“I can’t help you, Mr. Sickman. See, I believe in laissez-faire economics and free-market solutions to everything, and I apply the same approach in my medical practice. Treating your infection would be an intrusion into your privacy and would turn into picking the favorites in the free-market competition between your body and the virus. Oh, and you now owe me $35,000.”
There have been a lot of criticism coming from the Democratic party that Republicans want to repeal Obamacare without offering their own solutions to the expensive train wreck that is health care in the United States. (It’s more expensive and less covered than the expensive train wreck that it Justin Bieber’s career.) However, this criticism is utterly unjustified, because, first of all, Obamacare WAS the Republican solution for the health care crisis, and, second of all, Republicans have just released their own health care reform plan with plenty of sound suggestions. Here are 10 of their proposals.
1) Repeal Obamacare: Sure, 9 million people would lose the insurance they’ve already gained through Obamacare, but that would be Obamacare’s fault for giving it to them, so it’s all good.
2) Allow people to buy insurance across state lines, because insurance companies from a different state would never find out about your pre-existing conditions.
3) Cut taxes for the top 1%: No matter how sick you are, and no matter what ails you, you would feel much better just knowing that these awesome job creators are busy creating more jobs somewhere in the world.
4) Promote placebo treatments: placebo is cheap and yet it works in about 10-30% of the cases, which is much more that could be said about the No Child Left Behind law.
5) Allow men not to pay for maternity coverage in their policies, because males never do anything that might possibly cause pregnancy.
6) Repeal Obamacare: Completely scrapping the Affordable Care Act will immediately lower the blood pressure and stress levels of millions of Tea Party members.
7) No children should be covered by their parents’ health insurance, because relying on someone’s policy fosters a culture of dependency in children from the very early age.
8) Ban the vaccines: Even if vaccines don’t cause autism, they still result in people getting jabbed by sharp needles.
9) Emergency rooms would become the default medical providers for people without health insurance. A hospital would provide emergency assistance using aspirin and Band-Aids and would discharge the patients once they no longer complain about their pain. (Note: 99.9% of patients stop complaining about their pain after you put a Band-Aid over their mouth.)
10) Repeal Obamacare: Come on, people, the Republican party voted to repeal it around fifty times so far; did you really think that “Repeal Obamacare” would only show up here once?
List of X 
The real problem is that having health care coverage encourages people to spend too much on unnecessary medical procedures. You wouldn’t believe how many people go to the hospital for problems that they could solve themselves with a simple youtube search for “how to remove your own appendix” and a kitchen knife.
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Oh yeah, so many medical procedures are unnecessary. I mean, we’re all still going to die eventually anyway.
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Come on…everyone needs to see a specialist to remove a splinter. 😀
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I know you were being sarcastic, but we’re the only species that participate in Darwin Awards, and some people shouldn’t even tie their own shoelaces without the help of a specialist. 🙂
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HAHAHAHAHAHA
You are spot on X.
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Hahahaha!
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You made an interesting comparison to Justin Bieber.
Maybe if the Republicans came up with an alternative called Biebercare, it might go somewhere. Democrats can’t afford to alienate their younger voters by opposing Biebercare…
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Actually, Democrats can totally afford to do that, since 95% of Beliebers aren’t old enough to vote.
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And the other 5% can swing Ohio and North Carolina
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They could, unless some national news media purely coincidentally releases an anti-Bieber report, making every one of the beliebers jump on Twitter and Facebook to defend their hero.
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Last week I was driving in a snowstorm and had to avoid getting into an accident when i heard a parent revealing that her child could be helped with mental illness if she gave said child up to the government. Insurance wouldn’t cover a stay in the hospital bc the child was no longer homicidal/suicidal. So f*cked up. I don’t think one party is better than the other.
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This is f*cked up to say the least.
I think one party is a little better than the other, but it’s too scared of that other to show it.
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Bingo
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I co-sign this one!
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Placebo treatments are a fine idea! Hell, religion is big in America so its really no different 🙂
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It may actually be less effective than placebo: I believe there were studies showing that prayer had no effect. 🙂
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Actually, it was found to have a negative effect! The financiers of the research, the Templeton Fund, tried desperately to hush the findings up, but it leaked out.
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If I remember correctly, there was a small negative effect when a patient knew people were praying for them. However, that’s not how placebo is used in testing, so this situation may not be comparable.
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I am in healthcare HELL. My current shoddy policy is being canceled because it doesn’t meet the minimum requirements of the Affordable Care Act. My Bride and I have spent our weekends combing through our options on the healthcare dot gov site and it ain’t pretty. Lots of sticker shock. High monthly premiums coupled with astronomical deductibles. In some cases, as much as $5K. How did this happen? DONE GET ME STARTED.
All the GOP push-back has very little to do with the mechanics of Obamacare. It’s all on account of their deep-seeded and ever-growing hatred of Obama.
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Yes, it would be nice if opponents of Obamacare actually had solutions instead of just wanting to say “This sucks!”
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Actually, after all these years they have came out with some semblance of solution. And guess what, part of their solution is to raise taxes on those who get insurance from employer. That must be what they call “helping the middle class”.
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I am very sorry to hear about your predicament. (I assume you have checked out any subsidies, correct?)
If I had any contacts with the Tea Party, I’d have given them your situation to use as an anti-Obamacare horror story, which could well result in Democrats jumping in to see if they can help make your situation somehow less horrible.
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We may or may not be eligible for subsidies. It’s complicated and too boring to get into here.
Normally, I’m violently opposed to being used as a propaganda tool but since desperate times call for desperate measures, feel free to pass along my contact info.
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As I said, I don’t have any special contacts, and I don’t think you’d want someone else posting your information on Tea Party sites (not that I have that much of your information). If you choose to do this desperate times/desperate measures path, you can pick Sarah Palin’s, Sean Hannity’s, Rush Limbaugh’s or any other prominent TP firebrand’s Facebook page and share as much of your story as you wish. But don’t forget to mention that you voted for Obama (I assume you did from the tone of your comment), they’ll love that.
You may have to hold your nose the whole time, and you’d probably get a lot of gloating/stupid/mean and in general unhelpful comments, and there is no guarantee it would work. But don’t think of it as being used for propaganda. This would be taking the advantage of the two party system to actually get it to work for you. If Republicans can’t get Democrats to care about you, no one can.
But before you do this, you might try https://localhelp.healthcare.gov/ (if you haven’t) to see if you can get any in-person help.
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You are correct that I voted for Obama but I’m not opposed to voting for a Republican. I’ve done it in the past and would do it again. I’m not a party ideologist. Once you surrender yourself to a party, you lose your objectivity. I’ll think for myself, thank you.
Thanks, TONS, for the link. I didn’t know about those guys. It’s a hard slog and I need all the help I can get. This internet thing can really come in handy. You meet people who have good information.
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I hope that link works for you and those people are able to help you.
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I realize it would throw off your 10-count, but healthcare is a crisis issue, so I’m just putting this out there:
11. Chicken soup in every pot.
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I agree with your addidion, and I use this remedy myself. But I just have to ask, you’re not representing the chicken farmer lobby, are you?
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X, I’m disturbed by your use of a Canadian icon such as Justin Bieber in your treatsie on the American Health Care System. Do not bring the Biebs into this. He is covered by our universal health care, and thus when he has his inevitable drug-related meltdown, we are going to take care of him stat, until he is ready to grace the world again with his ethereal tunes. Be ready.
As a Canadian, I do not understand Obamacare and can’t comment on it. But we as Canadians remain steadfast in our terror of Republicans: they are scary monsters who are lurking under our softwood beds. Please keep them.
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Sorry, I shouldn’t have dragged Bieber into this mess. Strictly medically speaking, he is Canada’s problem.
And don’t be afraid of Republicans coming to Canada en masse. They may say that they’ll move up north if whatever Democrat wins whatever election, but they never will, because your socialism is even more socialist than our socialism.
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I don’t know, X, our socialism has a saltwater taste to it these days. It’s wonderful in spirit but poor in terms of paying for it. Honestly, I’ll pay, because, for what it’s worth, it’s the decent thing to do.
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“That’s the decent thing to do” is the whole idea of socialism. But here in America we seem to have a big problem with the “paying” part.
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I think X’s correlation between Bieber and the ACA demonstrates that the US issue is really caused by Canadians .. but relax, Republicans (the focus of this post) would never do that.
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Well, there is a certain theory that says we have sent Justin Bieber into your land to spread acrimony and discord, and to lay the seeds for the collapse of your banking and health care systems so that we can march in riding an army of flaming beavers in order to take over in one fell swoop and raise the Biebs to be the leader of your no-longer free nation. It’s an elegant plan, I admit.
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Oh crap … we are doomed.
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You are truly epically screwed.
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The only consolation is that Rob Ford is in Canada for now. Though he just got a jaywalking ticket in Vancouver, so he maybe looking for a way to cross over to here.
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I saw that! He was like with 15 other people, but they only gave a ticket to him and one other. I wonder if he realizes it’s because he’s a douchecanoe?
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I don’t think being a douchecanoe is illegal in Canada.
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This is true.
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Wait, did you say “an army of flaming Biebers”? I’m scared, Trent.
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You should be scared, X. We’ve already sent the prototype your way. Where there’s one Bieber, there’s a flaming army.
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I never thought that Canadians could be complicit in passing Obamacare, but yes, you’re right, they did give us the Biebercare…
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… and that is costing us greatly!
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This post nauseated me and drove my blood pressure up. Now WTF am I supposed to do?
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I’d tell you, but then I’d have to charge you.
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Great! FYI: Now I’ve got a tightness in my chest since shoveling the 14th snowfall of the season.
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FYI, I’m not a doctor and I don’t even play one on TV. So maybe you should see a real doctor about that. There’ll be more snow to shovel this winter, and maybe he could help you with shoveling.
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All I know is Obamacare ruined EVERYTHING even though everything was already screwed up to being with, Obamacare is evil. Because it has Obama in it. It would be even evil-er if you added gate to the end. Obamacaregate will directly proceed the apocalypse, which is what it would take for the Republicans to ever approve anything the Dems suggested, even if it was something directly benefiting them.
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Obamacare also caused my grammar to go completely haywire in the comment. Thanks, Obama!
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I have the authority to override Barack Obama’s meddling on this blog and correct your mistakes. But you have to tell me where, because I’m not big on grammar either.
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I think we should just replace Obama with a synonym and start calling it “Evilcare”, or “Devilcare”. And I don’t think that just a single “gate” in the end fully conveys the full gravity of the situation, so we should call it “Evilcaregategategate”.
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I can see that catching on, especially on Fox News where the news anchors, I swear, actually foam at the mouth.
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I just read in article in the paper this morning about how it’s really too late to repeal Obamacare (duh), because the costs as well as the number of people negatively affected would be huge, so your post was a humorous companion piece. Now, if we could just shift the naysayers’ focus to fixing some of the problem areas of the law instead of desiring to go backwards, we could maybe move forward. Forward motion. Imagine that…
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I think that the only real problem that Republican see with Obamacare is Barack Obama’s signature on it.
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Bingo.
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Oh, give us the wisdom of Bill Hicks.
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I had to google who he is, and he just might be my new hero.
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The world lost the best thinking comic the day he died. Keep watching/listening to his stand-up. You’ll be quoting his lines by tomorrow. (grin)
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you are a force of nature… and a farce of nature… you have evolved sarcasm into a nuclear weapon… too bad they don’t get sarcasm, but still… this was just the thing that they needed to hear to get them thinking about stuff… if they thought about stuff… or understood irony… or cared about health care… or poor people… or anything…. at all…
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Oh not you again…
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I am everywhere you want to be.
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This is undoubtedly true.
I think the flirting has broken me. There are some things not working properly at the moment…. good thing we are discussing health care here.
X! We hit 15,000, man!
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I feel like the end of an era… I am not sure how I feel
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Well no one can prescribe that for you…but I think you did a hell of a thing, and should look proudly on all the people who showed up to help you and the fact that they came to help you.
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I intend to mention that fact
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By the way, if you two are intent on setting another comment record here, don’t let me stop you. 🙂
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You need to advertise…
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I’d rather not – this would mean that I have to respond to several thousand comments, and as much fun as it sounds, I barely had enough time to contribute a few hundred comments on your record post. By the way, any way to tell in the stats how many comments I actually left there?
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I hate to sound like wordpress, but I do not have that information as far as I know.
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I saw that. I’m lurking when I’m working, and comment when I’m home at.
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Art’s hit his mark. Look at the cool shout out he did for you too! You’re pretty cool, X.
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Thanks, you too. And yes, I saw the shout out but only just now getting to acknowledging it.
To rephrase my quandary into prose, I can read blogs at work, but I am not allowed to comment or like anything. So most of my reading is done in the lurk mode, and if I want to comment, I have to type a comment and e-mail it to myself. It’s fun.
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I have the same rules, honestly, but ignore them. Sooner or later, I’ll get nabbed, but so what. All they can do is sack me. But on a serious note, I have to go back to doing this after hours, too, it’s only sensible.
E-mailing comments to yourself… yikes.
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I firmly believe that no Internet comment is worth getting nabbed over. If that means I have to e-mail comments to myself, so be it.
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You’re a good man.
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They care, Art. They care deeply about a lot of things. The important things like carrying guns, or satanist statues, or Coke commercials, or transvaginal ultrasounds. It’s really hard to squeeze in health care and poor people when you already have these priorities.
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It is hard to squeeze health care past a transvaginal ultrasound…
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“8) Ban the vaccines… ” I really wish you had a disclaimer on this one because some parents don’t want to immunize their children. 🙂 Good post, though.
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Thank you! I didn’t post a disclaimer for vaccines, because I think that vaccines are one of the best things that ever happened to public health.
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I’m all for banning vaccines, X. That will take care of the overpopulation problem, too!
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You’re right. Also, letting people get vaccinated robs hospitals of profits they could have made by treating those who get sick.
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Woman in Crowd: Where do we get these placebos?
Man: Maybe there’s some in this truck!
[the panicky crowd push over a truck, boxes labeled “danger killer bees” break open, the bees go everywhere and everyone panics, one man puts a bee in his mouth]
Man: I’m cured! I mean, ouch!
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I hope these were the placebo killer bees, so they only kill 10-30% of those people.
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I think the Republicans real problem here is that there’s no part of Obamacare that mandates inserting the entirety of government directly into a woman’s vagina.
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Because, surely, there’s no greater threat to American way of life than the unsupervised vaginas.
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And now of all things, Tim Armstrong (Chairman and CEO of AOL) has claimed ACA is the reason for the cut in retirement and 401K benefits for all employees. Of course in the past four years his own salary has jumped from $3.22M to $12.07M.
Great list as always.
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I haven’t heard about this (and I’m also shocked that AOL still exists), but ACA has been a very common excuse for screwing the workers. I think the most famous case was the Papa John Pizza’s CEO complaint that ACA will increase the price of pizza by a whopping 14 cents.
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Excellent list as always X..I’m sorry I showed up so late in the game..OMG..I was just wondering why you hadn’t written anything lately…Stopped in & realized I’ve missed about 4 of your posts..Again, either my reader isn’t working properly or more likely, I’ve so many people on my faves that I never get to the end of my reader list..I need an X alert lol, lol! Better yet I’ll just keep popping in when I don’t see anything for a bit.
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Once again, Berna, you’re not late. Whenever you make it here is a perfectly good time for me 🙂
And I know you probably follow a lot of blogs now, so it’s easy to miss a blog or a few. I’m having trouble keeping up with all the reading myself.
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If only I had more time..But, I’m sure everyone feels that way..I shall though stop in more often. Yours still to this day is my fave(no matter how many I follow) Real talk on current events is high on my priority list. Virtual high 5^..and ooo I didnt pick a fave one! Not breaking my streak on your blog…#1 is my fave, since that seems to be all they know how to do these days.
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Thank you! And you don’t have to stop often, because I don’t even write that often myself 🙂
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I love your lists so much. They also break my heart because there’s positively no denying how stupid people are. Sigh.
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Thank you and I apologize for breaking your heart. There is no denying the stupidity, but we can at least try to laugh about it.
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Reblogged this on AMERICAN LIBERAL TIMES and commented:
I have always appreciated the insights of “List of X” and here is another fine article from a really great blog!
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Thank you for the re-blog, John!
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You are more than welcome because the stuff you write is absolutely priceless! 🙂
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