The strange greatness of Donald Trump

[grmorton]

I think the right philosophy for the right problem. We have a socialistic economic approach to highway systems, education, social security (though flawed in its execution - creating what is essentially a government-sanctioned ponzi scheme), and medicare. I think a socialistic approach would successfully apply to all of healthcare ...

Obviously you haven't lived under socialized/government medicine. It is fantastic if you have the sniffles and need something simple, but if you have cancer, need knee or hip replacements, need a neurologist or a cardiac guy--good luck. In the UK, where I lived 3 years, and had 3 physicals, they never once checked for prostate cancer--not even that finger poke we all hate. Why? that is NICE's policy because if they find cancer early, they have to spend more money than if they find it late. NICE (National Inst. for Care Excellence--Orwellian that name), denied renal cancer patients the most effective drug for their cancer because it cost too much and wouldn't let people go over seas for it and pay for it. Anyway back to my story, I came back from there with a prostate cancer that was highly aggressive, and metastatic, and was spreading into my gut out of the organ, with the doctor YELLING at me that I was going to die quickly--2 years. Thankfully he was very wrong about how quickly I was going to die, I have outlived 3 prognostications of my death now, but I am a 99.9999% outlier. They dont' even keep survival statistics on guys with my situation in prostate cancer--that is how unlikely it was for me to live.


When I was in the UK I got in a cab and the driver said it was his first day back at work after his bypass surgery. I laughed and said, 'That should have taken a year" he said, "no, it took 2 years". I asked what happened. It seems he was in line for the surgery and 3 weeks before it was scheduled, his doctor died. They moved him to the back of another surgeon's list and he had to wait another year. I lived in Peterculter Scotland, a small town, population 4000 or so, with 3 grocery stores (much smaller than those in the US), and 3 funeral parlors. The town was filled with old folks on walkers. NICE wouldn't allow any of them to get joint replacements--too much money and they were considered too old. All these old people lived in constant pain and had to climb the steep hills going to and from the town center. Socialism is so generous and comforting to those old folks, that it let them suffer for lack of money.


It took me 2 years to be admitted into a dental surgery practice. There are not enough dentists, so when my cap fell off my tooth, no dentist would help me because I wasn't their patient. I acted like a tourist and went to the Aberdeen university paupers dental practice to get it glued back in.


this is gross, but when I was working Newfoundland (I spent about 20% of my time up there over the past 8 years), I started peeing blood on the airplane. When I landed, I went to the emergency room in St. Johns. This was about 7 pm. They had about 20 people in the room, almost all of them had been there since morning. they took 1 person per hour and I realized that I would probably see the doctor about 5 am (some people gave up and left---which is what I eventually did and they charged me $240 Canadian for the privilege of wasting my time in the emergency room). The name of the game is wait out your competition in Canada. I had a friend with a compound leg fracture who waited 20 hours in the St. Johns emergency room to be seen--she was in utter agony--and I know how much agony she was in because I once broke my leg in 4 places with my foot at my kneecap, but here in the US I was in surgery within 3 hours. Isn't socialism great?

edited to add: Oh yeah, I just heard that because of the doctor shortage in the UK they are having doctors see 14-15 patients at a time in the same room. Don't you want to discuss your ED or female problems in front of all your neighbors looking on? How nice socialism is.

Please don't inflict that scourge on us.

[Sparko]

Obviously you haven't lived under socialized/government medicine. It is fantastic if you have the sniffles and need something simple, but if you have cancer, need knee or hip replacements, need a neurologist or a cardiac guy--good luck. In the UK, where I lived 3 years, and had 3 physicals, they never once checked for prostate cancer--not even that finger poke we all hate. Why? that is NICE's policy because if they find cancer early, they have to spend more money than if they find it late. NICE (National Inst. for Care Excellence--Orwellian that name), denied renal cancer patients the most effective drug for their cancer because it cost too much and wouldn't let people go over seas for it and pay for it. Anyway back to my story, I came back from there with a prostate cancer that was highly aggressive, and metastatic, and was spreading into my gut out of the organ, with the doctor YELLING at me that I was going to die quickly--2 years. Thankfully he was very wrong about how quickly I was going to die, I have outlived 3 prognostications of my death now, but I am a 99.9999% outlier. They dont' even keep survival statistics on guys with my situation in prostate cancer--that is how unlikely it was for me to live.


When I was in the UK I got in a cab and the driver said it was his first day back at work after his bypass surgery. I laughed and said, 'That should have taken a year" he said, "no, it took 2 years". I asked what happened. It seems he was in line for the surgery and 3 weeks before it was scheduled, his doctor died. They moved him to the back of another surgeon's list and he had to wait another year. I lived in Peterculter Scotland, a small town, population 4000 or so, with 3 grocery stores (much smaller than those in the US), and 3 funeral parlors. The town was filled with old folks on walkers. NICE wouldn't allow any of them to get joint replacements--too much money and they were considered too old. All these old people lived in constant pain and had to climb the steep hills going to and from the town center. Socialism is so generous and comforting to those old folks, that it let them suffer for lack of money.


It took me 2 years to be admitted into a dental surgery practice. There are not enough dentists, so when my cap fell off my tooth, no dentist would help me because I wasn't their patient. I acted like a tourist and went to the Aberdeen university paupers dental practice to get it glued back in.


this is gross, but when I was working Newfoundland (I spent about 20% of my time up there over the past 8 years), I started peeing blood on the airplane. When I landed, I went to the emergency room in St. Johns. This was about 7 pm. They had about 20 people in the room, almost all of them had been there since morning. they took 1 person per hour and I realized that I would probably see the doctor about 5 am (some people gave up and left---which is what I eventually did and they charged me $240 Canadian for the privilege of wasting my time in the emergency room). The name of the game is wait out your competition in Canada. I had a friend with a compound leg fracture who waited 20 hours in the St. Johns emergency room to be seen--she was in utter agony--and I know how much agony she was in because I once broke my leg in 4 places with my foot at my kneecap, but here in the US I was in surgery within 3 hours. Isn't socialism great?

edited to add: Oh yeah, I just heard that because of the doctor shortage in the UK they are having doctors see 14-15 patients at a time in the same room. Don't you want to discuss your ED or female problems in front of all your neighbors looking on? How nice socialism is.

Please don't inflict that scourge on us.

Carp's standard reply is "examples aren't evidence"

But I hear these horror stories all the time from people I know in countries where there is socialized healthcare. And here in the USA for our VA hospitals.

[Cow Poke]

Carp's standard reply is "examples aren't evidence"

But I hear these horror stories all the time from people I know in countries where there is socialized healthcare. And here in the USA for our VA hospitals.

But the service is GREAT if you never need it!

[grmorton]

But the service is GREAT if you never need it!

What, for coffee???

[grmorton]

Carp's standard reply is "examples aren't evidence"

But I hear these horror stories all the time from people I know in countries where there is socialized healthcare. And here in the USA for our VA hospitals.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/201...nts-groups-15/


OK, drop trou, turn you head to the right and cough for 15 of your neighbors please.

[carpedm9587]

Yes, they are not.

I have to stop writing like I talk.

Meh - I think that's a bit presumptive. A Muslim can be literally any ethnicity.

Agreed - they can. But it is also true that the vast bulk of the Muslim religion is centered in the Middle East and sections of the Far East, so there is a strong ethnic (even racial) alignment - stronger than Christianity, for example. And there are no true Christian theocracies - but there are Muslim theocracies.

Yeah, because the people incorrectly using that term are PREJUDICED!

Mostly just sloppy with their language.

If you guys* would just stick with what is TRUE and documentable, instead of piling on, you'd have more credibility.

I think I said that

He's a Yankee! What can I say?

If I recall correctly, last time you southerners got all up and in our faces - us Yankees sort of whooped your backsides...

I'm just sayin'

*just pokin - I'm kidding

Well STOP that...

[Cow Poke]

Agreed - they can. But it is also true that the vast bulk of the Muslim religion is centered in the Middle East and sections of the Far East, so there is a strong ethnic (even racial) alignment - stronger than Christianity, for example. And there are no true Christian theocracies - but there are Muslim theocracies.

Why even go there? I'm a little surprised that an extremist flaming liberal would even suggest this.

If I recall correctly, last time you southerners got all up and in our faces - us Yankees sort of whooped your backsides...

Yes, the War of Northern Aggression showed what a bunch of hate-filled bullies y'all are.

[carpedm9587]

Carpe, I would agree with you that Trumps personal morals are not what they ought to be. And he is an insufferable braggart. But unlike almost all politicians, he has tried hard to do everything he told us he would do. And in my book, I can put up with the bragging, and roll my eyes a bit at him, if he keeps doing what I want. IMO absolutely every politician lies all the time. It is what they do that one needs to watch.

Well...the bag is a bit more mixed than you seem to paint it. And I don't agree that every politician lies all the time. I distinguish between "spinning" to shine the best possible light on something, making a mistake, exaggerating, and outright lying. Politicians common do the first three. The latter one is more rare. When Obama made the "you can keep your doctor and policy claim," I initially wrote it off as a misstatement or possibly an exaggeration (saying something as an absolute when it wasn't really absolute). When he continually repeated it in the face of having been called on it - it became a lie.

Trump outright lies more than any politician I know, even when you factor out the hyperbole and mistakes. He makes up numbers. He makes up events. He even - for some amazing reason - feels a need to lie about the birthplace of his own father. Some of the lies are serious, because of the impact they make on the people who swallow them hole hog. Others are just ridiculously petty. He has even, as president, publicly bragged about lying to the president of another country.

And, frankly, most of what he "promised" I didn't want - so I sure as heck am not going to praise him for setting us years or decades back on cleaning our air, making corruption in government worse (so much for drain the swamp), reducing our security in many ways, keeping Guantanamo open, trying to throw millions off healthcare and make it more expensive for the rest of us, trying to defund Planned Parenthood, giving a tax break that primarily benefited the most wealthy, ballooning the national debt (and when asked about it - his response is that he's not concerned because by the time it becomes an issue, he won't be president), and the list goes on.

Edited to add, my wife is Lebanese so no one better accuse me of dislike of Arabs, but I view Islam like I view any other anti-Semitic philosophy. I see no reason to support the massive importation of anti-Semitic, anti-Jewish views in to our country. I don't care the race, be it Germans of the WWII variety, white supremacists, or believers in Islam, if you dislike another group, and it is culturally instilled in you, I don't want them in this country, we have had enough problems with racial strife in our past as it is.

There is nothing about Islamic teachings that is intrinsically antisemitic, AFAIK, so it is not correctly called an "antisemitic philosophy." It is true that there is a great deal of antisemitism in the nations that surround Israel, and its roots are historical ones. That does not justify it, and I agree we should not tolerate it. But I find it ironic that your language here appears to reflect exactly what you seem to object to: dislike for another group that you don't want to see in this country. In this case, the Muslim community.

Unless, of course, I have misunderstood your statement...?

[carpedm9587]

He said today that we have a moral obligation to provide free health care for illegals. 1. we as a nation cant really afford it, 2. why do Vets and citizens have to take a back seat to the goodies the Dems want to dish out, and 3. who does Biden think he is representing? Citizens or illegals? That alone makes me very leery of Biden.

My position on immigration is a fairly simple one. I think illegal immigration is inevitable so long as there is something here that attracts others in less fortunate places. No one solution (i.e., a wall) is going to change that. You change that by changing the differential between us and them. Since I don't particularly want my quality of life to drop, I have a vested interest in wanting the nations around us to have an equally good quality of life, and think we should be investing some of our resources to make that happen.

I think the volume of illegal immigrants here is due to two factors: they came, and we let them. Any solution has to involve both sides taking responsibility for that state of affairs. Summarily deporting everyone places all of the responsibility on them and none on us (and would cost a fortune and wreak havoc with our economy). Granting all of them citizenship places all of the responsibility on us and none on them (and dishonors those trying to do it right). To me the right approach is to give every illegal immigrant currently here who has NOT transgressed the law and arduous path to citizenship. The path should require MORE of them than someone who did it right (i.e., community service, etc.), but should be attainable by anyone willing to put in the effort. And the offer should be made for a defined period of time, and then closed.

I think future illegal immigration should be a zero tolerance policy. And I think the current plan to build walls and enlarge housing facilities is ridiculous. It's a sunk cost and then incurs all of the cost of feeding and providing healthcare and the rest. I think what we should be doing is devoting the appropriate resources to deal with the immigration cases quickly. That means spooling up our legal resources on the border to shorten the time to hear cases from years to days or a few weeks. If the billions dreamed up for walls and buildings were instead spent on detection technology, capture, and the personnel required to so these cases can be handled quickly and those not passing the asylum test quickly deported, it would soon become clear that anyone without a good asylum claim doesn't get through. Catch-and-release would be obsolete. Separating families would be unnecessary, nor would long-term housing. And as the volume drops, that personnel can be released, instead of representing an indefinite sunk cost.

As for healthcare - I think any human being who is ill or in need of healthcare should receive it. I don't stop to check for a green card before I help a sick neighbor.

[carpedm9587]

Obviously you haven't lived under socialized/government medicine. It is fantastic if you have the sniffles and need something simple, but if you have cancer, need knee or hip replacements, need a neurologist or a cardiac guy--good luck. In the UK, where I lived 3 years, and had 3 physicals, they never once checked for prostate cancer--not even that finger poke we all hate. Why? that is NICE's policy because if they find cancer early, they have to spend more money than if they find it late. NICE (National Inst. for Care Excellence--Orwellian that name), denied renal cancer patients the most effective drug for their cancer because it cost too much and wouldn't let people go over seas for it and pay for it. Anyway back to my story, I came back from there with a prostate cancer that was highly aggressive, and metastatic, and was spreading into my gut out of the organ, with the doctor YELLING at me that I was going to die quickly--2 years. Thankfully he was very wrong about how quickly I was going to die, I have outlived 3 prognostications of my death now, but I am a 99.9999% outlier. They dont' even keep survival statistics on guys with my situation in prostate cancer--that is how unlikely it was for me to live.


When I was in the UK I got in a cab and the driver said it was his first day back at work after his bypass surgery. I laughed and said, 'That should have taken a year" he said, "no, it took 2 years". I asked what happened. It seems he was in line for the surgery and 3 weeks before it was scheduled, his doctor died. They moved him to the back of another surgeon's list and he had to wait another year. I lived in Peterculter Scotland, a small town, population 4000 or so, with 3 grocery stores (much smaller than those in the US), and 3 funeral parlors. The town was filled with old folks on walkers. NICE wouldn't allow any of them to get joint replacements--too much money and they were considered too old. All these old people lived in constant pain and had to climb the steep hills going to and from the town center. Socialism is so generous and comforting to those old folks, that it let them suffer for lack of money.


It took me 2 years to be admitted into a dental surgery practice. There are not enough dentists, so when my cap fell off my tooth, no dentist would help me because I wasn't their patient. I acted like a tourist and went to the Aberdeen university paupers dental practice to get it glued back in.


this is gross, but when I was working Newfoundland (I spent about 20% of my time up there over the past 8 years), I started peeing blood on the airplane. When I landed, I went to the emergency room in St. Johns. This was about 7 pm. They had about 20 people in the room, almost all of them had been there since morning. they took 1 person per hour and I realized that I would probably see the doctor about 5 am (some people gave up and left---which is what I eventually did and they charged me $240 Canadian for the privilege of wasting my time in the emergency room). The name of the game is wait out your competition in Canada. I had a friend with a compound leg fracture who waited 20 hours in the St. Johns emergency room to be seen--she was in utter agony--and I know how much agony she was in because I once broke my leg in 4 places with my foot at my kneecap, but here in the US I was in surgery within 3 hours. Isn't socialism great?

edited to add: Oh yeah, I just heard that because of the doctor shortage in the UK they are having doctors see 14-15 patients at a time in the same room. Don't you want to discuss your ED or female problems in front of all your neighbors looking on? How nice socialism is.

Please don't inflict that scourge on us.

I know nothing of the UK issues. I do know that a story is just that: a story. At best it is a single data point. So I typically go looking or some data to affirm or refute the observations. I found the annual survey of the NHS, which saw a 7% drop in satisfaction between 2016 and 2017 (I am not finding any 2018 numbers), but remains above 50% - so 57% of the UK population disagrees with your assessment and is generally satisfied with their healthcare. Apparently older people are more satisfied than younger people. The 29% that said they were dissatisfied generally cited issues that seem to align with what you are saying - so clearly there are people there who are not getting what they want.

But that does not mean we need to adopt the UK model. The five "happiest countries in the world" all have some degree or type of socialized medicine, at least in 2016. And when I go back through various years, the countries that consistently report the most happiness with their healthcare are those with socialized programs and universal coverage.

So yes - I want that. For all of us. I just want to make sure it is done right, and perhaps the UK model is not the best one out there.

[carpedm9587]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/201...nts-groups-15/

OK, drop trou, turn you head to the right and cough for 15 of your neighbors please.

Just to be clear - though I HAVE used the expression "examples aren't evidence," it's not exactly the right way to express my perspective. When someone tells me a story - I take it for what it is - a story about their experience. It is a single data point. Strictly speaking - it is "evidence." It's just not very compelling evidence. It's like picking out one person in a country, measuring their height, and then saying "people in this country are 5' 11" tall." If you want to know, on average, how tall people are, you need a proper sample space - and one data point won't cut it.

Many people here seem to think that as soon as they relate their bad experience, everyone should accept that "it is bad." To justify the claim that the tax cut was not mostly beneficial to the rich, I get a report for how big one person's tax return was, or how much extra money they saw in their paycheck. That does not provide a picture of a country or a system - it tells me about one person.

Your story tells me that UK healthcare can be bad. It tells me that you had a bad experience. It tells me next to nothing about what the average for the country is. So I go looking for that data. I found that 29% of your country agrees with you, and 57% disagrees with you. Now I have a better feel for how the "average" UK citizen feels about their healthcare system.

[Cow Poke]

I know nothing of the UK issues. I do know that a story is just that: a story. At best it is a single data point. So I typically go looking or some data to affirm or refute the observations. I found the annual survey of the NHS, which saw a 7% drop in satisfaction between 2016 and 2017 (I am not finding any 2018 numbers), but remains above 50% - so 57% of the UK population disagrees with your assessment and is generally satisfied with their healthcare. ...

A)

In what universe is a customer satisfaction rate of 50-57% good?
Customer Satisfaction Benchmarks by Industry
Most of these are easily 76% and above?

2)

A 7% drop would be quite alarming in any of the industries listed.

[carpedm9587]

Why even go there? I'm a little surprised that an extremist flaming liberal would even suggest this.

Odd - I didn't see any posts from any extremist, flaming liberals. I must have missed it.

Yes, the War of Northern Aggression showed what a bunch of hate-filled bullies y'all are.

Yeah - but you southerns seem to mostly like bullies. After all, you put one in the oval office....

[Cow Poke]

Your story tells me that UK healthcare can be bad. It tells me that you had a bad experience. It tells me next to nothing about what the average for the country is. So I go looking for that data. I found that 29% of your country agrees with you, and 57% disagrees with you. Now I have a better feel for how the "average" UK citizen feels about their healthcare system.

His country is the US of A. He indicated he lived in the UK for 3 years.

[Cow Poke]

Odd - I didn't see any posts from any extremist, flaming liberals. I must have missed it.

Yeah, you all say that.

Yeah - but you southerns seem to mostly like bullies. After all, you put one in the oval office....

Um.... what put him over the top was your YANKEE states' electoral college votes.