcome.
I’m not free market. A free market requires an army, police force, and courts system to enforce and regulate property rights (one of the view proper roles of government).
Ah, picking up on my idea of blaming Pelosi, eh? Again, you’re welcome.
I should thank you too. It was a big improvement over his blatant advocacy of terrorism.
A free market requires an army, police force, and courts system to enforce and regulate property rights
Which are paid for by taxes, so wrong. You lose.
one of the view proper roles of government
What does that even mean?
In regard to my last post, I’m also noticing that both Julia Child and Jacques Cousteau share their initials, J.C., with the best argument of all against healthcare reform: Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ was crucified, but rose again three days later. And he sure didn’t need the feds fitting the bill with some government-approved “doctor” to do so. If we’d had Obamacare back then (or if he’d lived in Canada), Jesus would probably still be waiting in line at some terrifying inner-city clinic surrounded by syphilitic prostitutes and meth addicts. And he still yet wouldn’t have arisen from the dead. That is, if the government hadn’t demand he be euthanized… yet again.
Also, Hitler.
Wharrgarbl!! THIS IS A STATEMENT ABOUT BLACK PEOPLE
Not all taxes are bad. Only confiscatory and class-based taxes that punish the wealthy and successful.
Flat, low, national sales tax could easily fund a court system, police force, and army and would be fair to all, encouraging thrift, productivity, investment, and economic growth.
I love taxes so much I would have taxes’ babies, abort those babies, then have sex with the aborted babies, and also black people.
Not all taxes are bad.
I’m so bookmarking this.
So you’re in favor of abolishing all states rights and jurisdictions, and installing a centralized, National Police Force? Okay then, Stalin.
You’re right, though; the wealthy have it SO hard in America. When, oh when, will they be delivered from their agony and suffering of a 5% higher tax rate?
Sales taxes are theft. Those lucky duckies shopping at the dollar store only pay $0.07 per packet of ramen, while poor Thurston Howell has to pay literally dozens of dollars when he sups at Smith and Wollensky.
Those lucky duckies shopping at the dollar store only pay $0.07 per packet of ramen, while poor Thurston Howell has to pay literally dozens of dollars when he sups at Smith and Wollensky.
Of course, Thurston can write it off if he claims it was a business expense, but then the lucky duckies have the same right. It just ain’t fair.
Hmm… those white kids at her school sure are a precocious bunch
District Graduation Rates 102%
Damn grade inflation!
I spent an hour or so last night touring a few European cities via Google Maps’ Street View. Seems to me that if more Americans could be made to see how much nicer the socialist hellholes of Yurp are than the free-market suburban paradises they inhabit, maybe we could get somewhere as a culture.
Here’s an idea: privatize all the drinking water supplies in the US, and completely de-regulate the water corporations. Then, when the Enron equivalent of water supply decides to screw with the market, people who can’t afford the manipulated inflated rates for water will either die of thirst or drink from non-sanitary sources, and we can have cholera again, just like a third-world nation! And also, no health care for those freeloaders who drank the dirty water and contracted cholera – if they weren’t poor people or lazy bums trying to cheat the Very Large Water Corporation of America out of their hard-earned profits by drinking from alternative water sources, they wouldn’t have gotten sick!
Dimwitted angry-assed troll is angry-assed.
And banned.
HA HA!
/Nelson Muntz
~
So if you reduce their point down to its basic elements, here’s what they seem to be arguing:
Rationing health care for seniors (i.e., me) = EVIL
Rationing health care for poor people = Oh, well.
OT, but tonight, I will be pan-frying up a mess of lovely wart squash, cooking a pot of purple-hull peas, and preparing a delicious caprese salad with fresh tomatoes and basil from the farmer’s market, along with some wonderful real mozzarella. Yummmmmm.
Since the dawn of time man has yearned to destroy the sun.
I like how the recent James Bond movie was based on the real life actions of Bechtel’s hijacking of water rights in Bolivia, except they thought they had to tone down how evil Bechtel was in real life for them to be believable as a Bond villain.
I’m unbannable!
You all still haven’t talked about DeMint’s Healthcare Freedom Plan.
Why don’t you talk about The Mint’s Healthcare Freedom Plan?
I assume it means that we’re all free from the burden of having healthcare at all, since we’re just worthless non-rich trash.
Do we get cake?
# Protects the right of Americans to keep their employer-based plan if they so choose.
# Provides Americans without employer-based health insurance with vouchers of $2000 for individuals and $5000 for families to purchase health insurance.
# Allows Americans with Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) to use their HSA funds to pay for insurance premiums, encouraging employers to contribute to their employees’ HSAs.
# Creates a national market for health insurance by allowing individuals to purchase health insurance plans in any state.
# Provides block grants to states to develop innovative models that ensure affordable health insurance coverage for Americans with pre-existing health conditions.
# Reduces predatory and frivolous malpractice lawsuits against physicians and hospitals.
# Assures that every health care consumer has access to price information prior to treatment so they can make informed decisio about their care.
# Repeals financial bailouts (TARP) to fund health care vouchers.
Between 2005-2010, according to OpenSecrets.org, Senator DeMint received $226,000 from health professionals and another $209,000 from insurance companies. If something like DeMint’s plan ever became reality, those campaign contributions could be considered one of the greatest investments of all time. Because what DeMint is proposing here is a transfer of truly vast sums of money from the federal government straight to the HMO industry. Who needs to nationalize health care? Let’s just give them all our money.
And at no cost to the taxpayer! Or, as the press release puts it, “without adding a single dime to the deficit.”
How, you might wonder, could the U.S. government offer a $5000 health care voucher to every uninsured American family without adding a dime to the deficit? The answer is brilliant: Pay for the program with TARP money! Yes, “The Health Care Freedom Plan” is paid for by requiring banks to pay back all their TARP money within five years, and then use that money for the vouchers.
Frankly, I am in awe. Nothing will be added to the deficit because we will be re-using money that was added to the deficit last September.
So what happens when TARP runs out? How would succeeding allocations of vouchers be funded? There’s not a whisper of an answer to that question in the DeMint press release or summary.
Two other questions.
First: If the government is offering vouchers to anyone unhappy with their current coverage, why should businesses bother offering health care coverage to their employees at all? There’s a built-in incentive here for employers to abandon their own health care offerings, which would surely send the cost of the government program skyrocketing in short order. (Yes, this would be a potential problem with any government-subsidized health care reform, but the incentive seems particularly stark in this case.)
Second: How exactly would this plan work to bring down health care costs? At first glance it would seem to do exactly the opposite. A massive transfer of taxpayer dollars almost directly to the HMOs would seem inherently inflationary. What incentive does anyone have to cut costs when the government directly subsidizes the HMOs?
http://www.salon.com/tech/htww/2009/06/23/demint_health_care_plan/
# Provides Americans without employer-based health insurance with vouchers of $2000 for individuals and $5000 for families to purchase health insurance.
# Provides block grants to states to develop innovative models that ensure affordable health insurance coverage for Americans with pre-existing health conditions.
SOCIALISM!!!!
# Assures that every health care consumer has access to price information prior to treatment so they can make informed decision about their care.
Well, there in lies the problem. “Consumers”. They’re fucking buying Gatorade, they’re getting chemotherapy.
# Repeals financial bailouts (TARP) to fund health care vouchers.
Ya know, we got a gross +/- of those useless air superiority fighters we could not buy, and some stupid super carriers being built…. oh right, that will hinder our ability to bomb foreigners.
Translation: Allows everyone to decide to die if they don’t have enough money in their pocket.
Translation: Allows medical murderers to go scot-free no matter how obvious their incompetence or malice may be.
Translation: Pisses away taxpayer’s money “encouraging” states to provide coverage that never quite appears.
Some Guy sums up the liberal view of people: “people are too stupid to know what they really want or need, so the government must tell them what they want”.
And therein lies the lib view of the American people–“they’re too stupid to know what the want/need, so our panel of experts will decide for them”.
I especially liek the one about giving money to the states (?) to develop plans to help cover pre-existing conditions.
Health Care Companies have been hemorrhaging (Medical joke! HA!) payers for decades, and they’re still making record profits. 20%, and climbing, of Americans are not covered. Insurance companies are looking at 60 million potential customers and not every trying to get them.
And why would they? Just keep raising rates. No need to have 2 people pay you a thousand dollars a month, when you can have just one pay you $2000, and HALF you likelihood of loosing profits… er… having to pay out coverage.
Insurance companies are leeches of society. They don’t do anything. They don’t make anything. They simply sit there, and take your money, and hope you die quickly in a horrific car wreck. And if, God forbid, you simply get sick or injured and need treatment, well goddammit, won’t someone PLEASE think of the stock holders?!
Yes, because it’s exactly like choosing a new flatware pattern at Macy’s or whereverthefuck. Gee, I hope my kid’s asthma treatments are on sale this month. Asshole.
Not Very Far Off-Topic:
I had a funny little hunch that Obama was going to suckerpunch the GOP’s bum-buddies in the insurance industry at some point – & do so in an unexpected way ( I think he’s got a real thing about knocking his opponents off their game ) … whaddaya know, it looks like I was right.
Wingnuts suddenly finding their Inner Naomi Klein & baaaaaawing about the peril to oh-so-fragile US democracy of Obama “now being in the pockets of Big Pharma” in 3 … 2 …1 …
# Provides block grants to states to develop innovative models that ensure affordable health insurance coverage for Americans with pre-existing health conditions.
“Innovative.” As in, neither requiring private insurance to treat pre-existing conditions, nor providing a government alternative. I think what he meant to say was “imaginary.”
Why the fuck try to re-invent a universal health care system when there are so many models out there that have
# Already been proven to work in the real world
and
# Cost half of what the DeMented “plan” will cost?
I hear that a socialist invented the wheel. When are the Randian uber-men going to start insisting we change the shape of our tires to something that doesn’t work as well (or at all), such as the “square”, so we can avoid using those socially-socialistic wheelie dealies?
Right on, Troofie! Heaven forbid anybody who actually fucking knows anything about a given subject should have any say in it!
I was un-aware that giving people who have been abandoned to die by multi-billion dollar corporations the ability to pay for medical procedures is the same thing as buying their groceries for them, but okay, whatevs.
So you’re enjoying the current system of rationing off care to the highest bidder, are you?
So the italic tag doesn’t work any more?
Troofie took his own kidney out with a spoon just to show those fucking elitist experts a thing or two. Didn’t cost him or his HMO a dime, either.
We’re almost there.
Much better to trust the decisions to a corporate panel with a vested interest in not giving you coverage.
Housing, food, and clothing are way more basic than health care and we let the free narket handle that, with the exception of the very poor–just like health care now.
We’re almost there.
Hey! And he’s wearing the expression the Galt-goers wear most of the time!
Housing, food, and clothing are way more basic than health care and we let the free narket handle that, with the exception of the very poor–just like health care now.
Uh…hey dumbfuck, ever hear of food stamps or section 8 housing?
And yet you trust thye government to run the military? Those are some weird priorities you have there, buddy.
So the italic tag doesn’t work any more?
The italic tag is thinking about going Galt.
Hey Jennifer, you shaggy cunt, I said “with the exception of the very poor”. What’s the matter? Trouble paying attention because its PMS time?
HA! I see what you did there, Thunder.
Now, I need to call my congressmen to keep their bloat, incompetent, constant fail big government out of my goddman corn flakes, and get back to building some goddman nuclear warheads!
So, 20%+ of Americans are destitute, that numbers grows every day, and you see this as fine. Nice. Have you picked out supplies you and your outlaw motorcycle gang will be hording and guarding with your wrist mounted-crossbows? I”m going to try to corner the eye patch market.
What about food subsidies that the government pays out to farmers to keep food prices artificially low, HMMM?!
Or suppose the price of jeans goes up 200% every year, and soon the cheapest pair at Walmart is $60. Shall the poor go naked?
What’s the matter? Trouble paying attention because its PMS time?
Is that YOU, Vanderloon?
The fact is, spanky, that after we destroy the American way of life, and grind up the rich to improve the health of the poor, mostly-brown, masses, conservatives like you are going to be rounded up in out ACORN-run camps. The lucky ones will get to die right out; the rest will be forced to work in our underground abortion mines.
So just in this thread alone, Troofus has insulted or thrown under the bus: women, gays, poor people, non-whites, and liberals. What’s left? Enough to win an election?
shaggy cunt
Is that like, a cunt that’s been shagged a lot? Or is it a cunt that’s “shaggy” as in like a shag hair style? Or is it a really groovy-psychedelic cunt in the style of 60’s Chelsea? So many possibilities….
No, it must be The Shaggs!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shaggs
Shaggs Rule, OK!!!
Some Guy, can I get a bankster to rub my tired sweaty feet? I just need the one.
Oh, he will also need to lick my dog’s ass clean twice a day.
Gotta fly, so I won’t read to see if it has been said yet, but… There is Another.
You forget the corollary, “I’m not going to pay a dime for the niggers no matter how much it hurts me.”
The Shaggs!
“My Pal Foot-Foot” fuckin’ ROCKS, maaaaaan.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/05/obamas_woes_a_tale_of_three_st.html
Bookmark it, libs!
Heh.
You need a lemma to prove that corollary: “Niggers, niggers, niggers, niggers, niggers!”
Obama’s Woes: A Tale of Three States By Richard BaehrIf you want evidence that the Democrats are taking a huge gamble by nominating Barack Obama as their Presidential candidate, you need look no further than the current state of the race in three Southern/border states. In 1992 and 1996 Bill Clinton won Kentucky, West Virginia and Arkansas. In 2000 and 2004, George Bush won all three states. In the current Democratic Party nominating contest, Hillary Clinton won all three states by huge margins — 30 points or more in each case. West Virginia (3%), and Kentucky (7%) have relatively small black populations. Arkansas is just over 15% African American (in the same range as Florida and Tennessee). The three states have 19 Electoral College votes among them, almost as many as Ohio (20). In 2004, Bush won the Electoral College by 286-252. Had he lost Ohio, Kerry would have been elected. In 2008, Ohio will undoubtedly be a battleground again. Were the Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, the Democrats would be in very good shape even without Ohio. That is because current surveys show Hillary Clinton winning all three states by solid margins over John McCain. But John McCain trounces Barack Obama in the same three states by over 20% in each case. So with Clinton as the nominee, these states vote as they did when her husband was the nominee. When Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee, these states vote as they did when George Bush was running. The differences in the poll results are shocking. Clinton wins Arkansas and Kentucky by 14% and 9% respectively. McCain wins against Obama in the two states by 25% and 24% respectively. This means the shift from Obama to Clinton is a change of over 34% margin in one state, 38% in the other. Roughly 40% of the voters who are for Clinton will not support Obama in these two states. The poll results in these states suggest a few things: (1) If Clinton were the nominee, she would have an opportunity for a broad based national victory. In addition to the three states above, Clinton appears to be the far stronger nominee in Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania. While both Democratic candidates seem to have a good shot at winning Pennsylvania’s 21 Electoral College votes (the Democrats have won the state 4 straight times), Clinton has a much better shot at winning Ohio (20) and Florida (27). Bill Clinton won Ohio twice and Florida in 1996. In other words, Hillary Clinton has the opportunity to create an Electoral College map that looks more like Bill Clinton’s races in 1992 and 1996, when he won 32 and 31 states and 370 and 379 Electoral College votes, than the much closer Presidential races in 2000 and 2004. (2) If Obama is the nominee, the 2008 race looks like it will be a squeaker again, with a few tight races in smaller states — Nevada (5), New Mexico (5), Iowa (7), Colorado (9), New Hampshire (4) and Wisconsin (10) being decisive. There is far less margin for error with Obama than Clinton. If Obama is shut out of Florida (which seems likely) and loses Ohio, where he ran very poorly in the Democratic primary and trails in most surveys at this point, he will need to hold all the Kerry states from 2004 and pick up the needed Electoral College votes from the West and Iowa, and perhaps Virginia. (13).But holding all the Kerry states is easier said than done — with Michigan (18), New Hampshire and Wisconsin all at risk, with 32 Electoral College votes among them, and perhaps Pennsylvania too, another state in which Obama ran poorly despite spending well over ten million dollars on campaign ads for the primary. Some of the same voters who appear to be soundly rejecting Obama in West Virginia, Arkansas and Kentucky, also populate Pennsylvania and Ohio, though not in the same percentages. At this point, Obama appears to be the all but certain nominee. This is despite Clinton winning the same number or perhaps slightly more total popular votes, and winning virtually all the contested primaries since February when the Reverend Wright story surfaced. Obama’s wins since then have been in states with very heavy African-American voter percentages — North Carolina and Mississippi, and in very liberal Oregon. With almost all super delegates now breaking for Obama, he could wind up with close to a 10% delegate margin, but be only even in the popular vote. This will result from a 5% elected delegate margin (built on low turnout caucus victories), and perhaps a 30% super delegate margin, if the remaining 200 or so uncommitted super delegates break as this group has since North Carolina (62-10 for Obama). A system built on proportional distribution of elected (pledged) delegates will have grossly expanded the popular vote margin to give one candidate a decisive victory among these delegates, which has been used to justify the shift to that candidate of super delegates. Obama’s caucus victories (he won every caucus except Nevada) were built on enthusiasm from activist left wing Democrats and young voters willing to participate in the several hour process. In the general election, the participation rate will be much higher and voting patterns should mirror much more closely the results in primary states, where Obama has not done nearly as well. (3) The serious daily tracking polls, Rasmussen and Gallup, show John McCain with a 3-4 % national popular vote lead. This is a stunning result given the general weakness of the Republican Party this year, the low approval ratings for President Bush, the strong perception the county is headed in the wrong direction, the still unpopular Iraq war, the economic slowdown, gas and food prices, and what was supposed to be a consolidation among Democrats for Obama now that the media chorus has awarded him the nomination. It is I think a reflection of the weakness of Obama as a candidate. Starting with the revelations about Reverend Wright, the Obama campaign has dropped from the semi-celestial status it enjoyed in the eyes of many. The gaffe-a-day express, the foot in mouth disease among Obama advisors, the glaringly weak posture on national security and foreign relations the candidate has put forth (and for which several times he has been forced to backtrack), all have damaged Obama’s chances. Now he is a mere mortal — except to the true believers, and they are not enough to put him over the top in a general election. He could still win with the huge financial advantage he will undoubtedly have, but it will be close and hard fought, and he will have to be lucky to triumph. The Democrats in their “wisdom” will take a pass on what could have been a much easier road to victory with Clinton. John McCain may not be the perfect Republican, but he may appear much safer, more experienced, and less of a risk than the untested junior Senator from Illinois for many voters.
Richard Baehr is the chief political correspondent of American Thinker.
I don’t see why not, zombie.
Gimme a cunt with hair, long beautiful haa-iir! Shiney, gleaming, streaming flaxon waxon!
LIke Zoinks, Scoob!!
Ah, yes. Sweet memories.
LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL
ALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLso, this. Again.
Fuck this noise. Time for some Little Feat:
Ooooh, this is good – Bonnie Raitt and Emmylou Harris on backuing vocals:
ZOMFG!
Be warned: the following link may permanently destroy any foothold you have left on reality.
SRSLY.
We’re all the way down the rabit-hole & straight through the looking-glass now, peoples!
PS: y’think maybe, just MAYBE, possibly as early as next week, there’s about to be a new member inducted into the Wingnuts’ ever-expanding “Benedict Arnold Hall Of Shame”?
You don’t have house calls? Fuck me. And this is the system the wingnuts are pretending is best? What do you do when your kid gets sick in the night? Here there is a special service (I’m not sure but we might subscribe to it — it would be 30 bucks a year, something like that — but that may have been the previous service and this one is free).
As for Sarah fucking Palin, if you saw the (completely free) support services for Down Syndrome kids here, you’d weep that that ugly cunt spews such vile shit, just so a few rich white men can become ever richer. Yeah, sometimes our health care is “rationed”, but guess what? We all have it. Not a single person is left out in the cold. And we pay 1.5% of our income a year for it.
Dr. Zen,
Same in Canada, ‘cept for the housecalls (although I suppose it depends on your doctor). And we don’t include dental, mental, cosmetic & pharma. We all accept that. It is what it is and it usually works.
(Canadians: include anecdotes and testimonials here.)
The notion that doesn’t generally exist in Canada that seems to be the major emotional stumbling block among US supporters and opponents alike is the idea that we’re paying for someone else’s healthcare. It’s just something that exists for everyone – an institution – and costs a fairly piddling amount.
Once you internalize that a single-payer plan makes your healthcare cheaper, it seems silly to worry about who else might be benefitting. In fact, that’s the point. It works because others benefit as well.
Life is cheaper with universal healthcare – for altruists AND selfish bastards.
Oh.
And vouchers.
Didn’t McCain campaign on vouchers and lose decisively? Why are they still pushing it?
Fuckwits.
Also.
hear that, dr. zen.
when i was studying abroad, my prof’s wife bore a Down’s-syndrome child. They were totally committed to maintaining their academic creds, so’s to retain their overseas jobs, where the state-supported benefits to their beloved baby far outpaced anything they’d be able to expect back here in the USofA.
The absolute pisser is that we could cut defense spending to $400 billion/yr.(!!!!), which is where it was before George Jr. started his fucking wars, and easily pay for universal healthcare, fix all of the crumbling infrastructure in this country, and still have enough left over to fucking go to Mars or wherever, but the fucking conservatives (and by that I mean everyone to the right of Bernie Sanders) ignore the money that gets thrown away on the fucking military-industrial complex:
http://www.globalissues.org/article/75/world-military-spending#USMilitarySpending
No one, and I mean no one, ever goes there, unless they’re dirty fucking hippies.
Fuck it. I’m going back to getting drunk and watching music on youtube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8V1olWt8I0
Lowell George was the fucking shit.
Fuck it. I’m going back to getting drunk and watching music on youtube.
Agreed with Little Feat.
How about some Baby Cakes?
~
When all else fails, kick the chick in her genitalia.
After all, HERS work.
Informal poll:
“The Granite Countertops” has not yet been exploited as a band name.
We’re looking for a new band name.
Shall we? Would you go see a band called the Granite Countertops?
Well, when my grandpa was dying of emphysema, HIS doc made housecalls. Mind you, this was in the late ’80s/early ’90s, before Mike Harris and his supposiTories got elected to provincial parliament and decided that tax cuts to the rich were what mattered, and that frail elderlies who’d raised productive kids and grandkids no longer deserved to be rewarded for their tax-paying service to the citizenry of Ontario.
(They also decided that clean, safe, publicly monitored drinking water was only for the rich elites. Ask the citizens of Walkerton how THAT one panned out. Seven of them are no longer there to tell you. But the thousand others who got sick with E.coli could give you an earful.)
ittdgy, you’ve put me n a patriotic mood:
“Frumpy and gray-haired is not the reason why Betsy is wrong. Could we please try to stay out of the “our side is sexy” mindset?”
Yeah, why don’t you use that photoshop thingy to make the wingnuts better looking?
The [San Francisco Mime Troupe] has an extremely influential history and has caused incalculable damage to America.
Mimes. Destroying America. Damn you, France!
In defense of our local heroes, they’re not THOSE kind of mimes. They speak and sing in their plays. They’re actually more accurately described as the San Francisco Lefty Satirical Commedia Dell’Arte Troupe.
In defense of our local heroes, they’re not THOSE kind of mimes. They speak and sing in their plays.
Obamacare, in addition to killing the elderly and the mentally deficient, forces mimes to talk.
I always thought Andy Breitbart DID look better with the li’l leprechaun hat. But my handle reveals my bias. In front of children, no less.
One more from the Feat and then I’ll be moseying…
A mime is a terrible thing to waste.
BTW, I thought the ‘wingers hated the French, so why are they using them for an example?
And what’s really hilarious is that “charter” schools obviously employ inferior teachers. Not only do they not know any French, they can’t even read CHARTS, either. Inevitable result: horrible misinterpretation of data, leading to absolute ridicule.
Sucks to be them.
OTOH: We socialist Canucks can do both, thanks to our official bilingualism AND our superior public-school system.
Twoofie, you may now bow down before me and bawl.
A quote from the StopMedicare.org link above:
“True Facts About Medicare
?Anyone that has ever used Medicare has died or will die.”
…That’s… Ok, I know we say this a lot, but I really think I may have discovered a new type of stupid here. I mean… is that actually meant to be a serious argument?
“Has died or will die”…but as a result of using the system, or of its being underfunded, or simply of natural causes?
Funny how they don’t elaborate as to what they mean by that.
i’m down w/ the Li’l Feat. my nephew’s starting his 2nd year at music school, i told him to get:
2 degrees in be-bop, a PhD in swing, &
a Masters’ in rythym to be a rock’n’roll king.
RE: Mimes: I can’t hear them mentioned without remembering something that appeared in the late, great Spy magazine, to the effect of “a perky mime, following big burly construction guys around a construction site and mimicking their movements. Later after the work day has ended, when the site is deserted, a power saw inexplicably roars to life on its own and cleaves the happy little performer in two.”
commie atheist said,
August 9, 2009 at 6:03
ittdgy, you’ve put me n a patriotic mood:
Snap out of it, we’re dirty lefty hippies who hate Freedom™, remember?
~
JustJoe – I think the stopmedicare movement is a parody intended to highlight the insanity of the Teabaggers Against America protestors.
Ah. Does the fact that I couldn’t tell it was a parody say something about the wingnuts, or me?
i’m down w/ the Li’l Feat. my nephew’s starting his 2nd year at music school, i told him to get:
2 degrees in be-bop, a PhD in swing, &
a Masters’ in rythym to be a rock’n’roll king.
But some contend that rock & roll is bad for the body and bad for the soul.
Ah. Does the fact that I couldn’t tell it was a parody say something about the wingnuts, or me?
Needs more testing
Parody, or two chicks hot for duckies?
~
Just Joe – well, I wasn’t sure either, until I got to the “True Facts about Medicare”:
?Anyone that has ever used Medicare has died or will die.
?Medicare has perverse incentives to allow senior citizens to die — the longer a senior lives, the less money the government can take with the Death Tax. In a free market seniors would be free to spend their life savings and retirement income on medical care.
?Medicare is used to bully companies — because of the size of Medicare, the government can negotiate lower equipment and drug prices. This behavior reduces corporate profits and limits company bonuses.
Even then, there was still the possibility that it was for real. But…nah.
[Les Nessman] Usually, when somebody goes, the last person they were with was a doctor. Think about it….[/Les Nessman]
Didn’t McCain campaign on vouchers and lose decisively? Why are they still pushing it?
cf. Birfer bullshit. I’ve noticed this too – all the crap they tried and failed with less than a year ago is being dusted off and screeched louder. Next up prolly a redux of that weird blowjob-in-a-limo story or whateverthehell it was.
Demint’s plan is singularly awful, but I think the most insidious part is the bit about letting people buy coverage from out of state providers. It seems so bland, but the net result would be a nice race to the bottom on all state insurance regulations. Congratulations New York, you’re now operating under Alabama’s insurance regulations!
When Republicans talk about States’ rights, remember, this only applies to states governing themselves in ways Republicans like.
you can’t have a good health care system without letting a few poor people die.
Which is why G.W. and the GOP are ever so insistent on creating so many much more poor people. It’s their version of healthcare insurance.
I notice none of you have yet read or mentioned DeMint’s soopa-Freedomy plan for Freedom of Freedom.
you can’t have a good health care system without letting a few poor people die.
Hell, you can’t even have a good garden party without letting a few poor people die.
For that matter, you can’t have a private-for-profit system without letting a LOT of poor people die. And rich ones, too, come to that, because private-for-profit is not, in fact, in the business of medical miracles.
So, we got people dying right and left. What are we to make of that?
So, we got people dying right and left. What are we to make of that?
It’s HITLERIFFIC!!!
So, we got people dying right and left. What are we to make of that?
Can we take their stuff?
Funny, when the wingnuts demonize SEIU, they are not realizing that many healthcare providers are members of the union. So, a wingnut gets beat up in a donnybrook with some SEIU members and has to go to the hospital. Snotchos!
Or, in deference to a recent meme- Snitchis!
Don’t tell MEEEEgan. They had her on NPR again as a “health care expert” whingeing about how teh gummint would stifle innovation, because, y’know, no place with teh sociamalized medicine ever innovates.
Blech.
Not enough in the center?
Has anyone ever been threatened with a lawsuit for a blog post they’d written? How being threatened with a lawsuit from a fake lawyer who was just in Neil Cavuto’s show on Fox with Kenneth Gladney, his “client” who was allegedly beaten up by SEIU members? I was, tonight. And this assclown’s gonna be sorry he locked horns with me.
You would have a hard time putting together thoughts too, if 1/4 of your brains were pouring out the side of your head.
I think you have to matter to get sued.
An old pal from Facebook, whose mom threw molotovs at the Ruskies in Hungary, and whose wife is the kid of people who escaped Castro, always goes on about how dreadful the Cuban health care system is and how Obama is going to bring it here. I mention all this because this Faux-news educated expert on the health plan is slightly sad about the 48 million or whatever who shouldn’t be getting any help; it’s kind of “the poor are with us always” rational. Just wanted to say that I now have a figure of exactly how many people they’re ready to throw under the bus. And I think this thread’s heading has it completely right: they really do believe the old British motto, “Fuck you, Jack, I’m alright.”
An old pal from Facebook, whose mom threw molotovs at the Ruskies in Hungary, and whose wife is the kid of people who escaped Castro, always goes on about how dreadful the Cuban health care system is and how Obama is going to bring it here.
An old pal whose parents hightailed it out of Prague before the Ruskies rolled in so he’s always been a “conservative” and kinda buys into the Reagan myth chimed in with me to correct a full-bore wingnut associate of ours when he laid the blame for the financial meltdown at the feet of Fanny and Freddy. Of course, he once worked for AIG, so he knew better.
So, we got people dying right and left. What are we to make of that?
Pot pies?
Actually Cuba does better than the US in some measurements of health, including infant mortality. A couple of years ago I was chatting with a recent Cuban immigrant. He couldn’t find enough bad things to say about Castro and life in Cuba in general (and Cuban Spanish has some great obscene expressions) but even he said the health care there was generally good, and no one went without. His job in the US didn’t have any benefits, and he couldn’t afford health insurance, so he worried about getting sick or being in an accident. He also said that the educational system in Cuba was great, and totally free from pre-school through graduate and professional school. He had no desire to return to Cuba in its present state, but he was honest enough to admit what was good there.
Someone may have pointed this out (I haven’t read all the comments) but among the greatest beneficiaries of universal health care would the self-employed and free-lancers of any description. I have friends in Europe, a composer married to a pianist. It’s a struggle sometimes, but they make a living at it without having any sort of day job. They told me one of the reasons they can manage is that they are not worried about health care for themselves, or perhaps even more importantly, for their child. In the US this very difficult to do, unless you’re fortunate enough to make lots of money (rare among the self-employed), or have a spouse with a health plan you can get on to at a reasonable cost. And yes, they pay higher taxes than we do, but they get much more for their tax money.
It is interesting that apparently my admission of fear to attend a town hall meeting in Tampa encouraged the troll to try intimidating others. It shows what kind of individual it is, that it encourages political terrorism and suppression of civilian voices it disagrees with.
It is the voice of the Iraqi militias that murder minority groups they disagree with, the Italian fascist movements that intimidate the common public, the Nazis on Kristalnacht.
All the while complaining about our unfairly ignoring it.
“Frumpy” seems an overly kind description of the piggish school-marm in the accompanying foto.
She seems to me another exemplum of the paradigmatic white complainer who is “tahred of payin’ taxes to keep them niqqers, spiqs and illegals” healthy…
By the way, Howard Kurtz loves him some Betsy. His Media Notes blog, also known as the Conservative Blog Roundup, features her often. Kurtz seems to be believe her conceit that she represents average, mainstream America.
…her conceit that she represents average, mainstream America…
Oh, I dunno, at this point that might not be a conceit.
And, ya know, Betsy’s not half as far out there as her peers, say, Ole PlumbBob or JIm Hoft. She’s not advocating violence every other post and even though she should get continuous Fs on her homework, well, she does turn stuff in even it’s just pulled out of frumpy, um, hair.
200th?