TOOT!!

[Portageegal]

Does anyone watch Mythbusters? They did one on farting and methane gas. Maybe we should suggest one one cpap gas.

[kempo]

Name one socialized health care system that does not ration care. Socialized health care's main objective is to save money not lives.

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/Townhallco ... _expensive

Just one of many examples.

[So Well]

PST/Amigo,

There are those who believe a small intellectual elite enjoying life and confiscated riches in a little corner of this vast country of 300+ million population can manage those individuals lives better than the 300 million individuals can manage their own dynamic lives. Such a disgusting and intellectually dishonest belief!

The greatest country in world history, which gave the masses the freedom to lift themselves to the highest level of prosperity ever achieved on this planet, is in great danger of a quick fall.

“Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.”

I will save the rest of my words for the youth of the country. If you haven't learned these truths at your apparent ages, you will be too difficult to convince.

[OceanGoingGal]

Do I see a correlation here? This thread started out about farting/gas and now it is politics!

Laura

[PST]

Sorry OceanGoingGal. I have even more hot air to share:

Name one socialized health care system that does not ration care. Socialized health care's main objective is to save money not lives.

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/Townhallco ... _expensive

Just one of many examples.

I am going to use Switzerland as my example. I don't actually consider Switzerland's system to be socialized health care, but then neither do I consider the PPACA to be. They are quite similar. Both systems are only about paying for care. Actual care is provided by private doctors and hospitals (with the exception of the odd county hospital or the VA). Both systems use private insurers. People are required to buy insurance, but there is a subsidy for those with low incomes to make broad participation possible. The big difference is that the PPACA keeps three old systems of coverage: employer group coverage for those whose employers provide it, Medicaid for the very poor, and Medicare for what I used to think of as the elderly but now think of as the upper middle aged. Essentially, the PPACA keeps what we have and adds the Swiss system for those not covered, so I think I am justified in using Switzerland as my example. The Swiss insurance system is described well in an article entitled "Swiss Health Care Thrives Without Public Option," at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/01/healt ... swiss.html. It notes that there is no rationing of healthcare in Switzerland. The story was written in 2009 before the public option was dropped from the U.S. legislation. I should add, I don't consider stories about the U.K. or Canada to be relevant to the PPACA, so please don't bother to claim that there is rationing in one of these. Those systems are completely different.

I am glad kempo cited the mammogram article as proof that socialized health care's main objective is to save money, not lives. It claims that a government panel decided that mammograms are no longer necessary for women in their forties because too much money is spent on unnecessary tests. This is simply a falsehood. The panel's work, which I will describe, was not based on the cost of care. It was based on clinical considerations: what is best for patients. One of the great things about the internet is that usually you don't have to take people's word for things. You can check out the accuracy of what I have to say at http://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforc ... psbrca.htm. The panel's recommendations and the reasoning behind them are there in black and white. It still surprises me, somehow, when people just flat out lie about something anyone can look up, but in the healthcare debate, it has been distressingly common to see ideologues and industry shills do this as they twist each scrap of news that comes along into a new way to frighten and mislead the public about the PPACA.

In 2009 an independent panel of experts, called the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, revised its recommendations about breast cancer screening. The Task Force has been around since the 1980s and covered dozens of topics. Doctors rely on panels of experts like this one to sift through research and advise them about current best practices. The members are not federal employees, and the staff work is done by contract with medical schools and similar institutions. For example, most of the work on the breast cancer screening study was done at Oregon Health & Science University. The panel has nothing to do with the PPACA or socialized medicine. The members of the Task Force and the work on this project all go back long before the start of the current administration. Its recommendations come with a disclaimer that they do not represent government policy. The Task Force has no power to tell anyone what to do.

The critical point, though, is that the panel did not conclude that the testing cost too much money to be worthwhile. It considered the low rate of lives saved by universal screening before age 50 compared to factors like the pain of testing, the increase in radiation risk, and most of all, the high rate of false positives. These lead to unnecessary further testing, including biopsies of suspected cancer, and unnecessary anxiety in those told that they might have cancer. The cumulative risk of a false positive in ten years of annual testing has been estimated at 56 percent.

There isn't anything magic about age 40 or any other specific age when screening should begin for any disease. These are legitimate empirical questions. It is reasonable to ask, would 30 be better? or 50? I don't care whether this particular conclusion is right or wrong. My point is that it is completely reasonable for scientific experts to study this, and it shouldn't be tossed around as evidence that "socialized medicine" intends to sacrifice our health to save money.

The Task Force, by the way, didn't say that women age 40 to 49 shouldn't have mammograms. It only said that doctors should not urge every woman to have one. It said, "The decision to start regular, biennial screening mammography before the age of 50 years should be an individual one and take patient context into account, including the patient's values regarding specific benefits and harms." This is the very opposite of telling people what they must and must not do. Moreover, when the recommendation was reported, Kathleen Sebelius, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, said that federal government insurance programs would continue to pay for annual mammograms starting at age 40, as before. A year has passed, and they still do. So much for rationing.

In short, the source of the information, Americans for Prosperity, part of the web of so-called Astroturf organizations bankrolled by the Koch brothers and their allies, latched onto a study that happened to come out during the healthcare debate and lied about what it said. It was a well respected clinical study about the advantages and disadvantages of different breast cancer screening protocols, but these people decided to use it as a scare tactic to influence the debate by falsely claiming that it was about rationing.

[kempo]

Gosh, being an old country boy, I feel honored debating this with a high powered lawyer like yourself. If you are going to use Switzerland as an example I have a question. How many millions of illegal Aliens does Switzerland have to contend with in their health care system as compared to the U.S.? I think your example is flawed from the get go. Oh, and by the way, where in the Constitution does it say I or any one else has to buy health insurance or any other product or service from a private agency? Who is going to enforce that? What will the government do if you don't buy insurance? Put you in jail? That's not going to hold water.

Gee, I made a "Saturday Night Live" type joke about Al Gore and I get piled on. I didn't mean to upset so many people.

[PST]

Gosh, being an old country boy, I feel honored debating this with a high powered lawyer like yourself. If you are going to use Switzerland as an example I have a question. How many millions of illegal Aliens does Switzerland have to contend with in their health care system as compared to the U.S.? I think your example is flawed from the get go. Oh, and by the way, where in the Constitution does it say I or any one else has to buy health insurance or any other product or service from a private agency? Who is going to enforce that? What will the government do if you don't buy insurance? Put you in jail? That's not going to hold water.

Gee, I made a "Saturday Night Live" type joke about Al Gore and I get piled on. I didn't mean to upset so many people.

No one piled on for the Al Gore joke. Making fun of Al Gore is a pleasure all Americans can still all share whatever our political beliefs.

I know I can be overbearing sometimes, and I apologize. It certainly isn't personal. It may seem a little crazy that someone would get so passionate about this when the subject comes up incidentally in a CPAP forum. I harbor a deep anger at those people who have scared the shit out of my elderly relatives with their death panel stories. I'm not mad at people who have read these things and repeated them in good faith, but I have a real contempt for those who put the stories in circulation. Don't they think that people who supported this legislation have elderly parents, too? Don't they think we want to receive medical treatment when we get old? It leaves me with a compulsion to comment when I think that the PPACA has been gravely misrepresented.

Switzerland had about 20 percent foreign residents. http://www.isyours.com/e/swiss-business ... ation.html. It has a treaty allowing free travel and work from EU countries, so I imagine they are mostly legal. I was just answering the challenge to name a country with socialize medicine and no rationing, and I think Switzerland's system would count as socialized to anyone who considers the PPACA socialized.

The insurance mandate will be enforced by a tax penalty equal to the greater of $695 per year up to a maximum of three times that amount ($2,085) per family or 2.5% of household income. Is it constitutional? There is a web site called Intrade where you can buy a futures contract on a political question. For example, at the moment, it costs 75 cents to buy a contract that pays a dollar if Sarah Palin declares herself a candidate for president before the end of next year. It only costs 10 cents for a contract that pays a dollar if the Supreme Court finds the individual mandate unconstitutional. So people are demanding 10 to 1 odds to bet their money that the mandate will be found unconstitutional. I think that's about right.

[OceanGoingGal]

PST there is no need for apology. i am actually enjoying this thread.

Laura

[kempo]

Pst no apology is necessary. I like people who stand up for what they believe in. So I like you. I just disagree with what your saying.
Switzerland is a very tiny country with very strict immigration laws. " Foreigners living in Switzerland" does not equal "illegal aliens". I have nothing against someone coming to our country legally to better themselves but millions sneaking across our border and it is bankrupting this country.
To compare the Obama Care to what Switzerland has is ridiculous. You will never see the President of Switzerland sue a city, county, State, or what ever they have over there for enforcing the immigration laws.

Your relatives have a right to be scared. They are not stupid. They see the debt growing to obscene levels. Our children and grandchildren will carry a burden of debt that will choke them. George Bush spent money like a drunk sailor. Obama is George Bush on steroids. While the ruling class ( Obama and the leaders of congress ) live the life of luxury, the National debt climbs to over $15,000,000,000,000. That's $50,000 per citizen. We can not sustain this kind of debt and remain economically viable.

The problem with socialism is you eventually run out of other people's money.

[Bons]

Yall know if Al Gore reads this post he will start a movement to add a co2 carbon tax on cpapers.

I didn't know that you could put your child back on your insurance once they got off if they are over 18. I know that they can remain on your insurance starting next year until they turn 26. If your child is an adult and jobless your States Medicaid should pay for her health care problems.

If you think this new healthcare bill is going to save you money you have your head in the sand. Not only is it going to cost more, the government will tell you what you can and can not do, and when they say no your out of luck. "3% wont equal that." Try 25% to 50% increase in healthcare cost plus it will be rationed with longer a waiting time.

Under the new laws, adult children can be returned to their parent's plan until age 26 if they have no other access to insurance, beginning 1/1/11. Our provider allowed us to add them back on as of 7/1/10 with no increase in our premium for this quarter.

[So Well]

Your relatives have a right to be scared. They are not stupid. They see the debt growing to obscene levels. Our children and grandchildren will carry a burden of debt that will choke them. George Bush spent money like a drunk sailor. Obama is George Bush on steroids.

While apologies are being thrown around, how about an apology for drunken sailors?

Drunken sailors, including those on steroids, spend their own money. Bush and Obama spend other people's money.

[DreamDiver]

Late at night, I began to ponder...
Is vocal range any indication of toot range?
For instance, are you automatically a soprano tooter, if you are a soprano vocalist?
I suspect not.

I'll bet at least one of you guys out there might even be a coloratura tooter.
And at least some of our women are 'gasso' profundo tooters.
There might a rare prodigy with a wide multi-octave range.
Come on, you know who you are. 'Fess up.

Then there's the mute toot...

Benjamin Franklin farted proudly.
Let us rejoice in our abilities.

[kempo]

Dream, Its not good to suppress bodily functions.

[echo]

Late at night, I began to ponder...
Is vocal range any indication of toot range?

Not in my case! My singing voice is horrid. Anyway my toots are usually low key. This morning's toot.... well, utterly surprised me as well! I think I woke the neighbors up I was glad my bf was already in the shower, with the water running (i hope! ). Very loud, very loooong Ok with that TMI i am going back to packing up the house (ahaha! maybe it was the ECHO of the TOOT in the empty house that thundered throughout the rooms. Toot at your own risk in a house void of furniture and other sound damping material )

[mars]

While apologies are being thrown around, how about an apology for drunken sailors?

Drunken sailors, including those on steroids, spend their own money. Bush and Obama spend other people's money.

Drunken sailors only spend their own money as a last resort, but hey, no apology needed

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I73JqvzAOtU

cheers

Mars

PS - By the way, Is that Rooster on his first music video ?