Posted on 08/21/2009 6:24:08 AM PDT by Tolsti2
Having read through some 600 comments about universal health care, I now realize I took the wrong approach in my previous blog entry. I discussed the Obama health plan in political, literal, logical terms. Most of my readers replied in the same vein. The comments, as always, have been helpful, informative and for the most part civil. My mistake was writing from the pragmatic side. I should have followed my heart and gone with a more emotional approach. I believe universal health care is, quite simply, right.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.suntimes.com ...
shocking I tell ya
I love how he quotes Matthew on there too..
That silly and ignorant bastard needs to go on and reunite with Gene Siskel, that’s all I got to say about it.
Of course, we constrain the supply of doctors and nurse and allow for the ambulance chasers in Congress to uphold staggering liability insurance that drives the few doctors that we have into retirement.
Government screws everything up. Ebert is a fool that believes our traitors in Congress.
Stick to writing about your little picture shows Roger.
A fella that works for a Chicago newspaper that follows hollywood movies for a living turns out to be a commie?
I always wondered why someone like Ebert needs to tell me what movies I like and what movies I don’t like. Screw the “critics” - I’ll decide for myself. My judgment is as good as theirs.
The shame is that he’s actually pretty good to read for anything non-political. It’s painful when he goes off on the commie twaddle.
Personal health is, and always been, a personal responsibility. That is, you make a contract (verbal in most cases, but which may or may not be supported by a written and signed agreement) with the practitioner of the particular branch of treatment you are in need of. You defer judgment on the severity of your affliction to the wisdom of the physician, and act on that judgment, jointly, to either alleviate the problem, or consider next steps to be taken.
This is, of course, assuming the person whose health is under scrutiny, has the capability and dedication to consider the importance of one’s own health. If it is not important to you, or someone who is supposedly the guardian of your affairs and fortune, then it does not matter what the state of your health is. You suffer, perhaps to die.
The government, through its insertion into this agreement between the physican and the patient, had declared itself the guardian ad litem, and the patient is now a ward of the state. As such, there is an adversarial condition set up between the medicine practiced, and the care received. The ward involved no longer has a say in what treatment, if any, is to be rendered.
Women have won the permission of the courts to do what they want with their own bodies, in one special instance. This doctrine by extension is applicable to every other person subject to legal review.
Am I the only one who sees this cognitive dissonance?
Um, Roger. No offense, but I don’t even find your movie reviews all that helpful, so why would I care about what you have to say about health care?
“Ebert: If you don’t want the government to do what it does, nobody is forcing you to live here. Find a government more to your liking.”
He actually said this.. Isn’t that funny? Don’t leftist countries usually say ‘Love it AND stay!’?
Love it or leave it sure gets en vogue when socialists are in charge. Otherwise, it’s silly rightwing talking points when a conservative does it. And typically you saw much more ‘I’m gonna leave if Bush wins’ from the left than any conservatives saying that now.
First off, this guy doesn’t realize that I’m told that the gov’t health plan will intervene if your lifestyle is unhealthy. Mr Ebert is morbidly obese for one thing and probably is experiencing the complications of that. He’s gay having several times greater risk for AIDS etc.
In fact, he’s proably had difficulty getting health insurance.
“I believe universal health care is, quite simply, right.”
And like all leftist elitists, I consider it my birthright to impose my beliefs on the members of the “underclasses”—the American serfs—whether they happen to agree with me or not, as they are simply not bright enough to know what is best for them.
Roger Ebert has been under medical care for many years, fighting a very aggressive case of cancer,and receiving top of the line proceedures.
Under BarryKare I wonder if he would still be alive.
Battle with thyroid cancer
Ebert (right) at the Conference on World Affairs in September 2002, shortly after his cancer diagnosis in early 2002, Ebert was diagnosed with papillary thyroid cancer. In February of that year, surgeons at Northwestern Memorial Hospital were able to successfully remove the cancer with clean margins. He later underwent surgery in 2003 for cancer in his salivary gland, and in December of that year, underwent a four-week follow-up course of radiation to his salivary glands, which altered his voice slightly. As he battled the illness, Ebert continued to be a dedicated critic of film, not missing a single opening while undergoing treatment.
He underwent further surgery on June 16, 2006, just two days before his 64th birthday, to remove cancer near his right jaw, which included removing a section of jaw bone.[54]
On July 1, Ebert was hospitalized in serious condition after his carotid artery burst near the surgery site and he “came within a breath of death”.[55] He later learned that the burst was likely a side effect of his treatment, which involved neutron beam radiation. He was subsequently kept bedridden to prevent further damage to the scarred vessels in his neck while he slowly recovered from multiple surgeries and the rigorous treatment. At one point, his status was so precarious that Ebert had a tracheostomy done on his neck to reduce the effort of breathing while he recovered.[54]
Ebert had pre-taped enough TV programs with his co-host Richard Roeper to keep him on the air for a few weeks; however, his extended convalescence necessitated a series of “guest critics” to co-host with Roeper: Jay Leno (a good friend to both Ebert and Roeper), Kevin Smith, John Ridley, Toni Senecal, Christy Lemire, Michael Phillips, Aisha Tyler, Fred Willard, Anne Thompson, A.O. Scott, Mario Van Peebles, George Pennacchio, Brad Silberling, and John Mellencamp. Michael Phillips later became Ebert’s replacement for the remainder of Roeper’s time on “At the Movies,” until mid-2008, when Roeper did not extend his contract with ABC.
An update from Ebert on October 11, 2006 confirmed his bleeding problems had been resolved. He was undergoing rehabilitation at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago due to lost muscle mass, and later underwent further rehabilitation at the Pritikin Center in Florida.”[56]
In an interview with WLS-TV in Chicago, he said, “I was told photos of me in this condition would attract the gossip papers — so what?” When asked by the Sun-Times in an April 23 article about his decision to return to the limelight, Ebert remarked, “We spend too much time hiding illness.”[58] Fans at his website have remarked his public appearances have been inspirational to cancer victims and survivors around the country.[59]
Ebert will need reconstructive surgery on his jaw, a relatively dangerous procedure in light of the damage to the vessels already seen when his artery burst during earlier treatment.
After reading the Canadians’ nasty views of our system, including riducule for our silly gun laws and the hope that we will address those next, as well as the overall feeling that the REST of the world does not think socialism is a bad word....my feeling is that the first thing we do is make a law that says NO person can come to this country from a socialized country and get medical treatment. If they are here on vacation and fall ill, then emergency treatment is okay. OTHERWISE...no having your cake and eating it too. After all, once we become like they are, we will not be able to act as their safety valve, as the one person who praised socialized care casually said that her mother had flown to the U.S. to get her knee surgery faster. Well to hell with THAT. The only thing making their system tolerable is that our system picks up the slack, does the cutting edge research, etc. They naively do not see that their own system will be stressed if we become like them.
And we should pay attention to the leftist musings of a flick critic because?
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