Above-the-main-post udpate: Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus(D-Mont.) said Thursday that he hopes to have a bipartisan deal on a health care reform bill by the end of the day. .. “We are meeting very aggressively today,” Baucus said of……

Don’t for a second believe this won’t become law in the Obamanation.

HIRING! ‘Grassroots’ work to promote Obama’s healthcare pays $11-16 per hour…

It’s a link to Craigslist, but the listing has been scrubbed.

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.

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.

In a sane country he’d be in a straight jacket, in America he’s professor of bioethics at Princeton.

Do people realize how long and how much of an investment it is to bring a new drug to market?
Chainsaw56 on July 16, 2009 at 8:40 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)

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

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.

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 greasy convenient sense of ‘what’s too expensive for the value received’ which depends mostly on which tyranny he is advocating.

highhopes on July 16, 2009 at 8:48 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?

maverick muse on July 16, 2009 at 8:06 AM

You’re not suggesting she got the Vince Foster treatment, are you?

maverick muse on July 16, 2009 at 8:01 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.

That’s lovely, and we’re all glad for you to have the $54K to pay yourself for what you want.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

If i was told i could pay 54,000 and have my grandmother for 6 more months I would pay it in a heartbeat.

That’s lovely, and we’re all glad for you to have the $54K to pay yourself for what you want.

If it was me, why would I want to burden my family with that kind of outlay for a lousy 6 months?

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.”

Jeff from WI on July 16, 2009 at 7:52 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….