Biotech Values

[medchal]

"...no analysis, no data, no argument in the world is going to convince right-wing ideologues that public plans are more cost-efficient than the private insurers." Well, why should it, since you have no useful "data" and no meaningful analysis, and all practical experience reinforces the opposite conclusion? Kind of reminds me of how Barney Frank is going to pay for this whole trillion-plus dollar project by canceling $400 million in production of an outdated fighter plane. You cite some source that says Medicare (or Medicaid, or some potential future government-controlled plan) is or would be 30% more efficient administratively than private insurers. Isn't it convenient that the "savings" came out to that nice round number, especially considering that there is no direct way of measuring "administrative efficiency"? Evidently, the unwillingness of others to swallow such pap frustrates you, so you cheerily dismiss them as "right-wing" and "right-wing ideologues", twice in 578 words, when "free market advocates" would be a more precise description. Speaking of "right-wing" (weren't you?), all those imaginary data and statistics you use remind me of "Joe", in the decades-old movie of that name, sitting on his barstool, shouting things like, "Thirty-eight percent of all communists is homosexuals!" He didn't have much luck garnering belief, either.

In fact, all your arguments and analysis are purely political (as I pointed out before), and you gleefully spend 470 of those 578 words on a long, convoluted "analysis" which has nothing whatever to do with medicine, insurance, or health care. You begin with the statement, "So the rest is about politics." Well, truer words were never spoken. For you, it's all just a number of political scenarios which you hope will play out in your favor during "an interesting political summer". Winning is important, not the result of winning. "Lobbyists", "progressive Dems", "reform", "political calculus", "Repubs", "his base", "the 'middle'", "clearly" [my favorite political adverb, meaning "as I see it through a glass, darkly"], "Blue Dog Dems", "bi-partisanship", "tricky political choice", "Pelosi", "whole Dem leadership": What do any of those dreary terms have to do with health care, or cost analysis, or the newest bugbear, "innovation"?

Tell me, when it's so obviously all just a political game with you, why are you offended when others doubt the sincerity of your "health care" proposals?