Rudy's horrifying views on health care:

[Pirate Smile]

AN UNHEALTHY MIND:

Andrew Ferguson's profile (Weekly Standard) of Rudy Giuliani is interesting for all sorts of reasons, not least of which this horrifying passage in which the GOP front-runner explains his views on health care:

"It's a no-risk society," Giuliani went on. "If we continue with this idea of collective responsibility, we'll become a society that deteriorates. And it's a battle that has to be fought now."

He offers health care as an example. "Democrats want universal health care, collective responsibility--honestly, it's their version of socialized medicine." Even the recent health care reform in Massachusetts, designed by the Republican governor Mitt Romney, was tainted with collectivity, because it required every citizen to get health insurance.

"I don't like mandates," Giuliani says. "I don't like mandating health care. I don't like it because it erodes what makes health care work in this country--the free market, the profit motive. A mandate takes choice away from people. We've got to let people make choices. We've got to let them take the risk--do they want to be covered? Do they want health insurance? Because ultimately, if they don't, well, then, they may not be taken care of. I suppose that's difficult." He lets the idea sink in, though it seems to bother his audience not at all. "The minute you start mandating, you always end up with more expensive government programs."

I don't even know where to start with this. A few questions I would ask Giuliani:

1. Does he think that most of the 45 million uninsured Americans don't want to be taken care of?

2. What exactly is the upside of introducing more medical risk? Does the knowledge that incurring a serious medical condition could cost you your entire life savings make you hardier?

3. Why is Giuliani so sure health care works in this country? Our system is far more expensive than anywhere else, denies medical services to tens of millions of people except when they have emergencies, and by most measures produces no better outcome. So is there any reason our system "works" except the tautological justification that it's the best because it's the most market-based?

A couple years ago I wrote an article arguing that conservatives are fundamentally more dogmatic on economic questions than liberals--they know the free market works, so empirical measures ultimately don't change their minds. For instance, I wrote:

Consider the conservative view of health care. Conservatives repeat the mantra that the United States has "the best health care system in the world"--a formulation used endlessly by President Bush. That isn't true by almost any objective measure. The United States devotes a far higher share of its economy to health care than any other country. Yet, according to the most recent World Health Organization study, the United States ranks just 37th in overall health care performance. These massive inefficiencies derive in part from our huge numbers of uninsured. The uninsured end up forgoing treatment until they arrive at the emergency room. Basic preventive care, of the sort universally available in every other advanced country, would avert such disasters--at less cost to the economy and with less suffering and fatality for patients.

The only way to deem the U.S. system the "best" is if you substitute ideological criteria for pragmatic criteria.

Giuliani's explanation is a classic example of this kind of thinking.

--Jonathan Chait

http://www.tnr.com/blog/theplank?pid=95985

[madeline_con]

1. What an idiot.

Will those who do NOT want to be taken care of please stand up. If you can....

[wordpix]

27. he doesn't like mandates but accepted publicly paid for health care when he was mayor

When the "mandate" is that HE receive health care as a benefit of his job, that's OK.

[Faygo Kid]

2. No risk for Rudy the Bloodless Toad, like no risk for GOP kids in Iraq

"Collective responsibility" as a bad thing - as in a society that cares for the least of us. What an asshole. He is a pig - looks more like a toad.

[rusty charly]

5. so: no more corporate bail outs, rudy? LOVE IT!

[kwolf68]

30. Yea

And while Rudy is at it, make it tougher for corporations to file Chapter13, just like they did for the common man.

And be sure to make taxpayers clean up Superfund sites instead of the polluting industries that cause them.

Collective responsibility is a farce in his view, yet it is the masses holding up the pedestal of greed and corruption that allows this society to breath.

[rusty charly]

3. huh? who DOESN'T want health care?

"Do they want health insurance? Because ultimately, if they don't, well, then, they may not be taken care of."

[qanda]

4. Spoken like a person that doesn't have to worry about healthcare

[GCP]

6. I sincerely hope this comes to the attention of the masses

I, for one, had no idea he was so cretinous.

[WinkyDink]

7. Quite the original mind! "Too poor to afford health insurance" = "Don't want health insurance".

It's the "Giuliani Sour-Grapes Theory of Reality".

[BeyondGeography]

8. It's basically the Thatcherite no such thing as society view

we can only pray that the Republicans make that mindset clear in the 2008 campaign (as opposed to 2000 when they dressed it up with "compassionate conservatism"). It will be the end of them.

[cloudbase]

9. While we're at it,

let's get rid of that nasty old mandated income tax.

[TahitiNut]

10. For some, it's not enough for the working poor to suffer from the illness or injury ...

... they must also suffer more greatly without the means to have that illness or injury treated. Indeed, what assets they may have must be sacrificed to the Twin Gods of Profit and Greed, leaving them destitute as an 'example' to others. Those who eschew alleged "collective responsibility" show the least personal responsibility, even for their own incomes. The hypocrisy reaches criminal magnitudes, imho.

Rudy Giuliani has suckled at the taxpayers' teat his entire life and has demonstrated an almost total paucity of personal responsibility - from his political selections (Kerik) to his marital choices. He's a fraud and a huckster.

We see some of the same 'thinking' on DU ... when 'discussions' of large-bodied people on airlines or smokers crop up. Not only must these people suffer from their physical condition or once-acceptable (and encouraged!) addiction, they must also bear the burdens of indignities and costs for which they have no causal responsibility. Nothing is enough in scapegoating the pariahs ... lepers in our midst whose personal suffering is never enough for others seeking a target for their self-righteous animosities.

[Gabi Hayes]

11. great find...thanks, adding it to my Rudy folder

just had a talk w/friend in North Carolina.

told him my greatest fear is a media-loving St. Rudy, waltzing into the White House in 21 months or so.

[BearSquirrel2]

25. Your friend in North Carolina ...

Shouldn't your friend in North Carolina have some insight on how his Republican neighbors will great a social liberal. Right now I think either that southern uber-christians have a deep, sincere faith that blinds them to evidence. If they vote for Rudy, I'll know that they're just a bunch of ignorant sheeople who will do whatever is told them as long as it appeals to their primitive sensibilities of entitlement and domination.

[subterranean]

12. Is he also against mandatory car insurance?

Shouldn't we have the choice to "opt out" if we want to??
:sarcasm:

[iamjoy]

13. Could He Watch Some One Die

Imagine, a man is brought into an ER in cardiac arrest. The ER staff starts charging the paddles. Then, the man's wife says they have no health insurance. The hospital staff stops charging the paddles. As the monitor starts beeping, the staff calmly switches it off. "Too bad, ma'am. He chose not to have health insurance, that's the price he pays."

A little girl has a broken leg. Her father brings her to the doctor. But they have no insurance, so the doctor declines to treat the girl who is screaming in pain from her compound fracture. The father and mother set it themselves, muttering that maybe they should have skipped dinner every night so they could have health coverage.

Is this what he means?

Oh, how very quaint.

[huskerlaw]

14. What a jackass.

He has obviously never known anyone personally who didn't have access to the highest quality health care.

Which doesn't surprise me in the slightest.

[BayCityProgressive]

16. THE SOCIALISTS ARE COMING THE SOCIALISTS ARE COMING!!!

[spindrifter]

15. He's apparently got a pretty short

memory. Didn't he have prostate cancer? I would have thought that would have made him think differently on this topic. Oh--I get it--his speech writer didn't have cancer. That's why this sounds like it's a Tale from the Crypt.

[bonito]

17. If this man's mother showed the compassion he is displaying

He would have never had his childhood shots, it obvious though he never got his ass wiped.

[Colobo]

18. Giuliani is evil. Period.

This is the kind of position that drove me away from the GOP... forever!

[BayCityProgressive]

20. Well I am glad

you moved to join us over the dark side :hi:

[TZ]

19. moran

I have spent almost 3 fuckin months trying to get my COBRA insurance coverage to work right! And I have a chronic condition which has kept me in bed for the past three days straight days and trying to get a doctors appointment to see whats going on..thats been a bit of a nightmare. The insurance offered by my temp agency is good only for preventive. The $360 per month I pay currently is better than the$280 for ONE PRESCRIPTION alone I would pay with no coverage. And I can't get independant health insurance because I have a preexisting condition! Yeah Giuliani, I have SOOOOO many choices. Most of these idiots are so accustomed to their nice solid govertment health benefits they have NO CLUE whats going on for the typical American. While these comments are quite as ignorant as Chimpy's "gold plated" insurance, it ranks close!:mad:

[pigpickle]

21. I'm amazed people call this guy a moderate. He's fucking fascist!

[RedCappedBandit]

22. Wow.

I never had much respect for politicians.. but I didn't think they could be this vapid.


oh who am i kidding.. look at the "president"

[MN ChimpH8R]

23. He's even a bigger idiot than I thought

This bozo's entire reputation and national political career is built on the four months he was NYC mayor after 9-11. I remember well that many New Yorkers thought he was a loutish, bullying, loudmouthed asshat on September 10 (and well before). The totality of his accomplishments was looking semi-competent while Chimpolini looked like a total idiot after the attack.

Ghouliani is one of the biggest frauds in the history of American politics.

And on the "choice" point the Reichwingers always harp on, there are just a few petty things that they ignore, the first being the cost of acquiring the information necessary to make an informed choice. How is an average individual supposed to compare and contrast information about health care or anything else, that is deliberately drafted to be confusing and obfuscatory? I am a lawyer with a top-shelf degree and can't understand the stuff. People throw their hands in the air and sign whatever is put in front of them.

I have never heard one of these shitheads respond to World Health Organization statistic, they just start babbling about "best in the world." Sure, jackass, sure. :grr: Tell it to the unvaccinated kids, the uninsured, or even me (uninsured for four of the last five years, including this one). Every industrialized country but one has a national health care plan. Explain that away.

[BearSquirrel2]

24. Waiting lists ...

Yeah, try to get in to see a specialist and you'll learn about what a "waiting list" is. If you're rich and famous, the doctor will make the time for you. Other wise, take a number and listen to the muzak. I'm not criticizing the doctors. That's just the way it is. And we would do ourselves a big favor by distributing more money to healthcare PROVIDERS rather than the money men who leach off the system.

[Astrad]

26. An example of 'socialized' medicine

Just an anecdote but maybe telling. I live in Canada. We, as you all know, have single payer health insurance. I called my doctor last Monday morning about a health issue (this is a doctor I haven't seen in two years). I was given an appointment the same day at 2:30 pm. She sent me for an x-ray at a diagnostic centre a few blocks away. I got the x-ray immediately (no wait.) I headed back home. At 5:00 pm my doctor called me with the radiologist's report. It's not always this efficient but it more often is.

[prolesunited]

31. What a horrible system!

Why on earth would be want it here? :eyes:

[wordpix]

28. Rudy is so against mandates he didn't order 911 first responders to wear protective gear

Now they're paying the price with their 9-11 cough, which proves Rudy is WRONG:

snip: "The minute you start mandating, you always end up with more expensive government programs."

He DIDN'T mandate protection for firefighters and other workers after the 911 attacks and now their health care will cost MORE because of Rudy's LACK of a mandate. :crazy:

[mentalsolstice]

29. As the party of creationism

The repugs certainly do adhere to Darwin's theory of "survival of the fittest", don't they.

[sakkatta]

32. sounds like a libertarian dream

to screw everyone out of their money

[Odin2005]

37. It's more proof that "Libertarianism" is nothing but greedy, anti-social BS.

[Iris]

33. Like our healthcare system works so well.

Who thinks it's working? Besides HCA and the like?

[TwilightGardener]

34. The conservatives will approve. Rudy helped himself here.

[sable302]

35. by taking that view on

the no 1 domestic issue, I think he just sank his presidential campaign.

[Odin2005]

36. What a Social Darwinist psychopath