Quote of the day
posted at 10:30 pm on July 15, 2009 by Allahpundit
Share on Facebook | printer-friendly
“You have advanced kidney cancer. It will kill you, probably in the next year or two. A drug called Sutent slows the spread of the cancer and may give you an extra six months, but at a cost of $54,000. Is a few more months worth that much?…
Rationing health care means getting value for the billions we are spending by setting limits on which treatments should be paid for from the public purse. If we ration we won’t be writing blank checks to pharmaceutical companies for their patented drugs, nor paying for whatever procedures doctors choose to recommend. When public funds subsidize health care or provide it directly, it is crazy not to try to get value for money. The debate over health care reform in the United States should start from the premise that some form of health care rationing is both inescapable and desirable. Then we can ask, What is the best way to do it?”
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Blowback
Note from Hot Air management: This section is for comments from Hot Air's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that Hot Air management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment just because we let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with our terms of use may lose their posting privilege.
Trackbacks/Pings
Trackback URL
Comments
Comment pages: « Previous 1 2 3
No.
Then, too.
Wait for tomorrow’s Drudge headlines after the purchasing private insurance “illegal” has been unearthed.
Night.
Marcus on July 16, 2009 at 1:03 AM
If the Health Scam is going to be pushed down our throats, then I demand the same health care the President and Congress receives! Isn’t that we were promised by this President when he was a candidate?
yoda on July 16, 2009 at 1:03 AM
Why is ability to pay such an evil thing?
Fighton03 on July 16, 2009 at 1:03 AM
Or a trillion. It’s not his money, so why not?
jgapinoy on July 16, 2009 at 1:03 AM
Bishop on July 16, 2009 at 12:51 AM
If the press did what it used to do, it would ask the supporters in Congress two simple questions:
1. Will you commit you and your family to this plan Senator or Congressman, and give up the government plan that you’re currently on?
2. If we must adopt a national plan, why can’t we extend the currently existing one that Congress uses to the entire country?
Game over.
Saltysam on July 16, 2009 at 1:05 AM
Which really, no I mean REALLY, makes me wonder what porridge must inhabit the skulls of the MSM lickspittles. Is there some belief that they will be immune from all these disasters Ogabe is foisting upon the nation?
I can imagine the MSM “stars” being comfortable with the plans because they have wealth to shelter them, but the rank and file media staff certainly don’t have those resources.
Would be truly awesome for some reporter to ask your questions of Ogabe: “Will you demand that Congress and the President be subject to your health plan if it’s such a great thing, and if not, why not?”
Bishop on July 16, 2009 at 1:11 AM
Bad enough they’re so cavilier with other people’s money. Now they’re cavilier with other people’s time left on earth. I can think of a lot of things I could do if I had just 6 months more to live, and I wouldn’t want to die knowing that a cure is out there but I’m “not worth the expense” to have it.
DrAllecon on July 16, 2009 at 1:12 AM
It’s not a question of whether you are worth the expense or not, it’s that you won’t have a choice, even if you can afford it, because someone else can’t. They don’t want to restrict the care of those who don’t pay for themselves, so they are deciding to restrict everyone’s care (except their own, of course) whether they can pay for it, or not.
progressoverpeace on July 16, 2009 at 1:17 AM
Barack Obama, keep your stinking filth paws off my Grandmother!
Joe Bloggs on July 16, 2009 at 1:22 AM
I agree and understand your point.
What I mean is that if the Declaration states (and the Constitution supports) the founding American principle that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. – That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men….,” then I understand this to mean that, in the eyes of the government, all humans have an equal, God-given right to life. This is, for instance, why I am Pro-life: because it is Constitutional to be so, assuming a fetus is considered human (but that’s a discussion for another thread).
Point being, you and I may value some lives over others, but our GOVERNMENT should not. Liberty is preserved by Justice, which must be blind and must hold all citizens as equals in order to function properly. WE may prefer the life of a loved one over someone we do not know, but our government is obligated to place the same value on both lives. Therefore, any assignation of differing value to American lives by the government is unconstitutional.
If the government upholds its obligations, however, then our lives and liberty will be preserved, and we may exercise that liberty to obtain the best possible healthcare for those we value most.
Singer’s point is that a government MUST assign particular values to different persons in order to justify the cost of healthcare used to preserve ANY human life. He says that if all life has intrinsic value, it is unfair to improve the conditions of one life when another cannot achieve the same quality. Therefore, we must accept that some are more deserving of life than others based upon not our own subjective judgment, but on the supposedly objective judgment of a bureaucracy. Singer has long since demonstrated that he has no problem reducing humanity to numbers, but as others have pointed out in this thread, viewing people in groups instead of as individuals and allowing governments to determine the worth of a person has only led to genocide in the past.
Animator Girl on July 16, 2009 at 1:32 AM
That’s absolutely true. And in fact, I remember years ago, Hillary Clinton talking about how since some women can’t afford mammograms, that the criteria for getting mammograms should change so that instead of 40 y/o F getting mammograms, the baseline should be shifted to an older age to “level the playing field.”
Well somehow the playing field never gets leveled by moving the bottom up, it seems to always get leveled by bringing the top down.
DrAllecon on July 16, 2009 at 1:44 AM
But there is no such thing as the GOVERNMENT in terms of being a functional entity, there are only people (like you and I) who have been given power to enforce their values on society. So it’s hard to argue that people may value some lives over others, but the government should not.
The Founding Fathers above all recognized the danger of power and so they sought to control it, spread it all, and balance. It wasn’t that they were looking to set up of system of government ruled by benevolent angels, because they knew that mankind was not capable of being angelic. Rather they sought the limit the damage of man’s fallen nature.
So, given that all men will place different values on different lives, and that government is comprised of men, the inescapable conclusion is that government, if given the power, will place different values on different lives (constitutional arguments notwithstanding.)
The only alternative is to not give government that power in the first place. Singer accepts the notion that government will have the power to dole out life and death, but unlike people in this forum, he embraces it because he believes in a government of wise Lords who should have the power to rule over life and death.
PackerBronco on July 16, 2009 at 1:46 AM
The tall nail always gets hammered down…..
Fighton03 on July 16, 2009 at 1:46 AM
I agree. Lets start with PETER SINGER and his entire friends and family. If it works out, we’ll go global.
TheBigOldDog on July 16, 2009 at 1:53 AM
Yep. But moving the bottom-up would require the dreaded free market, which is kryptonite to the left. And they aren’t satisfied with overall improvement or mobility, anyway, they demand static equality. I’ve seen the purest implementations of these theories while I was on kibbutzim in Israel, and implementations at scales that were the most workable (hundreds or low thousands). They were utter and complete failures because no central planning can ever stay ahead of natural growth and dynamics, and stratification naturally occurs from these, too, since you can’t build a new house for everyone at the same time. The kibbutzim were all miserable failures, except for a lucky few that guessed right on factories. 3 out of a thousand, maybe.
But these motivations, above, only apply to the true believer leftists. The rest are downright evil, nasty, savage people who don’t deserve the benefits of civilized society. These evil types are like The Precedent. Look at his explanation, during the campaign, for why he would raise capital gains taxes, even if it would hurt everyone (rich and poor) and he said he would still do it because of “fairness” – i.e. revenge. That should have told people everything they needed to know about this POS.
But, we’re stuck on this ride, now. It’s going to be very ugly.
progressoverpeace on July 16, 2009 at 2:03 AM
No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy. Those who don’t understand this have lots of contingency “plans” and “processes” for all of the variations they can think of. Those who do…well….they don’t. they train their people and prepare them as well as they can, then trust them to do their job. Which do you think Obambi and the leftards are?
Fighton03 on July 16, 2009 at 2:11 AM
Communism is never nice.
Johan Klaus on July 16, 2009 at 2:19 AM
I think they have the easiest of all sides. All they are trying to do is bring on chaos. They don’t even care if anything works. They just want to destroy everything that’s here. I do think that they figure they will have a jump on the real crisis, since they are in control of power, now, and expect to be when everything really comes crashing down (a la the threatened financial collapse of last Oct), but they need to look into history and see that it doesn’t always work out that way.
But, it’s American conservatives against everyone else in the world, basically. We are the last stand of individual liberty.
And, not to get too way out, but the governing structures we have are going to be what gets set as we colonize space. The world was very lucky that Britain was colonizing America with a capitalistic method – as opposed to the Spanish colonization. Otherwise, individual liberty and freedom as the US brought the world might not have happened, but the Americas would just be like one big Latin-South America. We are approaching the same sort of inflection point with space, now.
progressoverpeace on July 16, 2009 at 2:39 AM
And never has enough money, no matter what, which is why it builds a very spiteful character within it, too.
progressoverpeace on July 16, 2009 at 2:43 AM
Flipping Peter Singer.
I read the whole thing, wondering what soulless devil wrote it, then got to the end and read his name. I was happy to see that it was him, as he is noted for this sort of thing, including the idea that it should be okay to kill infants up till around four to six months of age if they are “defective,” and to have (non consensual) sex with animals.
This man is a total jerk. I’m pleased to see that it is he who wrote this, and thus there is not necessarily another abmonimation such as he also walking the earth.
Alana on July 16, 2009 at 2:55 AM
note to idiots pundits. This type of arguement dpoes not help your cause.
54,000 to me is wroth 6 months esp if it is me, a family member or a loved one. If i was told i could pay 54,000 and have my grandmother for 6 more months I would pay it in a heartbeat. Money is the means we use to give ourselves happiness. Money is nothing if you you lose all that you care about.
unseen on July 16, 2009 at 3:05 AM
Mr. Singer: Those nurses who made the decision that a lower class citizen wouldn’t make a good mother and therefore didn’t inform the doctor of distress did this nation the favor of lowering our overall cost.
Me: My daughter was priceless, you b*stard! Piss up a rope!
Pomme143 on July 16, 2009 at 3:45 AM
Well I’m not going to buy my life saving drugs from Big-Pharma!
That’ll show ‘em… :S
/sarc
Glenn Jericho on July 16, 2009 at 3:46 AM
The failure of GM and Chrysler as independent companies came about because high competition with car companies that did a better job of producing what consumers wanted worked very well, yet Obama intervened and massively.
Now Obama is saying that high health insurance premiums are because competition isn’t happening even though there are hundreds of insurance companies and he wants to intervene and massively, supposedly to increase competition.
His solution to both a lot of competition and what he claims is too little competition is the same – MORE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT! Not only does one size fit all but one size fits opposites.
Obama is like the Snake Oil traveling salesman of the old west keeping one step ahead of the law. The one selling a “potion” that he says will make an overweight person lose weight but also make an underweight person gain weight!
It is high time this outlaw fraud is arrested.
Joe Bloggs on July 16, 2009 at 4:32 AM
Why would bankruptcy on a mass scale before cancer be any better?
anuts on July 16, 2009 at 4:38 AM
Largely OT: nice quotation from MLK.
“Cowardice asks the question, ‘Is it safe?’ Expediency asks the question, ‘Is it politic?’ Vanity asks the question, ‘Is it popular?’ But, conscience asks the question, ‘Is it right?’ And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but one must take it because one’s conscience tells one that it is right.” -Martin Luther King, Jr.
What, if anything, has Obama or anyone in his administration done in the past six months that tells us Obama takes positions based on his conscience?
MLK, thumbs up. BHO, thumbs decidedly down.
BuckeyeSam on July 16, 2009 at 5:39 AM
If going bankrupt over cancer sucks, why are we going to bankrupt the nation over cancer?
jimmy2shoes on July 16, 2009 at 6:35 AM
Ed — Just went through exactly what you stated — The people involved should decide, given what resources they have available to them. Yes our friend died, but we would not have been able to live with ourselves if we hadn’t tried to save her, no matter the costs involved.
Governments, tables and bureaucrats should never be the decision makers in life or death medical issues … NEVER.
You get the ‘Nazi super race’ thinking, which seems to permeate the leftists ranks, and humanity is finished.
tarpon on July 16, 2009 at 7:13 AM
My starting point would be to attack waste fraud and abuse, and then adopt some sensible tort reform. How can we ask people to give up potentially life saving drugs when others are scamming the system to line their pockets?
exceller on July 16, 2009 at 7:17 AM
What a cold hearted sob. You can bet that people like Obama and Gates and Clinton etc will have their own doctors. Rationing for thee, not me.
Terrye on July 16, 2009 at 7:24 AM
+1
spot on…
cmsinaz on July 16, 2009 at 7:28 AM
If some governement bureaucrat starts denying treatment when treatments are available, they better start fearing for their lives.
If you can’t sue to change things and can’t obtain the treatment blackmarket, people have nothing left to lose.
Blake on July 16, 2009 at 7:30 AM
BuckeyeSam on July 16, 2009 at 5:39 AM
/MLK was a Republican.
Obama has acted according to the conscience he lacks.
Obama’s empathy is antipathy, etc.
maverick muse on July 16, 2009 at 7:30 AM
This is the guy that promotes infanticide.
True_King on July 16, 2009 at 7:36 AM
Let the free market decide rather than some bureaucrat in a musty office?
Kafir on July 16, 2009 at 7:39 AM
We can have a debate about how to fairly allocate limited health care resources in this country, but wouldn’t an honest debate have to include the issue of illegal aliens? After all, they account for a very large portion of the medically uninsured in this country. We spend tens of billions of our tax dollars every year paying for the illegal aliens on our Medicaid rolls (where they’re not supposed to be, but we know they are because our laws are not enforced), and for the illegal aliens who use our E.R. docs as their primary physicians. Health care in this country wouldn’t be nearly as “scarce” a resource as it currently is if we weren’t giving so much of it away to millions of poor foreigners who are living in our country in violation of our laws.
AZCoyote on July 16, 2009 at 7:40 AM
Dreamer! :)
The worst part is, it will first be decided by some politician.
Even worse still – the party in power in Washington, D.C. right now is the same party that embraces killing infants, supports killing the sick, believes (or pretends to believe) that there are too many people on the planet, and supports assisted suicide.
reaganaut on July 16, 2009 at 7:49 AM
If it was me, why would I want to burden my family with that kind of outlay for a lousy 6 months,heck I wouldn’t waste that much money for 2 years. They need the $$ more than they need me.
Jeff from WI on July 16, 2009 at 7:52 AM
Granted, going bankrupt sucks.
That doesn’t prevent bankruptcy.
According to current law, following hospitalization including doctor fees, even the uninsured need not go bankrupt as they agree upon a fee payment schedule they can afford (sliding scale), paid regularly on time, minimum $30./mo per bill based upon low income. Paying off medical bills need not be accomplished in one lump sum or even within x amount of time, just in regular and timely increments. Hospitals may not like it, but that doesn’t mean they can deny it, or charge interest on the debt.
Currently, pharmaceutical companies have programs to distribute drugs to the needy at cut price. Americans can also arrange through local physicians to purchase drugs via international medical agencies offering lower priced drugs.
Give the reins to the Feds, and everything outside of what Uncle Scam offers will be criminal, illegal, leaving us prosecuted if we attempt self determination.
People drive themselves into bankruptcy keeping up with the Jones’. That’s shameful, especially when those leaches collapse our economy, because they felt entitled, because they deserved what they couldn’t afford.
Forcing deeper national bankruptcy to prolong an existing life, a debt to be paid ad infinitum by future lives, enforces a vicious cycle pitting the current generation against the future. This argument aligns also with the rationale pro/con abortion, on who deserves what kind of life and who deserves to determine that for others.
maverick muse on July 16, 2009 at 7:54 AM
Under Obamacare, she would not have had to worry about it because they would have cut her off two years earlier and she would have been dead by 1995. Then Obama could have inherited her jeans a little earlier.
We often hear proponents of public health care talk about the scenario where parents have to choose between treating a sick child and avoiding bankruptcy. Obamacare will certainly solve the problem by giving them access to neither. Public health care may not pay for the treatment and there will be no option for them to pay for it themselves. What a loving, caring man you are, Obama.
Kafir on July 16, 2009 at 7:56 AM
But, that’s you. Other people can afford it. Or, it means that much to them the money doesn’t matter – and I can think of many scenarios where it would.
Blake on July 16, 2009 at 7:57 AM
Perhaps one should ask the patient how much those few extra months are worth. Better yet, ask the children of that patient how much those few extra months are worth. The useful idiots tour of leftism continues unabated, it would appear. The ignorant evil of these people is astounding.
Since there are apparently no shades of grey to any issue anymore, perhaps this editorialist should consider that:
…if you have ever exagerrated some itemized deduction, than you are for lower taxes.
…if you have any children, you are pro-life.
…if you have ever wished ill upon one of your enemies, than you are pro-capital punishment.
The list could probably stretch a mile.
Huckabye-Romney on July 16, 2009 at 7:57 AM
AZCoyote on July 16, 2009 at 7:40 AM
Until the Feds clear out the illegal aliens, any further federal obligations to legislate further “rights” than the Constitution stipulates is out of the question.
If the Feds can’t enforce current immigration laws as written, they can’t enforce anything properly.
The Feds are performance failures in terms of fulfilling their Constitutional obligations. Their like little kids who refuse to do their chores, “too busy” playing games. The only reason they want to assimilate health care as a federal project is to scam the tax payers. That’s all we get from the Feds, scams.
maverick muse on July 16, 2009 at 8:01 AM
Their, THEY ARE /fed up.
maverick muse on July 16, 2009 at 8:02 AM
There was a guy in a forum I read who used his sick sister as a political club. She lived in Tenn., had cancer, and a house. Because she owned the house and I assume had additional assets, she was not considered indigent. Also, she had to drive 2 hours to a medical center for her advance treatment. I suggested that it is unfair for people without houses to support those with houses. Also, she could sell it and move in with him. He lived in a large city with many medical centers. She could pay off her bills, get herself declared indigent, have a free place to live with him, and be near the finest medical care. He went ballistic.
Blake on July 16, 2009 at 8:04 AM
What this means is the end of innovation.
drjohn on July 16, 2009 at 8:05 AM
I bet it would be if it was one of his two girls…..
drjohn on July 16, 2009 at 8:05 AM
Kafir on July 16, 2009 at 7:56 AM
His grandmother’s demise occurred in time to prevent her being scrutinized in the case of Obama’s birth.
maverick muse on July 16, 2009 at 8:06 AM
The point is, Jeff, that is your choice.
The government wants to take that choice away from you…they plan to make the decisions….
ladyingray on July 16, 2009 at 8:09 AM
That’s lovely, and we’re all glad for you to have the $54K to pay yourself for what you want.
My family will be without me at some point. We all die at some point.
“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” I John 3
Socialists self righteously wield the right to life sword to prolong existence beyond life’s natural allotment at the cost that transforms our population into serfs of the Global Feudal Order, serfs who sold their independence for a lottery ticket to join the untouchables. Meanwhile, the chest thumping grates on everyone. Unless a person’s on death row, as far as timing goes, “deserve ain’t got nothin’ to do with it.”
maverick muse on July 16, 2009 at 8:27 AM
It’s not about having houses or not. These are the kinds of decisions that families and individuals have to make. The filthy liar’s plan would remove that ability and dictate how one lives with a disease. Of course this guy’s sister would probably be dead before she got treatment but let’s not that hinder in engaging in wanton destruction of the world’s best health system.
highhopes on July 16, 2009 at 8:36 AM
Do people realize how long and how much of an investment it is to bring a new drug to market?
Consider the benefits of the use of that life extending drug for one patient on the rest of society:
The Profit [OMG!, I'm using a dirty word, according to the Statists] from that drug would be plowed back into the industry to develop even newer and cheaper drugs.
Use of that drug, would spur improvements in the production of it, making it cheaper in the long run.
Once the patent rights run out on that drug, generic versions could be produced – Competitive pressures would force the drug companies to want to make it cheaper – lowered costs would save lives.
The same wouldn’t hold true if this drug weren’t used – the profits won’t be there to spur development of new drugs, and there wouldn’t be any reason for the drug companies to make the drug cheaper or make generic versions.
In short we would be killing the goose that laid the golden eggs, it would save ‘money’ in the short term, but cost a lot more in money and lives in the long term.
Chainsaw56 on July 16, 2009 at 8:40 AM
Doesn’t matter the socialists of the left have been shooting for national healthcare since the days of FDR. Under the current dictatorship they are poised to get it and that is all they are focused on. That it would kill people is irrelevant because the caste system that is being set up will ensure that the filthy liar, his slutty racist ‘ho, and their spoiled brats will get first rate healthcare forever. You and I will be treated in a system that would make the DMV look efficient.
highhopes on July 16, 2009 at 8:48 AM
A lot of people seem to be missing the point.
This was an example, and people are suddenly clinging to this $54k for 6 months as some hard figure.
So where is the cut-off? Is $12k for 9 months ok. Maybe $8,423 for an extra 13 months?
When the program goes completely bankrupt is some fed employee going to tell people they can’t seek treatment?
Someone else pointed out this out, but the next drug will be 12 months, the next 24 months – the next potentially the cure.
That’s how these things work, that’s how cures are eventually developed.
Once again, people are being manipulated by numbers and statistics.
reaganaut on July 16, 2009 at 8:49 AM
It’s not that the federal government can’t enforce immigration laws, it’s that they won’t.
Before Congress passed the “stimulus” bill, Republicans put a provision into the bill to require all employers receiving federal stimulus funds to use E-Verify to ensure that they were only hiring U.S. citizens or legal residents. The Democrats stripped that provision out of the bill.
Same thing with S-CHIP. The Republicans put in a provision that required anyone applying for medical coverage under the program to submit a valid I.D. proving that they were U.S. citizens; the Democrats removed that provision before the bill was passed. The Democrats keep making sure that illegals get easy access to multiple taxpayer-funded benefits, and that keeps illegals coming here.
It would be easy enough to deny many taxpayer-funded benefits to illegals, if we just had the political will to do it. (And yes, I know we can’t legally deny them emergency medical care; that’s not what I’m talking about here). But as our massive deficits continue to grow, at some point (hopefully) people are going to wake up and realize that we just can’t keep allowing other countries to dump their poor on us. We literally can’t afford it.
AZCoyote on July 16, 2009 at 8:49 AM
Healthcare is NOT a right in the constitution and the government has NO business in it. This is a country of individuals with individual rights to seek prosperity and wealth as individuals.
It is not my job to pay to raise someone’s baby, get them a house,car,tv or even healthcare.
I have my own family to raise, go away obama.
ouldbollix on July 16, 2009 at 8:51 AM
You’re not suggesting she got the Vince Foster treatment, are you?
Kafir on July 16, 2009 at 8:52 AM
Yes, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: The Statist leftists don’t give a donkey’s derrière about people, all they want is power.
IF they really cared about people, they would fix all the myriad of failed programs before tackling something new.
Proof that the Statists only want power and don’t care.
Why can’t people see that?
Chainsaw56 on July 16, 2009 at 8:57 AM
Singer is as bad a scientist and economist as he is a philosopher.
New technologies, whether medical or electronic or energy producing, are often exorbitantly expensive when first introduced. Sutent is relatively new compared (FDA approval Jan 2006) to Interferon alpha, the older alternative for treating renal cell carcinoma. I looked for costs for Interferon treatment. One reference noted approximately $4,500 and I wonder how much the treatments cost when it was first introduced. I’ll bet the bottom dollar it was exorbitant, then, too. In all however, new techs become much less costly over time and
As for Singer’s “A drug called Sutent slows the spread of the cancer and may give you an extra six months, but at a cost of $54,000″ it all depends on his meaning of “advanced” (32,000 new cases of advanced kidney cancer are dianosed each year) because studies have shown a median progression free survival of 11 months (and depending on what advanced means may be 22 months) not “may give you an extra six months”, not to mention that the reason Sutent was approved for use on RCC because it reduces metatastic tumors.
Skip past the point that studies on the effectiveness of Sutent are not complete, Sutent’s moderate success in arresting kidney cancer, but much better success than Interferon (I saw one cost for Interferon treatment at $4,500 for treatment now and wonder what the cost was originally), has spurred additional research in the particular method inherent in Sutent which is the way progress happens. So I’d ask Singer, if $54,000 is too much, what is Singer, in effect, and aside from his absolute moral authority in speaking on what’s not “worth it” advocates that we stop progress, not that we stop Sutent because it is too expensive a treatment.
BTW, I did notice some advocacy on Peter Singer’s part wrt solar power. Is this the same Singer, and if so, it seems to me, he’s has a
greasyconvenient sense of ‘what’s too expensive for the value received’ which depends mostly on which tyranny he is advocating.Dusty on July 16, 2009 at 9:11 AM
Hahahaha. Tell me one, just one, promise this guy has kept. He made so many promises he hasn’t kept he should be in a Ripley’s museum. They call that type of person a perpetual or pathological liar. I doubt he’s even aware of how many lies he’s told.
scalleywag on July 16, 2009 at 9:13 AM
Oh wait, he did get his kids a dog!
scalleywag on July 16, 2009 at 9:13 AM
Don’t take a coffee break in mid-sentence correction: So I’d ask Singer, if $54,000 is too much, what is the cost that would shut him up?
Dusty on July 16, 2009 at 9:17 AM
As was mentioned on an earlier thread in this vein, Phizer (for example) may spend $100 million to research, develop, test, and get the FDA to approve a drug. Right now they’ll do it, because they can make $200 million off of the drug once approved to make it worth their while.
When the government sees to it that they can only break even or actually LOSE money in the prospect, how many NEW drugs does anyone think Phizer’s gonna make?
On a side note, I remind people of this every time they mention how the same medication in Canada is much cheaper than here. I compare it to the movie industry. It may have cost $100 million to make Transformers 2, and cost $20 to buy the DVD. But (let’s pretend it’s legal for me to do this) I can burn a copy of that movie for next to nothing and sell it for $1. Why do the heartless, money-grubbing Hollywood folks sell their DVDs for so much money, when I can sell them for so much less? (DUH)
DrAllecon on July 16, 2009 at 10:26 AM
So what is my time-honored legitimate response to someone trying to kill me?
Akzed on July 16, 2009 at 11:51 AM
I didn’t even notice that this was written by Peter Singer. This monster says parents oughta have the right to kill babies for a few weeks after birth.
In a sane country he’d be in a straight jacket, in America he’s professor of bioethics at Princeton.
Akzed on July 16, 2009 at 11:55 AM
Now abortion makes sense courtesy of Ginsberg and Holdren:
Fewer people=less money to spend on health care.
I feel pretty damn silly now for not getting such a simple concept. Alas, that is why I’m simply not smart enough to be a Lib.
Dr. ZhivBlago on July 16, 2009 at 12:44 PM
There was a Twilight Zone or some such series that had a man show up at your door and give you a button. If you pressed it you would get $100,000 but someone you didn’t know would immediately die. The woman in the story agonizes over pressing the button. Finally she does and the man arrives with a $100,000. He takes the button and tells her he is on his way to give it to someone else. Don’t worry he tells her. I’ll be giving it to someone you don’t know.
I think that story is as good a response to the NYT’s take on rationing. We are constantly reminded by our haloed leader that we are our brother’s keeper. I guess that’s not including the unborn, the old, and the incurable. I hope the Times’ reporter remembers this story when they come for him.
xkaydet65 on July 16, 2009 at 1:58 PM
I just got this off of the Drudge Report Website.
It’s a link to Craigslist, but the listing has been scrubbed.
Chaz706 on July 16, 2009 at 2:18 PM
I had to check – this is the same Peter Singer that says you should be allowed to strangle your infants if they don’t live up to your expectations.
Don’t for a second believe this won’t become law in the Obamanation.
Squiggy on July 16, 2009 at 2:23 PM
The Party of Death.
Dr. Manhattan on July 16, 2009 at 3:01 PM
Comment pages: « Previous 1 2 3