Posted on 10/14/2012 5:09:00 AM PDT by Acton
An editorial writer at The New York Times (Nicholas Kristof) makes an impassioned plea to vote for Obama because a friend from his youth and days at Harvard (Scott Androes) is dying of cancer:
"Yet for all his innate prudence, Scott now, at age 52, is suffering from Stage 4 prostate cancer, in part because he didn’t have health insurance. President Obama’s health care reform came just a bit too late to help Scott, but it will protect others like him — unless Mitt Romney repeals it.
If you favor gutting “Obamacare,” please listen to Scott’s story. He is willing to recount his embarrassing tale in part so that readers can learn from it.
I’ll let Scott take over the narrative ...."
Kristof includes several paragraphs written by his friend, Scott Androes, which indicate that Androes feels like he "blew it" and feels like a "damned fool." Androes says, "I would have bought insurance if there had been any kind of fair-risk pooling." Androes also says, "I didn’t go see the doctor because that would have been several hundred dollars out of pocket — just enough disincentive to get me to make a bad decision."
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
This is a very sad case, and as the story relates, Androes is now paying $1,400 for an ambulance ride when he did not pay "a few hundred dollars" for an early diagnosis. So I am not sure Androes will ever pay for anything unless he deems it to be "fair." He even says he would have bought health insurance if he thought it was "fair."
What does he mean by that? This is the difference between supporters of Obamacare and supporters of the free market. Are the costs of groceries or energy "fair?" Just because I don't think the cost of gas is fair does not mean that I run my car until it is out of gas. And Kristof thinks Androes is "innately prudent?"
Health insurance is currently fair by one measure, since it costs what the insurance companies have to spend, less administrative costs, less a return to their shareholders. The logic of Kristof and Androes is haunting in its stupidity, lack of logic, and lack of economic understanding -- but that's what Harvard has been producing for the last 30 years or so.
Kristof and Androes think that health insurance costs will be more fair if the "return to the shareholders" in the current system is replaced with a government bureaucracy -- which has never proved less costly than free market alternatives. Overall costs will rise because (1) more people will be accessing the system, (2) government bureaucracies are inefficient, nothing you can do about that, and (3) the fact that people perceive it as a bargain (hence, what Androes calls fair), means that people will use more health services than they would in a free market. Androes is really saying that he would not have bought health insurance unless he thought it was "more than fair".
There is nothing in Obamacare make insurance more fair to society as a whole. Sure, there may be some "damned fools" like Androes who will go to a doctor earlier if they think it is fair -- that is, if they think it will cost someone else more than their share of the health care costs. And maybe the insurance company shareholders will get screwed and not get any dividends any more. (Athough most of those shareholders are pension funds that are seeking a constant return for other old age expenses, so nationalizing that income stream will have other consequences.) But that savings will be more than offset by the cost to society of a new government insurance agency coupled with a down payment of 16,000 new IRS agents. Taxes of high net worth individuals will go up, and some people think that is always fair. But as the return to health care professionals decreases, there will be fewer health care professionals.
The economic logic of this article is baffling, yet it is worth studying because it represents the logic of The New York Times -- and graduates of Harvard. And that alone should scare the daylights out of citizens who can think and take care of themselves without a government subsidy.
My eyes are welling up right now but I can't quite reach the Kleenex.
He didn’t plan ahead so my granddaughter’s have to pay? NO
Hey Kristof...tell us again how Obama recited the Koranic Prayers in PERFECT Arabic and said the call to prayer is the most beautiful sound in the world...tell us again, PLEASE!
The guy was billed $1400 by Swedish for 6+ months of intensive care. He was approved for charity care,
So what does this say about the entire premise that people like this irresponsible man in denial about his cancer symptoms, are doomed without a government mandate??
You’re more likely to die of prostate cancer in the UK, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Ireland, Switzerland, France ,Finland, Canada, and Germany than you are in the United States so explain how socialized medicine saves lives.
If you read the article, you learn that this man had a good job with benefits, but quit because he had a “midlife crisis” and wanted to have time to read books and play poker.
This man does not get my sympathy. We all are tempted from time to time to “check out” out of our lives, but responsible people know that that is not an option.
Here’s the money quote: “a humane government tries to compensate for our misjudgments.”
There’s no real mention about the man’s ‘spirit’, so if the current officeholder of the President of the United States of America is going to be consistent, he will unequivocally deny the care and give him a pain pill.
"Yet for all his innate prudence, Scott now, at age 52, is suffering from Stage 4 prostate cancer, in part because he didn't have health insurance. President Obama's health care reform came just a bit too late to help Scott, but it will protect others like him -- unless Mitt Romney repeals it."Oh look -- when Romney becomes POTUS, he'll have the power to repeal legislation.
Wow. This NY Slimes article is just one big barf alert.
Kristoff is just piling on the “rural farm boys go to the big city” allusions in an effort to down play the fact that this guy is a not only a Harvard graduate but also a FINANCIAL CONSULTANT.
See when they want something from everybody else they are just dumb hicks because only a dumb hick would end up in the situation his friend Scott is in. Get it? They are soooo folksy.
See references from the article below:
“friends through the Future Farmers of America”
“room together for moral support among all those city slickers.”
“We were the country bumpkins”
“we kept deer rifles under our beds”
“the only champion judge of dairy cattle”
Nonsense. He could have paid for preemptive medical care (physicals) out of his own pocket UP FRONT. That is called being prudent.
He was lead to believe that medical insurance will magically result in his health which has never been the case. Now that the govt is charge of healthcare, we should see a rapid increase in the quality of and frequency of healthcare. (NOT).
Stupid is as Stupid does..........no sympathy here.
The article shows that you don’t have to be uneducated and dumb to make major screw ups, you just have to be CHEAP and wait for someone else to pick up the tab.
When I had my prostate cancer operation the guy in the next bed had tried to treat his prostate problems by avoiding regular doctors......until it was almost too late.
Again, Stupid is as Stupid does.
Hey, sounds like we have the same Harvard education! I too have managed to always have health insurance.... Guess we both took the common sense and personal responsibility course.
We have here a financial analyst who was somehow able to afford a Harvard education and who quit his job to read books and play cards. Using this person as a means to persuade us to his side makes me question the intelligence of the author.
We do have a problem in this country regarding hard working, low income folks who can’t afford health insurance but are required to pay taxes to provide it to parasites and illegal aliens who breed like cockroaches.
Haaaaaavad grad, financial adviser, quits to play poker and read books...
Someone tell me why I should pay for this parasite and his multiple “unfortunate” decisions?
Fallacies and stupidity.
Health Insurance is heavily regulated by the States and has to have competitive rates, meet actuarial standards, take into account all the mandatory coverage for conditions that are not illness or injury related.
There are idiots who save for, or purchase expensive toys - but resent having to pony up money for repairing their bodies. The same people who will willingly spend more on vet bills than for doctor visits.
I would love to see a record of this guy’s expenditures over his working life and compare is excesses to his prudence.
Anyone who thinks Government run Health Care is a good idea needs to spend some time talking with someone who has lived under one of ‘Great White Father’s’ Indian Health programs.
http://www.theonion.com/articles/world-death-rate-holding-steady-at-100-percent,1670/
I'm almost 59. I have not had a checkup for many years. If I get cancer, I expect to die. Life is a mist. Hopefully if I get cancer, nobody will have to pay for my treatment, because I won't get it. Philippians 1:21 For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.
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