dubya dubbed: Just Go To The ER

Romney on ‘60 Minutes’: Uninsured Can Go to ER


On CBS’ “60 Minutes” on Sunday night, Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney revealed his new plan for the millions of Americans who don’t have any health care coverage: Go to the emergency room.

“Well, we do provide care for people who don’t have insurance,” he told Scott Pelley during the interview. “If someone has a heart attack, they don’t sit in their apartment and die. We pick them up in an ambulance, and take them to the hospital, and give them care. And different states have different ways of providing for that care.”

Yes, this is the same man who implemented the universal health care law in Massachusetts while he was the governor. It’s also the same man who reiterated the need for universal coverage back in 2010 during an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”

“Look, it doesn’t make a lot of sense for us to have millions and millions of people who have no health insurance and yet who can go to the emergency room and get entirely free care for which they have no responsibility, particularly if they are people who have sufficient means to pay their own way,” he said back then.

Here’s a new defense for Romney if he’s asked again about his 47 percent remark (and he most likely will be): “Hey, I often say things I don’t mean!”

http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item...=Google+Reader

Etch-a-sketch'ed NoWhereMan, the best the Repugs have to offer.

whatever one thinks of that, that is the current system

I think his remarks were in response to the safety net piece of Pelley's question.

Not that he has a cogent plan. Nobody on the Hill does.

and it's not exactly news at this point that Mitt Romney's opinions are very changeable

What exactly was wrong with his answer? Did you listen to the video? His point is to let it be a state by state solution and not a one size fits all federal solution. He even went on to discuss how he handled it in his state until the video clip cut him off.

And he's right. Everybody gets health care under the current system. It might not be the most efficient way to deliver it but it gets delivered.

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Originally Posted by Winehole23

and it's not exactly news at this point that Mitt Romney's opinions are very changeable

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Replace "changeable" with "evolving".:lol

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Originally Posted by CosmicCowboy

What exactly was wrong with his answer?

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nothing. it's a minor variation of the John Kerry flip-flop thing. alleged and quotable inconsistencies. bullshit and rhetoric, in other words.

however, it remains factually true that Mitt Romney's major political accomplishment most resembles that of Obama: mandated universal health insurance. there was always a danger this would not remain altogether hidden.

There is a huge difference between a federal level solution and a state level solution.

And the fact that he was flexible doesn't seem like that big of a handicap. All the hardcore Republicans hate Obama more than they do him, and that very flexibility could appeal to independents and moderates.

Face it, Romney is a loser. Stressing his squishy appeal to moderates is probably useless at this point.

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Originally Posted by CosmicCowboy

flexibility

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:lol

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Originally Posted by CosmicCowboy

There is a huge difference between a federal level solution and a state level solution.

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how so? the core idea is the same: universal health insurance mandate.

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Originally Posted by Winehole23

Face it, Romney is a loser. Stressing his squishy appeal to moderates is probably useless at this point.

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Oh, I'm pretty well resigned to 4 more years of our existing loser.

You have 20lbs of shit and a 5lb bag. All these candidates have their creative bullshit ways of saying they have the solution but the truth is you cannot get 20lbs of shit into a 5lb bag.

isnt that just how it is in most westernize countries?

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Originally Posted by CosmicCowboy

Oh, I'm pretty well resigned to 4 more years of our existing loser.

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sore loser beforehand? :lol

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Originally Posted by Winehole23

sore loser beforehand? :lol

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Meh, call it what you want. I think Obama has some good speechwriters, reads a teleprompter well, and is a good strategic campaigner. At the same time I think he is a terrible president.

we apparently agree on that much, and that Romney is a loser.

Yet in 2010, in an appearance on MSNBC, Romney said almost exactly the opposite: "It doesn't make a lot of sense for us to have millions and millions of people who have no health insurance and yet who can go to the emergency room and get entirely free care for which they have no responsibility," he said at the time.

That's because back then, Romney was defending the Massachusetts law he signed as governor. It's the one that requires most people to either have health insurance or pay a fine — just like the federal law he now vows to repeal.

He used even more colorful language back in 2007, talking to Fox News host Glenn Beck. "When they show up at the hospital, they get care; they get free care paid for by you and me," he said. "If that's not a form of socialism, I don't know what is."

But in addition to flip-flopping, Romney is missing a key fact about the uninsured and emergency room care, says health policy professor Harold Pollack of the University of Chicago. Just because hospitals are required to see patients in the emergency room doesn't mean that care is required to be free.

"The emergency room is perfectly entitled to send you a whopping bill," said Pollack. "And there are many people across America who are facing significant financial problems from serious bills that they've received for emergency care."

It's only when the uninsured don't — or can't — pay those bills that the costs come back to the taxpayers. Pollack also says Democrats and Republicans largely agree that emergency rooms are wholly inappropriate places for most people to get health care.

"It's just about the least cost-effective way you can get your medical care. And we also have really damaged the institution of emergency department care by expecting it to take on these burdens it's not really designed to assume — to provide primary care to low-income people," he said.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolit...s?sc=17&f=1001

:lol what a lying dumbfuck.

"a rolling stone gathers no moss"

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tu...-way-but-lucid

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Originally Posted by TeyshaBlue

I think his remarks were in response to the safety net piece of Pelley's question.

Not that he has a cogent plan. Nobody on the Hill does.

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I keep asking people who call themselves conservative for a "free-market" plan or alternative to single payor that ends the inefficient cost-shifting of our current system.

I haven't gotten one yet.

Single payor system is the best solution out of any that I have seen. Or, if you prefer, least bad, sticking with the current system of heath insurance/care among that solution set. Long term the current system of rationing health care is unsustainable.

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Originally Posted by ploto

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tu...-way-but-lucid

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:lmao

You forgot the follow up:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flowers_for_Algernon

single payer, and single buyer (forbidden by Repug regulations), are the best solutions, as has been shown in other countries, but of course, USA must ignore all other countries as totally irrelevant to the USA's "exceptional"ly superior table ranking.

All industrial countries struggle with proving universal health care, but the USA "exceptionally" allows the sick-care for-profit industry suck down wealth from citizens at a much higher rate, while not providing universal health care. Fucking clients, esp sick clients, is The American Way of Capitalism.

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Originally Posted by RandomGuy

I keep asking people who call themselves conservative for a "free-market" plan or alternative to single payor that ends the inefficient cost-shifting of our current system.

I haven't gotten one yet.

Single payor system is the best solution out of any that I have seen. Or, if you prefer, least bad, sticking with the current system of heath insurance/care among that solution set. Long term the current system of rationing health care is unsustainable.

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I suppose you've missed my 10,000 posts on this topic.