This obsession to masquerade interviews to exude a kind of supposed fairness and impartiality in the face of obvious common sense makes me hate people like Matthews for not having any sort of courage to agree with the logical and the humane (i.e. Would you share your room with someone if it meant that the system would cover everyone?).

the logical and the humane...

humane...that's a tricky one. but logical? there's no logical reason that the lives of 47000000 people should be more important than MY comfort.

just wanted to say that moore gets more and more impressive the more he sticks with this issue. he is, very simply, right. and playing the religious card, as he does here, is exactly the right thing to do if you actually want to get something DONE, as opposed to just winning an argument. well done michael. and thank you norm.

if you're facing 47000000 people who are desperate for their lives, i think the logical action would be to give up your comfort.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17244

In the 1990s, Congress enacted other laws that further increased the patent life of brand-name drugs. Drug companies now employ small armies of lawyers to milk these laws for all they're worth—and they're worth a lot. The result is that the effective patent life of brand-name drugs increased from about eight years in 1980 to about fourteen years in 2000.[10] For a blockbuster—usually defined as a drug with sales of over a billion dollars a year (like Lipitor or Celebrex or Zoloft)—those six years of additional exclusivity are golden. They can add billions of dollars to sales—enough to buy a lot of lawyers and have plenty of change left over. No wonder big pharma will do almost anything to protect exclusive marketing rights, despite the fact that doing so flies in the face of all its rhetoric about the free market.

More from the article above:

Exclusivity is the lifeblood of the industry because it means that no other company may sell the same drug for a set period. After exclusive marketing rights expire, copies (called generic drugs) enter the market, and the price usually falls to as little as 20 percent of what it was.[9]

"You can't get into heaven if you don't take care of the sick"

That's the sound of every religious person's heart sinking, realizing that what michael moore says is true, and not just "liberal" politics.

Moore's manipulation of religion was excellent. He threw the reactionary xian right's rhetoric back in their faces. An excellent use of sound bites.

Jon:

My original thought was you were being sarcastic in this thread. Your statement here makes me wonder. Sometimes people pretend they were joking to hide how they really think. Could it be you're worried that universal health care in the US might take away funds from the Israel occupation?

So yes providing health care for 47 million of my fellow citizens is more important than your comfort.

Amen

(said the atheist)

:)

Sometimes people pretend they were joking to hide how they really think.

that's actually a terrific, useful insight. but in this case i plead not guilty. i do think it should be part of every politician, diplomat and philosophers' training to learn how to pretend to pretend to be joking.

this bit

Could it be you're worried that universal health care in the US might take away funds from the Israel occupation?

was just silly, though. i assume you were being sarcastic. :)

this bit was just silly, though. i assume you were being sarcastic. :)

Probably just facetious.

I think Jon Becker is two parts "i'll present the other side of the arguement for arguements' sake" and one part troll. Every time i see his comments, they disagree with whatever the post is about, even to the point where he contradicts himself. Am I the only one who thinks this?

I apologize for the double post.

just wanted to say that moore gets more and more impressive

or moore and moore impressive...

"but logical? there's no logical reason that the lives of 47000000 people should be more important than MY comfort."

Not the JB needs me to defend him:-) But I think the word "logical" could use a little defining in this context. I actually do think it is logical that 47 million lives be considered more important than a singe person's comfort (including my own). Here is a definition: Logic: (n) the quality of being justifiable by reason. Is it reasonable then, that 47 million lives are more important than my own comfort? I would think so.

But the word logic or logical has many meanings. It seemed like JB was saying he agreed that it was humane to consider 47 million lives more important, but the idea didn't necessarily fall under the term "logical".

Is that about right? Or am I totally off?

Sarah:

If so then what is the reasoning behind Jon's comfort being more important than the lives 47 million people. Honestly I would love to hear that line of reasoning.

hey, i knew it was a bold statement, casually flung. i know i could be wrong, but i'd need to be shown how logic even APPLIES in the question the relative importance of 47000000 lives and my comfort.

It seemed like JB was saying he agreed that it was humane to consider 47 million lives more important, but the idea didn't necessarily fall under the term "logical".

Is that about right? Or am I totally off?

about that your totally right. but you didnt' convince me about the 47000000 lives thing either.please understand me: of course i could easily show you logically how YOUR comfort isn't worth 47000000 lives. but not mine, comprende?

i mean, what would you say, it's logical to suffer for others because it's humane, and it's logical to be humane?

Man oh man... i may have painted myself into a corner with this, as you are quite my intellectual superior (let me go ahead and say even though I don't always agree with you, JB, I always enjoy reading your posts and they have helped educate me in many ways)...

I wasn't trying to convince anyone that 47 million lives is worth more than your comfort. If you truly think your comfort is more important, well, I'll just let everyone form their own opinion about your character (I personally would find you to be completely selfish at best, which you may in fact be, but I haven't really gotten that from reading your posts here).

So Dar, to answer your question, I don't think there is any sound reasoning behind JB statement that his comfort is more important. And I don't really think that was what he was saying at all really.

I do think it is logical to be humane, but unfortunately I don't have time right now to disclose all the reasons.

I'll just say this... I make a distinction between pain and suffering. Pain is unavoidable in this life. Suffering is self created. It is not logical to suffer (for yourself or anyone else), but by and large people feel that suffering makes them noble, and so don't do the things necessary to not suffer (which is actually easier than you might think). But then this is not on the topic of health care, and is even treading into the oh so esoteric realm of the meaning of compassion.

WARNING: Rant ahead. Don't take it personal.

Pain is unavoidable in this life.

Not when you consider all the little upper-class fuckers who have never had to worry about anything a day in their life. I mean, some of them aren't so lucky (they get cancer, whatever), but statistically, a large number stay fat and sassy for most of their lives.

Now, compare that to what people in 3rd-world countries experience, or to the life of a child in a wealthy country, with abusive lower-class parents. A child who, after being physically, emotionally, or sexually harmed, then ends up in the nightmarish foster care system, only to later be ejected onto the streets as a damaged or disturbed individual who is lucky enough to get a job mopping floors. A large percentage of such people take their own lives.

And that is pain. Real pain. But its pain that certain people are lucky enough to avoid altogether for most of their lives. Temporary discomfort, on the other hand... sure, that's unavoidable. Boo hoo. You broke a nail.

Suffering is self created.

The examples I gave above? Those people suffer, and there's shit all they can do about it. The "suffering" you're talking about instead can be fixed with therapy or pills. At the worst, it's called a chemical imbalance, not "suffering".

WAIT! Sorry. What I meant to say was: You're right! The 3rd-worlders don't matter 'cause they're brown-skinned, and all those poor damaged bums should just get jobs! All suffering is avoidable! Yay! How enlightened!

Rant over. Also, keep in mind, this has nothing to do with however the economic system is set up. The bullshit I speak of is simply a result of people not giving a shit. Because giving a shit takes a little effort, when all anybody should have to worry about is making a buck, and getting from the couch to the fridge!

…humane...that's a tricky one.

I don't understand why the "either-or" straw-man set up here isn't exposed for what it is: bullshit! If Chris Matthews and other rich people want private rooms and want to pay more for it (above and beyond what would be available in a tax-financed single-payer system), there is absolutely no reason to think they won't be able to do that. If companies decide there is sufficient demand from the wealthy for fancy private hospitals, they will build them - period. The single-payer system can chip in it's usual contribution and the individual coughs up the rest.

Now for an opinion that is likely to get me in trouble here: I can't get greatly concerned about six extra years of patent protection for Lipitor or Celebrex or Zoloft - and that is mostly because I think most of the demand for these drugs is generated by marketing and not by medical need. The skeptic in me suspects that there are very few truly important new drugs being developed in any given six year period - and for those which are, society can afford to pay the companies that developed them a premium for having conducted the very expensive research necessary to develop them. We can more than recover the societal costs (within a single-payer system, say) by constructing a rigorous testing system that counter the bullshit streaming into physicians offices from Pharma marketing propaganda efforts and reduce the over-prescription of drugs by physicians who have been duped into being pill-pushers.

sarah13, you are much too kind.

no, i don't consider myself to be more selfish than anyone else, and i would certainly give up my hypothetical single room if it meant 47 million people could have health coverage. i just wouldn't be able to explain logically why i did it.

and tim is right, it's not really an either/or situation and moore and mathews (and i) were wrong to present it as one.

BBC World News TV has a report on the first 8 Americans who have graduated from Cuba's free Latin American School of Medicine.

A few years ago, the Bush Junta tried to force them to leave, but then Secretary Colin Powell decided otherwise.

Will CNN, MSNBC, or Fox report on this? Surprisingly, the freepers have.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1871128/posts

You can find out more about the school here.

http://www.medicc.org/latin-american-med-school.php

There is also a surprising organization that, well, organizes the enrollment of Americans.

"The US recruitment and application process is handled by the Interreligious Organization for Community Organization (IFCO/ Pastors for Peace). IFCO offers workshops about ELAM throughout the United States. Applications are accepted twice a year, and require supporting documentation such as: academic transcripts, letters of reference, criminal background check and medical history. An interview is required. MCAT is not required."

There is also an interview with Julian Bond.

http://www.medicc.org/publications/cubahealthreports/009.php

Hey Frenetic... I don't take it personally:-) Also, I like you and always enjoy your posts, rants or no.

So, regarding the upper class fuckers. I would have to say they generally live a life of delusion. Which in my opinion does cause pain, just of a different sort. Just because they have money doesn't mean they don't have to worry about things. Though they may feel entitled to things they aren't entitled to, and by and large identify with material wealth, which is meaningless and temporary. So I suspect whether or not they are fat and sassy, they are on the whole generally empty and unhappy (and while part of me takes a little pleasure in the irony of their situation, I still have to feel compassion for them as they are just as much a human being as I am, and you are... and they are just as much a part of the world as the poorest of the poor, as much as they might like to think they are better than those people... which we all know, they aren't).

And please don't think I haven't considered all that you have said many times before. People in 3rd world countries or with abusive parents certainly live painful lives. Much more painful than my own to be sure. When I use the term suffering I am referring to the attachment or aversion people feel to their pain, not the pain itself. So while people's pain I think CAN be compared, and generally accepted to be of a greater or lesser degree to another, I don't agree that the suffering of any human being can be compared to another. But I don't want to get into a semantic argument here.

So I'm not talking about suffering in the context of chemical imbalance or emotional "problems". Though I do admit that those things certainly exist and can be treated, sometimes with therapy and sometimes with pills.

I do wish more people gave a shit, instead of simply paying lip service, or simply ignoring the ugly truth of extreme inequity and injustice. It does take effort. Effort I am more than willing to give, as are most of the people here it seems. The best way to deal with that is to live by example. Be the change you wish to see in the world.

But there are also costs to society for having all these uninsured people. Real costs in dollars, I wish there were some studies on this. Anyone know?

Take the unfortunate case of the boy in MD. who had an infected tooth. His mother could not find a dentist who would take medicare (and her paperwork had lapsed, etc.) Total cost of treating the boy at this stage-$80.00.

So the boy is treated in an emergency room, they dont do dentistry.. Then, the pain goes away, as it often does when the tooth nerve finally dies.

The infection is still raging in the boys head, and travels to his brain. Then he ends up in the hospital emergency room again, this time with a brain infection.

Boy dies of brain infection after a couple of operations. Cost of treatment-$250,000.00

Picked up by the taxpayers.

So what is the real cost of not having preventative care for 47 million people? They dont go to the doctor until they absolutely have to because they dont have the money! And then the cost of treatment is much, much higher.

We are probably paying more now as a society than we would pay if we had basic health care for everyone. Not only in dollars but in worker health and productivity.

One reason Wal-mart is so bad for our society the way it is structured now. Workers who have no benefits and low wages must access social services to live. This costs society much more in terms of dollars than the low price shopping could ever make up for.

@shano: There's a saying: An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Other industrialized countries don't just have a healthcare system because its humane; it also makes economic sense (when you actually administer an economy using reason instead of ideology).

Not to mention all the Right-wingers saying crazy shit about aborted babies not being in the workforce. What about all the people, children and adults, that die due to the broken healthcare system, before they can become contributing members of society? That little boy with the brain infection... that could have been the next Einstein. Instead he, and all the investments his parents and society made in him, are gone without a trace, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

@Sarah13: Thanks for understanding. =) I realized I was taking the terms "pain" and "suffering" out-of-context from your original post, but my main point was that one man's "pain" is another man's mild discomfort (compared to a lifetime of abuse, starvation, torture, etc). But you get the idea.