Dude, where’s my semi-rational health care system?
Digby alerts us to Ashton Kutcher giving us his Deep Thoughts on health care reform:
Frankly, I don’t want to pay for the guy who’s getting a triple-bypass because he’s eating fast food all day and deep-fried snickers bars. I don’t want to pay for him! Whether he’s wealthy or he’s not!
And you know what? Part of me agrees with this. I don’t want to subsidize someone’s shitty lifestyle choices when I’m a relatively healthy person who runs three times a week, who watches what he eats and who doesn’t smoke. The thought of paying for someone else making stupid decisions is not very appealing to me.
But guess what? I’m already paying for it. Check out this Price Waterhouse Coopers study on health care spending in the United States. According to the good folks at PWC, obesity in this country costs our health care system $200 billion — yes, $200 billion — a year in wasted spending. What most people don’t understand about health care is that by its nature it imposes collective costs. If we have our emergency rooms clogged up with people who have preventable illnesses or who go there for primary care because they can’t afford health insurance, that’s going to drive up health care costs and insurance premiums for all of us.
So really, this gives us three potential solutions:
- You can refuse treatment to people who have made poor lifestyle decisions, but I think most sane people would agree that this is inhumane and not a reasonable option.
- You can try to lower costs by expanding the risk pool to include more people and by emphasizing more preventative care, but this will inevitably lead to cries of the evil gubmint taking away individual freedom. Americans, as we’ve seen, don’t like being told to eat fewer Hardee’s Monster Thickburgers.
- Or you can do what we’re doing now, which is to pay more money per person on health care and get results that are worse than most industrialized nations.
Most countries have chosen to enact the second option, either through a single-payer system or through mandatory insurance with strict regulations of private insurers. We’re currently going with the third option, which is going to result in us spending 100% of our GDP on health care in 70 years’ time. I get the feeling, though, that at some point we’re going to be forced to go with the first option and will just let people die.
I wish it didn’t have to be this way, but the path dependency of America’s health care has given us a basketcase system that probably won’t be reformed even if our life expectancy drops below that of Sierra Leone. Sorry to be depressing and all, but that’s the way things are.
Any female readers from other countries want to marry my sorry ass and get me out of this nuthouse?
Digby alerts us to Ashton Kutcher giving us his Deep Thoughts on health care reform:
Two words:
What the fuck is an “Ashton Kutcher” and why the fuck should we care what the fuck he says?
Shorter Actor:
Who cares?
(and there’s the two words I promised)
You can refuse treatment to people who have made poor lifestyle decisions, but I think most sane people would agree that this is inhumane and not a reasonable option.
Can we exempt “being conservative” from your bleeding heart wimpy position paper, Brad?
SEE THE LIB DISCRIMINATE!
I think most sane people would agree that this is inhumane and not a reasonable option.
Unfortunately, by the last measure, sane people only comprised about 52% of the electorate.
Less, really. Lots less.
But don’t you zee? We must preserve the system were it is the survival of the fittest (ie. wealthiest)
SEE THE LIB DISCRIMINATE!
Indeed. Gay marriage is legal in Ontario, and I think I’ve mentioned once or twice how much the LEAFS SUCK!
These people think they are Christians. I am not, but I have read the Bible.
“Inasmuch as ye have done it to the least of THESE MY BRETHREN, ye have done it to me.”
And yes, I know that my (relatively) excellent insurance pays for other people’s emergency room visits. Who the hell do they think pays? The Medical Care Fairy?
Cripes, guys, lay off the damn caffine. I don’t want to pay for your emergency room visit!
Seriously, what this comes down to is gLibertarian fucknozzlery. “I don’t want to pay, I don’t want to pay, leave me ‘lone, you ain’t the boos of me!” Yet more adolescent whining posing as a political philosophy.
I sure as hell wouldn’t be surprised at letting the first option become reality, either. After all, look what happened with torture, and that would have been “too inhumane” a few years ago. Let a couple “resonable liberals” come out in favor of letting people die in the street, and we’re fucked.
boos= boss.
FYWP.
Actually, the RNC already has. The latest scare tactic on a mailer they sent out was implying that when it came time for “Obamacare” to ration healthcare the first thing they would look at would be your voter registration. So now Obama is only pulling the plug on Republican grandmothers.
But don’t you zee? We must preserve the system were it is the survival of the fittest (ie. wealthiest)
Yes, especially for people with inherited wealth. These folks did the hard prenatal work of choosing the right parents. This must be rewarded, or not-yet-existent children will get lazy. Where would the world be without the hard-working (pre-conception) folks like Megan and Pammy?
Ain’t that Ashton Kutcher feller one o’ them elitist Hollywood actor types?
“But guess what? I’m already paying for it.”
You don’t know the half of it. I bow to no man in my contempt for some of The Atlantic’s online columnists (MM, Ambinder), but this new article, by a (Dem.) businessman, explains a lot:
http://tinyurl.com/lquswk
Long, well-written, eye-opening, depressing, but also…
Shut up and act, Ashton!!!
I sure as hell wouldn’t be surprised at letting the first option become reality, either. After all, look what happened with torture, and that would have been “too inhumane” a few years ago. Let a couple “resonable liberals” come out in favor of letting people die in the street, and we’re fucked.
I know. I feel like things are still heading for Roman levels of civility. If we’re going to go down that road, I demand the return of mystery cults. Yay! Mithras!
I weep for the possible dent Ashton Kutcher’s bank account.
Shut up and act, Ashton!!!
Dear god, NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“dent to”
Shut up and act, Ashton!!!
That’s like asking Charles Krauthammer to shut up and walk.
I weep for the possible dent Ashton Kutcher’s bank account.
I’m heading over to console his would-be widow, Demi…hope she’s naked when I get there. It takes a while to get her out of her clothes. The screw top on the Ripple bottle might not even hit the floor…
I hate these kind of arguments. I don’t want to pay for bridges I don’t use or for prisons to lock up people who made shitty personal choices. And I’m sure there are plenty of dead fireman, cops and soldiers who didn’t have Ashton in mind when they signed on to protect and serve. And I’m sure there are plenty of American Christianists that would gladly pay to lock him up for what they consider to be his sinful lifestyle. Fuck.
You can refuse treatment to people who have made poor lifestyle decisions
But first you’re gonna have to define “poor lifestyle decisions”, and good fucking luck with that. Any attempt at such a definition inevitably ends up including everybody.
Considering the target audience for his oeuvre, Ashton Kutcher’s whole career has been subsidized by sedentary junk-food eaters.
Considering the target audience for his oeuvre, Ashton Kutcher’s whole career has been subsidized by sedentary junk-food eaters.
You forgot “recreational drug abusers,” especially if you factor in beer and alcohol.
Oh…and “with libertine sexual mores”…thus creating mandatory gay abortions on demand. Also.
Any female readers from other countries want to marry my sorry ass and get me out of this nuthouse?
SEE THE LIB DISCRIMINATE!
Agreed. Just move to Canada.
Of course Ashton can act! Why, in his latest movie he’s playing a callous gigolo who fucks older women.
Ain’t that Ashton Kutcher feller one o’ them elitist Hollywood actor types?
Based on his marriage, I’d say he’s some kind of prevert.
They should set up some kind of committee, or panel, to determine who receives healthcare, based on their lifestyle choices. Whenever a great fat fuck is wheeled into an emergency room the panel would swing into action, examining his financial background to determine if he should receive life-saving treatment or not. The only thing now is to think of a name for these panels.
The only thing now is to think of a name for these panels.
The Weakest Link?
Perhaps “Freedom Panels”?
How much of my ticket price goes to subsidize the making of less-popular Ashton movies?
Last time I was at the talkies, they had to bring out a second wheelchair just to tote my medium tub of buttered popcorn. Is this considered a cost to society?
Doubleplusgood panels.
Blue Cross/Blue Shield?
Frankly, I don’t want to pay for the guy who’s invading an unrelated Middle Eastern nation because he’s wetting his panties over 9/11 all day and Muslim terrorist fanatics. I don’t want to pay for him! Whether he’s wearing a flag pin or he’s not!
Any female readers from other countries want to marry my sorry ass and get me out of this nuthouse?
Hey, many European countries allow immigration on the basis of same-sex partnerships. Don’t knock it, etc.
Aetna? Caremark? Medicare? Medicaid? WHI?
The Panel Of Death for Stupid Old Wingnuts (PODSOW)
~
The thought of paying for someone else making stupid decisions is not very appealing to me.
Eight years of Chimp and Dick really fucking drove this point home.
I don’t want to pay for him!
But wait until triple-bypass needin’ folks are dropping all around, restricting your mobility.
I’ve got three of ’em down by the bin, and the dustmen won’t touch ’em!
Wouldn’t it be funny if the gullible goopers refused to register to vote out of fear they’ll be targeted by death panels?
Brad, if I must be subjected to Mr. Kutcher’s musings, it too much to ask for you to post a picture of him naked or shirtless or in a speedo or something? It would help me, ah, contextualize his remarks.
The DEATH PANELS will actually adjudicate your case based on whether or not you have a foreskin.
I’m still pushing the reality TV show angle. America’s Got Cholesterol! Each week several sick and dying people will be brought out in front of a celebrity panel and explain why they deserve healthcare over the other contestants. If they can dance, sing or do ventriliqism it might help. Or maybe not. They just might look too healthy. Then the panel will decide which contestants get to move on and which are left to die. Once the contestants reach the quarter finals it will be left to audience voting to decide who lives or dies. The beauty of this is you will get planty of contestants who will sign the waiver just so they can be on TV and we can use the advertising money to provide healthcare for the rest of the uninsured.
Open Letter to Ashton Kutcher:
I don’t want to pay for your medical care after the big one hits California. If you’re too stupid not to live on a fault line, it shouldn’t be my problem!
And God help you if you ever go skiing or hiking, ride a motorcycle, drive in traffic, or take a private jet — that stuff is dangerous!
I hope you are paying all your medical bills directly out of pocket because your lifestyle is wayyyy too risky to have insurance.
Me? I live in a panic room five miles underground in a region with no history of geo-thermal activity; breathing purified air and eating a macrobiotic diet. It’s the only reasonable approach to healthcare. Anyone who doesn’t do so deserves to die.
Regards,
John Galt, Jr.
Curse me for not having noticed this. My Big Hollywood trolling approach may require modification.
The DEATH PANELS will actually adjudicate your case based on whether or not you have a foreskin.
Foreskinned is forewarned.
The DEATH PANELS will actually adjudicate your case based on whether or not you have a foreskin.
But what will become of me? I lost my penis in a tragic bowling accident.
The thought of paying for someone else making stupid decisions is not very appealing to me.
At the risk of sounding like the thought police, fuck this thought and all its descendants.
I say we should pay for every last fucking imbecile God’s green earth supplies us with. Every one, from the absolutely brain dead, the one-ton men and women of our nation’s fertile soil, the people who have been smoking so long the things they’re hacking up in the morning can no longer qualify as lung, the frat boy who’s so riddled with venereal diseases that he can no longer wear pants because of the seepage, all of ’em.
Why you ask? Well, it’s a similar principle to the defense of the right to free speech.
I don’t particularly *like* that Rush Limbaugh broadcasts hate over the radio, that the Ku Klux Klavern of Fuckballs County, Arkansas can hold their annual cross-burning and family cook-off, or the Doucheberg can spend eight years “writing” a idiotic treatise on how vegetarians are the real fascists, but if I want to defend my rights to talk shit about those fucking assholes, I have to make sure they can talk shit as well.
If I want to keep my fucking ass alive and not spiral into terminal debt worse than the fucking flu that sent me packing, I have to make sure those douchenozzles stay alive as well.
Luckily, similar to my defense of the right to free speech, the fact that I ideally have to keep these fuckwads alive does not at all impinge on my ability to call them out as fucking idiots.
I’m still pushing the reality TV show angle. America’s Got Cholesterol!
God help me, but I can see that actually happening.
Wheee! A freemarket solution! Everyone’s happy! Except of course for the losers, but fuck ’em, they got on teevee.
The ones who constantly say, “I don’t wanna pay for THOSE PEOPLE!” must think that nothing terrible will ever happen to their own health that could potentially bankrupt them. (If they’re not rich, young celebrity dipshits whose health care is paid for by MTV.) But what should we expect, in a time when “empathy” is considered a reason to block a Supreme Court nomination, rather than a necessary part of being a functional human being? My best response to this kind of asshattery (that doesn’t involve shaking with uncontrollable red-eyed rage) is to pull out that picture of the Iraqi kid with his arms and legs blown off crying after he’s just been told his parents are dead, and say, “I guess you’re OK with paying for THIS, though, huh?”
Ashton Kutcher was a liberal, last I knew. At least, he was in Iowa campaigning for Obama, if I recall correctly.
Maybe he’s been hanging around Bruce Willis too much.
Candy –
Consistency requires a functioning brain.
Kutcher was an honor student – engineering I think – at Iowa when he was discovered by some model search outfit. He’s not stupid. I know that’s hard to believe when you see him “act.”
Kutcher was an honor student – engineering I think – at Iowa
Ah ha.
I believe we have begun the approach to the crux of the problem here. Indeed, one could say this would be “central to the point”, I believe the phrase goes?
But what will become of me? I lost my penis in a tragic bowling accident.
Ah! But see, that’s where the sex change requirement comes in. They’ll change your sex to female, and then back to male, supplying you with a foreskin at that time that they can then cut off.
See how nefarious a plan they have?
I’m still pushing the reality TV show angle. America’s Got Cholesterol!
I prefer “Ow! My Cheeseballs!”
Make it a true Daily Double-bypass, Alex!
Kutcher was an honor student – engineering I think – at Iowa
Ah ha.
I believe we have begun the approach to the crux of the problem here. Indeed, one could say this would be “central to the point”, I believe the phrase goes?
Speaking as an engineer, one can be an honors student in an undergraduate engineering program and be a high-functioning moron. It requires nothing more than memorization and sporadic hard work. Graduate work or actual engineering, where you’re expected to do something other than regurgitate, might prove non-stupidity…or might not.
Having heard Kutcher speak ff the cuff on Maher’s show, my money’s on “high-functioning moron.”
Kutcher was an honor student – engineering I think – at Iowa
I think I see the real problem.
They’ll change your sex to female, and then back to male, supplying you with a foreskin at that time that they can then cut off.
Wow. That plan has a lot of removals and installations. It requires…[ominous pause]…a whole bag of dicks.
Wikipedia:
Sounds very much like the people I worked very hard to avoid when I was at Iowa.
Sounds very much like the guys I used to count on to push down the curve.
Wiki tells me it was biochemical engineering.
Ah. It also tells me that Kutcher is a fiscal conservative and a social liberal.
Well, there we go. Money money money MONEY!
You know, it seems to me that he’d be a little more empathetic, with a brother with an affliction like that.
It requires…[ominous pause]…a whole bag of dicks.
Rocky: Again?? That dick never works.
Bullwinkle: This time for sure.
Lion: ROARRRR!!
Rocky: Wrong hat!
Bullwinkle: I take a size seven and a half.
You know, it seems to me that he’d be a little more empathetic, with a brother with an affliction like that.
See my 19:17 post for a possible explanation.
Well said. Do idiots like Kutcher not understand the concept of insurance at all? If he pays for any kind of health insurance now then he’s already paying for the guy who who eats fast food all day. Unless he thinks that fast-food eaters aren’t ever covered by his health insurance company.
Also. Medicare. I believe some people over 65 eat fast food all day, too.
An earned right, one might imagine.
Heh. He sounds just like the kind of jerk that Ashton doesn’t want to have to pay to cover healthcare for.
Well, hell, I don’t care about him one way or another. I had kind of a soft spot in my heart for him on account of I read – in Rolling Stone, I think -that he once kicked the Bush twins out of a party they’d crashed and got them in trouble with the Secret Service. I’ve also always like Demi Moore and I fucking hate the double standard that says older man/younger woman fine and dandy but older woman/younger man is just disgusting. But if he’s a libertarian dickwad he can fuck off and die, and the back of both me hands to him.
But damn, he is mighty fine to look at. Not to be all objectifying or looksist or anything. Don’t want to pull any triggers.
Also, if the reality TV healthcare ever comes to pass I figure the winner will be the one with the biggest breasts. That’s why I’m eating my triple cheesebuger and deep fried Snickers bar. Gotta gain an edge.
No, those people aren’t handsome enough to be on TV.
I’ve also always like Demi Moore and I fucking hate the double standard that says older man/younger woman fine and dandy but older woman/younger man is just disgusting.
Agreed. My probelms with Ms. Moore mostly stem from her “acting.”
But damn, he is mighty fine to look at. Not to be all objectifying or looksist or anything.
Nothing wrong free beefcake/cheesecake as long as that’s what it was meant to be. I am non-objectifyingly waiting for confirmation of the report that Megan Fox will be playing Catwoman in the 3rd new Batman movie.
Don’t want to pull any triggers.
“Iowa” is a trigger for me.
YOU WILL IMAGINE HIM FOREVER AS GOATSE. There we go. Cured.
Iowa Travelogue
AIEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
In the words of another great American actor, Craig T. Nelson,
The point of health-care reform is to have a system where everyone has coverage.
Systems that provide coverage for everyone tend to be much cheaper than the medical clusterfuck the US calls a system.
Therefore Ashton Kuchner, Megan McArdle, Rush Limbaugh will all pay less for healthcare if meaningful reform can get passed.
Speculation about paying for someone else’s healthcare is both beside the point and dangerously distracting.
Well, it’s a similar principle to the defense of the right to free speech.
This. A thousand times This.
Can everyone please stop talking about Megan McArdle? You’re triggering me repeatedly. IfyaknowhatImean.
This. A thousand times This.
Thank you.
It’s very simple. The guy with terminal everything-cancer is the Fred Phelps of health care reform. As long as that guy is out there, getting taken care of, I’m fucking covered when my piddly-ass fucking problems come up.
Well…I’m no fan, but I will say this for Ashton: In his way, he’s very, very pretty.
And it would appear that he’s every bit as empty-headed as he is good looking. Wotta fuckwit.
Can everyone please stop talking about Megan McArdle? You’re triggering me repeatedly.
I was fapping when we got to Demi Moore, but whatever floats your boat…
I lost my penis in a tragic bowling accident.
There is no such thing as a tragic bowling accident.
Bowling accidents only come in three varieties: embarrassing, inevitable, and “I’m not cleaning that up.”
And D. All of the above.
Don’t forget D! It got me through the motherfucking SATs, and all other standardized testing.
There is no such thing as a tragic bowling accident.
You’d think…
Sorry, those links only prove my point.
Oh now now….kid gets his neck broken by a pin spotter is not embarassing.
Funny, but not embarassing.
Well, they’re ALL funny. That’s a given.
I thought Ashton Kutcher was smarter than he looks when he asked: “Why can’t the oil companies bail out General Motors?” I guess I was wrong.
Twitter may be more useful than I give it credit for (I think my prejudice against it is largely based on how much I fucking hate the words “twitter” and “tweeting”).
However, I think Kutcher is way over the top when he praises Twitter as follows:
“Years from now, when historians reflect on the time we are currently living in, the names Biz Stone and Evan Williams will be referenced side by side with the likes of Samuel Morse, Alexander Graham Bell, Guglielmo Marconi, Philo Farnsworth, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs — because the creation of Twitter by Stone, 35 (right), Williams, 37, and Jack Dorsey, 32 (not pictured), is as significant and paradigm-shifting as the invention of Morse code, the telephone, radio, television or the personal computer.”
How important can Stone and Williams be when I’d never heard of them until I read this? They’d be nowhere without Tim Berners-Lee, and Mark Zuckerberg’s service has way more users.
Depending on the kid, inevitable seems likely.
Stone and Williams are at least as important as Samuel Morse because this new way of informing multiple readers what you are doing within a
Foolish humans…of course option #1 is the best one! Only the strong survives!
We have no way to hold an individual person responsible for their chronic ailments. All associations are statistical. You can, and probably will, get heart disease by running three times a week and watching what you eat. If you personally don’t, you can’t actually say that it’s because you ran three times a week and watched what you ate.
This simple point needs to be drilled into every yuppie liberal on the planet. Ill health does not mean moral turpitude. No one can be sentenced to illness.
You can, and probably will, get heart disease by running three times a week and watching what you eat.
Or to put it another way, “everything is killing you, even the stuff you’re doing to keep from dying.”
I will pay for Ashton’s share of healthcare if he promises to distroy EVERY copy of the Butterfly Effect.
i see what u did there
Two words.
Jim Fixx
I like Twitter a lot (although I’m eagerly awaiting a better, decentralized replacement), but it’s just an incremental technological improvement (and one which is down all the time, too). Tim Berners-Lee is the closest thing we have recently to a single person who changed communications forever (and if you’ve read his book, he spends most of it emphasizing how much hard work and cooperation was involved in creating the World Wide Web). Twitter is just a slightly novel application of existing concepts (blogging, IRC/instant messaging, search technology, SMS) which was mostly the outcome of people having the right idea at the time that technology was finally ready for it.
This “great man” entrepreneurial theory of technology is mostly bullshit. Netscape and Google came out of universities. The work that people like Marc Andreesen and Larry Page do is significant (yes, I know I have to turn my lefty commie card in now) but so is the work that thousands of unknown and unheralded techies have done at the big telecom companies (many of which are in comsymp Eurabia). The only difference between a great entrepreneur and a failed one is a good product, and those products are inevitably the result of the work of a lot of people who never get a fraction as rich as said entrepreneurs.
The DEATH PANELS will actually adjudicate your case based on whether or not you have a foreskin.
Cervical, uterine and ovarian cancer treatment just got a lot more complicated.
Whenever I hear something like this, I want to say, “I got cancer at 24, through no fault of my own. I had no health insurance. I had to go through the Medicaid process while undergoing chemotherapy, and was kicked off the Medicaid rolls once treatment was over because I was no longer “disabled”. No private insurance company will cover me for 10 years, the premiums will be insanely high, and all the problems I have because of the cancer and its treatment will be pre-existing conditions. What about me? Would you have let me die? Would you deny me the follow-up care and medications I need now? Or in one of those acts of charity I keep hearing about, would you just like to put me on your health insurance plan?”
But if you left the country, you could no longer crow about Massachusetts being the uber-state! (Well, you could, but you’d have to add ex-pat caveats.)
@ Liz212:
I sympathize with your plight, but I’m not a sociopath.
These gLibertarian shitweasels have won the Lotto of life. This proves their deserving nature. The fact that you lost the Lotto of life by getting cancer at 24, proves your undeserving nature. You obviously made the lifestyle choice of having the ancestors you did, or being on the wrong tail of a Gaussian distribution, therefore you deserve what you get, and the virtuous few who got rich stealing you blind shouldn’t have to pay for it.
And I don’t want to pay for schools that don’t screen out underachieving assholes. Oh well, I guess I have to.
I’m still pushing the reality TV show angle. America’s Got Cholesterol!
Firesign Theatre beat you to it with “Beat the Reaper!” That’s where they inject you with a disease and you have 10 seconds to guess what it is and get the antidote. Unfortunately there’s no antidote for teh stoopid.
The hell they will.
I second whoever called him a fuckwit. And raise them a “pretentious dingbat”.
Wasn’t Aston Demi’s common law wife for a long long time? Living on her money? She’s the reason he’s “famous” for what it’s worth.
I usually enjoy Bill Maher’s shtick of having celebrities on Real Time alongside politicians, academics and media figures. He usually chooses them well.
Ashton Kutcher is not one of those good choices. He doesn’t really know what he’s talking about most of the time.
Any female readers from other countries want to marry my sorry ass and get me out of this nuthouse?
Broaden your options and consider Canada where men can also marry men.
It seems to me that devising elaborate pranks to spring on other people is a dangerous lifestyle in itself. The victims could turn on you. They could get violent. Why should I pay the insurance benefits for such daredevils?
The male version of Anna-Nicole Smith doesn’t want to subsidize other people.
Thats rich.
Lesley, far be it from me to defend Ashton Kutcher, but he was famous well before he was involved with Demi Moore. Being in a fairly popular movie, several popular TV shows, that sort of thing.
Okay, let’s kill all the fatties, smokers, bacon eaters, drunks, drug abusers, and everyone who isn’t living on brown rice and soy and distilled water. That’ll make the ol’ premiums drop and everyone happy. It’ll also free up a lot of real estate and jobs too. A final solution to the health care and financial crisis!
Yes, because we wouldn’t want Lennie, who survived being struck with more than 50 whacks with a very large knife and survived but had no health insurance, to be able to get the surgeries and assistance she needs without begging and humiliation and pain because OMG! a person deemed undeserving by Kutcher or Newt or Joe Plumber might be covered too.
Oh, yeah, sorry, here’s the link.
http://shannynmoore.wordpress.com/2009/08/28/the-kennedy-option-a-matter-of-life-and-death/
When it gets to “America, love it or leave it, just leave.” I did five years ago and settled in the third world. Haven’t regretted it one bit. Also, being a crazy Nam vet I supply an endless source of amusement to my neighbors. Enough that they keep an eye out for me. The last time someone tried to pick my pocket , my translator, my wife and my laundry woman all got calls before I got home (six blocks.)
Also, my policy that no one begging on the streets with leprosy asked for what they got, now all of the street beggars have learned to say “thank you” in English because they know where their next six meals are coming from if I walk by, I’ve even learned to say “por nada.” for them. Six meals which is less than 1 percent of my pension. If there were a god, I’d really like to face off with him.
Things is seriously screwed up, when Bill Gates income is enough to feed everyone of earth, and all he does is sitting around counting it. Why? His family has enough that his descendants for the next 20,000 years are guaranteed housing, food, medical care, education etcs.
Well, enjoy you’re drop from first world to third world, where anyone with a job can afford a maid, a cook, a cleaner and a chauffeur for three hots, a cot and $1 per week.
1
Isn’t Ashton Kutcher a member of the Screen Actors Guild? And doesn’t the SAG offer health care benefits for members? So, doesn’t Kutcher already pay for other people’s health care?
Yeah, this is why some people shouldn’t talk in public.
This sort of reminds me of one of the very few occasions that I caught Politically Incorrect and French Smith (the very, very irritating one from Third Rock from the Sun) was going on about how unfair it was that lawn darts were banned. For that matter, does Kutcher even earn enough these days for it to matter if his taxes go up, or does his allowance from Demi get taxed, too?
I guess enlightened self-interest is out of the question, because that would require some measure of… um… enlightenment.
“Hey, I’m not paying for health care for some illegal immigrant who contracted Swine Flu while working at a Mexican hog farm!. If the guy wants health insurance, let him get a job working in the cafeteria of my children’s school!”
Fat people live longer. Trufax.
We’ll see the skinny asses in hell, after we’ve lived a long and Thickburger-filled life, and they’ve died from smog inhalation while bicycling to work.
Perfect analysis. I would also add that as a single (gay) guy with no kids, I do not want to pay for many things — like the “family health plans” of my colleagues with kids or their public education. But I do anyway.
Ashton just needs to be naked and quiet. Naked and quiet, please, and I will just sit over here and make bad lifestyle choices.
would also add that as a single (gay) guy with no kids, I do not want to pay for many things — like the “family health plans” of my colleagues w