Month: July 2009

If the government is going to do health care, for it to limit the ability to extend your life by even ONE DAY is immoral.

You have advanced kidney cancer. It will kill you, probably in the next year or two. A drug called Sutent slows the spread of the cancer and may give you an extra six months, but at a cost of $54,000. Is a few more months worth that much?

“Why We Must Ration Healthcare” – Peter Singer, New York Times

The problem with Singer’s opening statement is by putting government in control of healthcare you aren’t making that decision – THEY are.

Rationing health care means getting value for the billions we are spending by setting limits on which treatments should be paid for from the public purse. If we ration we won’t be writing blank checks to pharmaceutical companies for their patented drugs, nor paying for whatever procedures doctors choose to recommend. When public funds subsidize health care or provide it directly, it is crazy not to try to get value for money. 

This flies in the face of arguments about expanding access to care – it argues that there’s not enough care to go around, so the government will have to make decisions on what is the best bang for buck and whom to DENY care because, well, there’s not enough to go around.

If the government is going to get into the business of doing something – health care, utilities, etc. – then it has a moral obligation to do it right. This argument? This isn’t right.

Answers For The Fourth Of July

Better late than never.
Jim Riley’s got two questions.  First:

If you were going to go on a spur of the moment trip to Argentina, what would you do there?

Hike naked in the mountains.
Then:

What do you think of the new rock supergroup “Chickenfoot”?

I actually had never heard of them before you mentioned them but checking out their MySpace it’s… well, interesting. I’ll have to give them more of a listen to really form a full opinion.
Bradley Robb brings the pain:

Any truth to the rumor that you own the entire Britney Spears discography?

Not a bit of truth at all. Nope. Not one bit. Ahem…

And on the subject of pie, do you recall the episode of Clarissa Explains It All when she went on that game show with her brother and he gave the definition to pie, when the host was really looking for the definition to pi? After all these years, do you still think that he got robbed?

I missed that episode, but that does sound like robbery to me. I mean, if they’re not going to clearly define which pie/pi then it should be based on importance and pie is much more important than pi.
Krystal’s getting the itch to make some changes at CCC:

I have been contemplating giving the blog a face lift and a makeover. Do you have any good suggestions for new themes, etc.?

I’ll have to dig some up. That’d make a pretty good post, so give me some time and I’ll churn something up for ya and everyone else sharing some of my favorite WordPress themes.  Cause there are plenty out there that are pretty darn sweet.

Thanks!

Any time.
Steven Latimer finally moves up in the world:

Jay, I finally got around to upgrading to Internet Explorer 8. Is this supposed to increase my self-worth?

Kinda. In a Microsoft world, sure. But if you really wanna feel good about yourself and be super sexy you need to upgrade to Firefox.
And John Doe came at me machine gun style with some real meaty questions:

I’ll give you a quiz:

Awesome. Let’s do this.

1. Did you vote for Obama or McCain?

Yes.

2. Who would you have preferred for President if it wasn’t Obama or McCain?

Me.

3. Your stance on SSM?

No thanks.

4. Raise taxes due to decreased revenue or decrease spending?

Buy a cabin in the woods, operate out of there.

5. Constitution: “Original intent” or “living, breathing document”?

Roll 2 D20 against to check.

6. More pro-prosecution/pro-defendant? (Yeah, I KNOW that is vague. And your point is?)

Why does it have to be either?

7. Civil litigation: More pro-plaintiff or pro-defendant? (Ditto.)

See answer to #6.

8. More pro-union or pro-business? (OK, that question could take hours to answer.)

See answer to #6, though you also forget factor three: pro-worker. And factor four: pro-me.

9. Your favorite American President ever.

Me. See answer to #2.

10. Paper or plastic?

Paper is dying and plastic tastes weird.

11. Jessica Biel or Jessica Alba?

See, that’s a tough one. While I respect the fiscal policies of Biel I’m a little hesitant on her social stances, especially in light of a recent Supreme Court decision on the nature of Blingo and its impact on whaling in the James River. Alba, on the other hand, has no fiscal policy and certain parts of her anatomy seem to have their own gravitational pull. That said, were the two able to breed with one another, they’d probably have an ugly baby because that’s just the way it goes.

12. Ginger or Mary Ann?

See answer to #11, only replace Biel with Mary Ann, whaling with Jell-O and Blingo with Mark Sanford.

Don’t worry about pidgeon-holing yourself, I’ll do it for you…

Appreciate that. Will there be beer?