Save Health Care Innovation!

Mickey Kaus links to a discussion of health care reform by Uwe Reinhardt, an economic professor at Princeton who has given the topic a great deal of thought.  However, Prof. Reinhardt inadvertently illustrates why so many people panic at the notion of a vast government restructuring of the health care sector:

It would be helpful, therefore, if amid this sea of confusion President Obama reiterated once more, concisely and crisply, the three overarching goals of health care reform on which, extremism aside, there seems to be bipartisan agreement:

1. Financial barriers should not stand between Americans and preventive or acute health care that they sincerely believe will address concerns over a troubling medical condition, in a timely manner, before that condition grows into a critically serious illness.

2. Having received needed health care, no American family should be so financially devastated by medical bills that it cannot meet routine daily living expenses — for example, make utility or mortgage payments on time or finance the education of the family’s children.

3. The future growth in national health spending should be constrained to fall significantly below currently projected spending growth, which has the United States devoting about 40 percent of its G.D.P. to health care by midcentury.

All other goals are subordinate to these three overarching goals, as are the means to reach them.

All other goals?  Many of us hope that one goal is to preserve the US system as the last bastion of innovation in the development of new drugs and new treatment methods.  Europe, by way of contrast, has bent their cost curve, in the short run anyway, by underinvesting in that sort of thing.

ERRATA:  From the WaPo:

Boston: All I hear is that we have the best healthcare system in the world, yet a lot of the mileposts (mortality, infant deaths, longevity, etc.) are not as good as other countries. All politics aside, how would you rate America's system? What system would you like to participate? If you were diagnosed with cancer, where would you like to get treated?

Ceci Connolly: I think the reviews on the U.S. health system are mixed. Empirical data shows we have many great successes here, particularly in terms of innovation and cutting-edge therapies. On the other hand, we know that other countries often fare better on measures such as infant mortality, obesity and heart disease.

Comments

[matt]

Can we list the number of Nobel Prizes in medicine won by researchers in the UK, France,Germany, Sweden, Japan,and the United States over the past 50 years, and the potential influence of single payer healthcare systems on said?

[The overarched goal ought to be individual autonomy.]

Yah, fer sure, the value judgements overarch.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

The whole thing on infant mortality is a selection error anyway. Other countries count as stillborn babies we count as live births.

[Jim Ryan]

Obesity is low in Ethiopia, China, etc. Should prolly study their healthcare systems and try to copy them.

[clarice]

And if they think we aren't matching, Sweden for example,in obesity or infant mortality wait until the Dems pass more immigration reform and half the country suddenly develops TB or rickets.

[bishop]

Not that it matters, but why are comparisons
US versus Europe, or at least Western Europe

[Lurking Observer]

I'm curious. How is obesity a health system problem?

If people choose to over-eat, under-exercise, or both, what, exactly are doctors and hospitals supposed to do?

The implication from this attitude is clear:

The health system should intervene in people's daily lives, to make them eat better, exercise more, watch less TV, etc.

Is that really what we want? Especially if people aren't doing it now?

[DrJ]

Matt, there are many more Europeans than you might imagine: see here . You should also include the prize for Chemistry.

I would also argue this is a bad metric, since doing the very fundamental research is one thing. It is another entirely to commercialize a product in this area. There is a reason that essentially all of world-wide pharma does its research in the US.

[Jack is Back!]

Lets compare countries populations, food culture, location and GDP while we are at it. Geez, it doesn't take a brain surgeon to understand the extreme diversity we enjoy in the States compared to lets say the Swiss, Norwegians or Uzbekis. Well, the Norwegians have their Kurds and the Swiss their Romanians but no where near the population, geographic area and differences in demographics we have. When you add it all up - we have the best health care system in the world since it is free market, individual choice oriented. Sure we have pseudo-socialistic medicine at the end of our working lives but then you still have to make up at least 20% of that plus the cost of the premiums. What a lot of people in America don't understand is that Medicare is not free - wait until you retire and tell me about how great socialistic medicine is - it doesn't really exist like they think it does.

OT: The best the Scots can do is blame Libya for breaking their promise to a low key welcome for the bomber. LUN

[glasater]

I found this tidbit interesting from Ann Couter's most recent column:

Tiny little France and Germany have more competition among health insurers than the U.S. does right now. Amazingly, both of these socialist countries have less state regulation of health insurance than we do, and you can buy health insurance across regional lines -- unlike in the U.S., where a federal law allows states to ban interstate commerce in health insurance.

[Roux]

I watched a health care meeting of experts on C-Span this weekend. All of them have decided we will get health care reform with a government run system. So all of you citizens should just shut up and go along.

[jimmyk]

On the other hand, we know that other countries often fare better on measures such as infant mortality, obesity and heart disease.

It's been pointed out that the infant mortality data are skewed by different reporting methods. (Steyn wrote about this recently, but it's been discussed before.) In effect, Americans try to save premies and other high-risk babies to a greater extent than in other countries.

And as was already mentioned above, obesity is not a health care issue per se, and if we choose to have diets and lifestyles that result in more heart disease, that is a choice, not evidence of bad health care.

[Cecil Turner]

3. The future growth in national health spending should be constrained to fall significantly below currently projected spending growth, which has the United States devoting about 40 percent of its G.D.P. to health care by midcentury.

Great goal, but how are we going to achieve it? By going to single-payer? That's exactly the wrong answer. Per the CBO:

On the consumer side, a landmark health insurance experiment by RAND showed that higher cost sharing reduced spending—particularly when compared with a plan offering free care—with little or no adverse effects on health.

The other way to do that is with "death panels" . . . ooops, I mean "comparative effectiveness analyses" . . . aggressive implementation of which is currently not legal:

To affect medical treatment and reduce health care spending, the results of comparative effectiveness analyses would ultimately have to change the behavior of doctors and patients—that is, to get them to use fewer services or less intensive and less expensive services than are currently projected, which, for Medicare, would require changes to current law.

Of course, it becomes a lot easier to change a system to ration (ooops, I meant "save money") when it is obviously going broke . . . which shouldn't take long under the Dem proposals.

[prm]

By all means, let's trust the statistics. I remember my college statistics professors words of wisdom regarding statistics. "There are three kinds of lies - lies, damn lies, and statistics."

[Frau Krankenkasse]

glasater - I read that the Clintons were using the German model for their attempt at reforming health care.The German govt. is not in the insurance business. Why must our govt. be?
In the article linked by Kaus, Prof. Reinhardt describes the extremists on the left "decrying" and extremists on the right *shrieking hytsterically.*
FTA:'It was naïve to believe that a workable bill for even the smaller agenda — reforming just the demand side of the health system — could be crafted in Congress before the August recess. If that task can be accomplished for passage of a bill by the end of the year, I would tip my hat to Congress.
Designing and implementing the rest of the reform agenda in the chart — reforming the supply side, payment reform and cost control — is a much longer-run effort that may take an entire decade or more. It is more challenging than was landing a man on the moon, as no moneyed lunar interest groups sought to prevent man’s visit there.'
(emphasis added)

[Ignatz]

--2. Having received needed health care, no American family should be so financially devastated by medical bills that it cannot meet routine daily living expenses — for example, make utility or mortgage payments on time or finance the education of the family’s children.--

Even people who could afford insurance but don't buy it? Even people who are obese by choice or smoke their whole lives or don't control their blood pressure or diabetes or who abuse drugs?

If similar people don't buy flood, home or auto insurance or drive drunk or waste their savings on some idiotic business which fails shouldn't they be prevented from suffering the consequences of their choices as well?

[Ignatz]

--1. Financial barriers should not stand between Americans and preventive or acute health care that they sincerely believe will address concerns over a troubling medical condition, in a timely manner, before that condition grows into a critically serious illness.--

Every study I've seen says greater access to preventative care increases costs. So how does #1 lead to #3;

--3. The future growth in national health spending should be constrained to fall significantly below currently projected spending growth, which has the United States devoting about 40 percent of its G.D.P. to health care by midcentury.--

And what is the arbitray number health care spending is supposed to be at anyway?
I can't see that any of his three overareching concerns is as obvious as he thinks they are.

This guy may have given this a great deal of thought, per TM, but I'm not sure a little more quality of thought and a little less quantity wouldn't have been more helpful.

[Natrium]

I might point out that I know of a place which has superior health care, period. It beats out about any other place, including the U.S.
This place, is Saudi Arabia.
However, I might point out that the Saudi system is based on the strengths of the U.S. system while avoiding it's weaknesses.
Lawsuits are non-existant (Saudia discourages lawsuits of any sort), care is world-class, drugs are inexpensive and anyone who enters a hospital has to have insurance or pay up front before care is given (most hospitals in Saudia are private).
This last point may seem rough to many out there, but it is an essential element in making people take responsibility for their own health care and keeping costs way down.
Typically, wait times to see a doctor at a hospital are 15 minutes or less, paperwork is kept to a minimum (usually they copy your insurance card and write down what your complaint is. If you've never been to the hospital before, you have to fill out a one-sheet form giving vital form about yourself), there is no triage and health care is top rate.
In fact, the few times I've had to wait for more than 15 minutes, I've been unhappy. Talk about being spoiled. Try getting through triage in the U.S. in under 30 minutes.
Personally, I think if the U.S. would model themselves after the Saudi version, healthcare costs would go down and service would go up dramatically.

[Extraneus]

3. The future growth in national health spending should be constrained to fall significantly below currently projected spending growth, which has the United States devoting about 40 percent of its G.D.P. to health care by midcentury.

By the same token, don't we also need a government program to curb overall veterinary spending?

[sylvia]

"which has the United States devoting about 40 percent of its G.D.P. to health care by midcentury."

Wow. I think we have no other choice than to start some sort of healthcare corp, where every young person devotes two years to working in a hospital or doctors office in back up positions, like janitorial, data entry, cafeteria. I mean, how can we go on otherwise?

But that is also assuming the costs remain the same. Costs for MRIs are down, the costs for a lot of equipment is down, maybe some of the drug costs will be down by then. People might be healthier, longer by then. So I would like to see more evidence for that. I think that's a lot of scare tactics. I don't think things change that much. I see no reason for the drastic increase, I see it being the same.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Even people who are obese by choice

Ignatz, as someone who has struggled with his weight since he was — literally! — six years old, I positively defy you to find someone who is "obese by choice."

C'mon, stand and deliver.

Unless, by "obese by choice", you mean "people in the 95 percent of those who are above the recommended weight who fail repeatedly to lose weight and maintain the loss, no matter how strenuous the diet."

Here, go buy a clue.

[glasater]

Frau--

My German language equivalent to a three year old kid translated your last 'Krankenkasse' handle as Sick Cheese. Knew the cheese part wasn't right so I googled and came up with this interesting link:

Krankenkasse

It's a bit lengthy but here is one interesting part:

The statutory health insurance companies operate on a pay as you go, that is, they take those sums as contributions they need for current spending. You may not constitute age provisions, such as for the foreseeable problem is that the number of workers decreases and the number of (relatively small contributions paid) retirees will continue to rise (demography)-factor. Also provisions for additional spending by medical progress can not be made. Rising contribution rates are therefore already in sight.

[bishop]

Mr. Salt, think it's funny to make some kind of point referent to Saudi medical practices, well they do cut down on enbezzling the hard way (Lol) I know that
Khashoggi was the son of a court doctor to King Saud, which made him successful enough
to send the boy to become a major league wheeler dealer, although Menlo State

[sylvia]

By the way, I saw the on the Travel Channel on Anthony Bourdain's show on Thailand, that they eat 8 times a day there! IS that true? And Thailand is supposed to have very low obesity. Maybe that's something we need to start doing here.

[gmax]

I think it might be the raw monkey brains, the crunchy waterbugs and the slimy grubs as a diet that holds down the weight level. It sure would with me...

[Dave (in MA)]

An example of what to expect from gov't-run health care.

[Jack is Back!]

Charlie in Colorado,

Stop eating the cheetos and do sushi. LUN

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

When the body is starving for nutrients because of dieting, the metabolism slows down and more of what we eat is stored as fat. Our bodies don't realize that food is only as far away as the refrig. The body protects us against times when food is scarce by storing more of what we do consume.

Eating smaller portions several times a day will help the metabolism speed up and burn more calories.

[JBean]

It's been pointed out that the infant mortality data are skewed by different reporting methods. (Steyn wrote about this recently, but it's been discussed before.) In effect, Americans try to save premies and other high-risk babies to a greater extent than in other countries.
Posted by: jimmyk | August 24, 2009 at 01:56 PM

Yes, and I'd gladly forfeit my "selfish" non-free Medicare coverage to save the life of one of these -- but I can't trust our present government not to make even that gesture absolutely meaningless.

[jimmyk]

I positively defy you to find someone who is "obese by choice."

One could make a similar argument regarding smoking or alcoholism. The question is whether it's appropriate to require everyone to be in the same insurance pool.

There are plenty of people who have contributed to their obesity problems by choices they have made. (And no, I won't name names.) This doesn't preclude the possibility that there are some (or even many) who are obese (or smoke, or drink) for reasons beyond their control.

[Ignatz]

--Here, go buy a clue.--

Thanks Chuck. Here's part of what I bought:

--In 2002, science journalist Gary Taubes published an article entitled "What if It's All Been a Big Fat Lie?" He argued that reputable scientists were coming around to the idea, advanced by diet gurus like Dr. Robert Atkins, that carbohydrates, not fat, are the ultimate dietary villain. If so, he wrote, "the ongoing epidemic of obesity in America and elsewhere is not, as we are constantly told, due simply to a collective lack of will power and a failure to exercise. Rather it occurred . . . because the public health authorities told us unwittingly, but with the best of intentions, to eat precisely those foods that would make us fat, and we did."--

So, your citation tells me that the epidemic of obesity is caused by the over consumption of refined carbohydrates. I happen to agree and lost about 25 pounds by stopping my consumption of them a few years back. Lots of people are obese because they eat too much and too much of what they eat is junk, like refined carbohydrates for instance. Those people are obese by choice.

If someone is genetically predisposed to obesity and is unable to lose weight on anything less than a starvation diet, like you apparently may be, then presumably they are not obese by choice.
But of course the term 'obese by choice' should have tipped you off I was not referring to those people for whom it is almost impossible to lose weight, but rather the larger number of people who survive on Cocoa Puffs and double beef whoppers, fries and a shake.

If most people are not obese because of their own actions then why are we now suffering an epidemic of obesity? Were we geneticly superior sixty or one hundred years ago when obesity was much less prevalent and the American populace has undergone some sudden mutation predisposing us to obesity?
Or do most people just eat a bunch more junk that wasn't even available then?

[matt]

Dr J;

I know there is overlap, but between 1945 - 2008 these are the results for the Nobel prize in Medicine. They are compelling:

United States 84
UK 21
Germany 8
France 7
Sweden 7
Australia 6
Switzerland 5.5
ROW 10.5

Many of the winners have been European born, but did their work here.

And yes, it is a skewed statistic. However, your comment on Big Pharma is also valid. It is the combination of the freedom, altruism, intellectual curiosity, choice, money, and mutual self interest of our great big crazy system that makes it work for the vast majority.

If we did not have such a system, imagine how worse off the world would be. The Nobel number is just one more data point, but I believe a significant one.

LUN

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

Were we geneticly superior sixty or one hundred years ago when obesity was much less prevalent and the American populace has undergone some sudden mutation predisposing us to obesity?

No, but we are far more sedentary due to the types of jobs we have and the many labor-saving devices that have come along.

We don't have to go out and hike miles to bring back dinner or even walk to church, we aren't out walking behind the horse-drawn plows, or etc. etc.

When I was in elementary/h.s., you had to live at least 2.5 miles from the school in order to ride the bus. When my son was in those grades, the school was only 3/4 miles down a straight road and bus riding was mandatory.

[matt]

by the way, Is Obama going to spend a quiet moment at Chappaquiddick while on the Vineyard?

[MayBee]

2. Having received needed health care, no American family should be so financially devastated by medical bills that it cannot meet routine daily living expenses — for example, make utility or mortgage payments on time or finance the education of the family’s children.
========

What about the people for whom their length of time away from work due to medical treatment has made it so they cannon meet routine daily living expenses.

Also- is there some guarantee to the financing of education for one's children, now? Oh, yay!

[PeterUK]

The hidden catch to universal state health care is that it is a perquisite for the middle classes.
Whilst the wealthy will always have access to private health care,and unless, like a millionaire I know,prefer to get the expensive treatments and operations on the NHS,most will use it.
The poor,by far the largest group,will have to make use of SHC.The middle classes who have some choice will prefer to off load the expense onto SHC.Thus,this is a hidden income suppor for the middle classes.It is here,it will be in America.

[Original MikeS]

I object to the idea that there is a health care crisis when 84% of the people are happy with their health care and 100% of the people can get health care simply by showing up at an emergency room.

The primary concern of politicians seems to be that someone who can't afford to pay for health insurance will be sued for $millions in medical care, and lose all the wealth he or she has amassed over their lifetime, unless they file bankruptcy.

I don't have a problem with that. I think that is a good system. If someone with substantial assets wants to protect them he can buy insurance or file bankruptcy.

[Extraneus]

Hey Sara, my neice lives across the road from her middle school, but had to either take the bus or be driven in.

[Mike Myers]

My Obama loving friends love to repeat the mantra that we spend much more than other countries on medical care and have no better outcomes--or even worse outcomes. They point to the slight differences in life expectancy between say the USA and the UK or other Western European countries. By slight, I mean 79.25 and maybe 79.70 years of life.

The ignore the diversity in our population; our relatively high infant mortality rate, skewed by the way we collect statistics; the high homicide and vehicular accident rates etc. You take infant mortality, vehicle accident and homicide rates out of US life expectancy and we suddenly start looking better than the rest of the world.

And I'd guarantee you that if you measured average remaining life expectancy at age 40, 50 or 60, the US would come out on top.

[Extraneus]

Yeah, Mike, these Rahmian crises of opportunity are starting to become tedious.

I like the Mickey Kaus post about what the Dems have in the wings if health care isn't the front and center diversion: the global warming crisis (cap & trade), the immigration crisis (comprehensive reform, rather than stemming illegal immigration), and card check (have they even named a crisis to justify that one yet?).

The people who argued that giving the Dems a free hand would be just the rope they needed to hang themselves are starting to seem more prescient every day.

[matt]

that difference is easy to explain Mike Myers...it's guns, of course....ask any liberal.....we can put everyone on foam padded boxes as well and then we'll outlive those unenlightened neer do wells on the other side of the pond.....

[Frau Mainzerkäse]

glasaster - Loved your 'sick cheese' translation: My babel fish t-shirt says "Stick it in your ear."
As I recall, there's more sick-smelling cheese in Belgium than in Germany, but it all tastes great on rye bread in one hand and with beer in the other.

While visiting relatives in Germany once, we needed to see a doctor. The family's doctor in the village would not give us a bill because he said he got enough from his insured patients. He's long gone to his reward and is growing orchids (his hobby) in heaven, I'm sure.

[Original MikeS]

...Rahmian crises of opportunity are starting to become tedious.
Yup, and... though I'm not agreeing for a minute that any of these crises exist, if one did exist, why the hell would anyone think Nancy Pelosi and her cohorts could fix it? What have they ever fixed?

[Extraneus]

I guess card check could address the dwindling union membership crisis.

[Extraneus]

What have they ever fixed?

The coach class travel crisis?

[pagar]

More reasons why government and good healthcare do not mix.

TRICARE proximity rule enforcement displaces families

The government is doing everything possible to raise the amount that military retirees and their families, have to pay to have healthcare. Healthcare that many of us were told was guarantied for life if we stayed to retirement.

[Pofarmer]

Man, I am just about SICK of arguing Global warming with otherwise intelligent people who have gone absolutely brain dead on Global warming. They will quote temperature's and decadal means chapter and verse, but they can't admit to themselves that there has NEVER been a causal link proven between CO2 and temperatures and that MOST of the wavelength CO2 absorbs is already absorbed by water vapor and that MOST of the wavelength available to be absorbed already is. They area also CONVINCED that the atmosphere warms the oceans, when, given the fact about each body, the reverse must almost surely be true.

[PD]

I watched a health care meeting of experts on C-Span this weekend. All of them have decided we will get health care reform with a government run system. So all of you citizens should just shut up and go along.

Why, this cannot be so. Obama has assured us that the last thing he wants is to have the government run health care. I'm sure that is just as true as when he said it about the finance and auto industries.

[PD]

OT, but a delicious word picture by VDH:

In contrast, Obama promised that he’d be tough in Afghanistan, pursue enemies hotly into Pakistan, and not take “his eye off the ball” of the theater as did Bush. “Let me at ‘em” was the mood (sort of like the cartoon character who swings furiously and wildly at the air while his larger companion holds him up by the scruff of the neck.)

[PD]

I suppose that "delicious picture" is not the most felicitous turn of phrase. :-)

[Extraneus]

I've never seen Bill Whittle this pissed off.

[jean]

OT everyone that said they wanted to meet in DC for lunch before the Sept 12 rally please go to the Facebook page and confirm if you will be there.We are trying to get a final count. Thanks

[Charlie (Colorado)]

One could make a similar argument regarding smoking or alcoholism.

One could. But one would thereby prove oneself to be an idiot.

(Hint. If you don't smoke or drink alcohol, you don't die.)

Ignatz, I lost about 50 lbs by cuting out high glycemic index foods. The next 50 have been much harder.

The problem here, though, is that while the high GI diet is a pretty good explanation for prediabetic metabolic syndrome, it's not enough to explain obesity. Among other things, as was pointed out, people whose diets have a large proportion of (very high GI) white rice, as in, eg, Okinawa, don't seem to have the same incidence of obesity ... until conditions are such that they regularly can get as much food as they want.

The one correlation that anyone has been able to make stick with general obesity is the regular availability of sufficient calories. Among any group of humans with regular, long-term availability of enough high-content food, there will be a high incidence of obesity — which is why it's rising in India and Japan now.

There's a pretty plausible reason for this, in that evolution actually favors those who will eat more than barely enough when it's available, since it helps to survive the bad times.

In any case, though, the truth is that the long-term remission rate of obesity is about 3 percent without bariatric surgery. The notion that this is simply a matter of choice, with all the social pressures and health problems associated with obesity, is just follish.

[Original MikeS]

Obama has assured us that the last thing he wants is to have the government run health care.

Jeez. Why didn't he just say this earlier. I thought he was planing some $1.6 trillion dollar government nightmare including a monstrous bureaucracy and regulations requiring over a thousand pages to describe.

Where the heck did I get that 'misinformation?'

[Extraneus]

Well, to be fair, he doesn't want to run car companies, either.

It's not that he wants to do these things.

[Sue The Bastard]

They should study me. I am 5'7" and weigh between 120 and 125, depending on the time of day you weigh me. I graduated hs over 30 years ago and weighed 115. I gained 18 lbs with my first child, 22 with 2nd. I eat like a horse, according to friends and family. If I miss a meal, I lose 5 lbs. I eat all day long. I wake up in the middle of the night for a snack. Cookies and milk. There is nothing medically wrong with me, they've checked. I have no explanation for it. If I could bottle my metabolism, I'd be rich.

[MayBee]

I have always adored you, Sue, but that comment was just cruel.

[Extraneus]

You bastard!

[Sue The Bastard]

MayBee,

I know. I thought about it before hitting post, but did it anyway. ::grin::

[centralcal]

Sue the bastard - you are really living up to your new moniker! I was always too skinny. Saw doctors, drank supplements, but could not gain wait no matter what I did. People were always asking if I was ill - that I was just too thin.

And then, turned 45. 20 lbs overweight ever since.

[centralcal]

oh good grief - wait = weight of course. hurrying too fast, about to close the office.

[Janet]

Wow, that Bill Whittle video at PJTV is great!

[Sue The Bastard]

When I was a young girl, I sort of resembled Olive Oil's luscious curves. My mother would comfort me by saying "baby, one day you'll be the envy of everyone who has ever called you that name". She was right. I can't help but smile when I see someone I graduated with that has...ballooned, shall we say...especially if they were in the brigade that made fun of my skinny legs. My legs are still skinny, so there is a downside to being perpetually thin.

[Janet]

Jean - Is that the lunch on the 10th? I just posted that I'll come to that. I'm a newbie at Facebook. My daughter was horrified that I wanted to set up an account...but it's just for the JOM tea party thing...so she helped me. Truthfully, she did the whole thing.

[Sue The Bastard]

From reading the CIA report, I'm thinking this might backfire on Obama. They are going to arrest CIA agents and release terrorists (Obama released one today, how ironic?).

[Jane will cause you pain]

Janet,

You should email me at [email protected] so I can keep track of everyone's contact info.

Thanks.

Jean I got your message - I'll return it tomorrow.

[RichatUF]

Sue-

Par for the course. Wonder if any of those sharpies that did so much to undermine the Bush Administration are having a bit of regret?

Is it bad for me to want them both to lose?

[Sue The Bastard]

Is it bad for me to want them both to lose?

I don't think so.

[Sue The Bastard]

Oh goody, I was going to try and post some passages that struck me in the report, but NRO has done it already.

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MWEwZDFlNjVjODk5NGQyN2Y0ZmUwNTc4YWZlOTdhN2M=>CIA uncovered terrorists plots

[PeterUK]

"They are going to arrest CIA agents and release terrorists (Barack Hussein Obama released one today, how ironic?).

Mull over the political implications of that.

Anyone want to wager the Barack Hussein Obama Life Story is on file at Langley?

[Sue The Bastard]

Via Malkin tweet, I give you http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2009/08/24/ig_report/>Salon. CIA abuse report doesn't live up to the hype

I sense disappointment.

[RichatUF]

PUK-

Anyone want to wager the Barack Hussein Obama Life Story is on file at Langley?

If it were, we'd have had a sample just to waive them off. Most of the officers at the CIA are probably cheering the appointment of a persecutor and are making lists of potential Republicans criminals in the bureaucracy.

[Stephanie "the Ice Pick"]

When did health care become an Olympic sport?

And Great Britain is in the lead with the fewest deaths per millions in the infant mortality race...

Abortion is the new steroid...

[Sue The Bastard]

The funniest thing I heard today from a pundit was the AG has to follow the crime, no choice. The dipweed doing the interview failed to mention the Black Panther's case that the AG decided wasn't worth following.

[Jim O'Sullivan]

Am I the only one getting weary of talking about Obamacare? I mean,can we declare a truce? Till say, after Labor Day? I mean, c'mon!

[Sue The Bastard]

That was an awesome video by Bill Whittle. Thanks for linking it!

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

Hey Sara, my neice lives across the road from her middle school, but had to either take the bus or be driven in.

Is it any wonder there is so much obesity in America?

[Ann]

OT

From Malkin:

"Can’t say I’m getting all wee-weed up about the DOJ disclosure today that Bush/CIA interrogators threatened 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed’s family (info that isn’t even new.)"

Here is a reminder of the children murdered on airplanes on 9/11.

Let Us Never Forget.

[Captain Hate]

Wow, that Bill Whittle video at PJTV is great!

Whittle's vids are extremely well done; kudos to whoever is producing them.

btw, can we haz a special prosecutor for dropping the Black Panther charges? And how 'bout one for the attorneys that outted the undercover CIA people; the real ones not the glorified file clerk (if that's what they were doing; if they were making AQ idiots look like double agents then great). It would only be fair, no?

[clarice]

abc:
"The CIA released the documents today that former Vice President Dick Cheney requested earlier this year in an attempt to prove his assertion that using enhanced interrogation techniques on terror detainees saved U.S. lives.

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Justice Department will investigate CIA treatment of terror suspects since 9/11.The documents back up the Bush administration's claims that intelligence gleaned from captured terror suspects had thwarted terrorist attacks, but the visible portions of the heavily redacted reports do not indicate whether such information was obtained as a result of controversial interrogation techniques, such as waterboarding. "

I don't know about the rest of you but this week I replaced my emergency supplies with fresh stuff.

[Ann]

Sue The Bastard,

Since Rove is The Magnificent bastard, can we just call you "The Skinny Bastard"?
::big grin::

To think of all the carp Ashcroft got for praying...arghhhh!

[centralcal]

Thanks for the link to Bill Whittle. He is doing terrific stuff at Pajamas Media.

Actually, I think his delivery and his passion would indicate that he writes and/or contributes to the writing of all his videos.

Excellent, excellent, excellent.

And, Ann - yup, I'm with ya girlfriend - Sue the skinny bastard!! (I am so jealous!)

[RichatUF]

The Bastard-

Thanks for the Corner link.

Since the use of the waterboard, however, Abu Zubaydah has appeared to be cooperative.

[bishop]

Durham, the socalled 'special counsel' has been on the case for two years, there is little that he could have really found in that year. I guess I'm very 'golden rule' about these things, on what the proper punishment would be for KSM and Al Nashiri
and Zubeydah, use your imagination. I had forgotten how callous they had been toward
children, snuffing their lives out like McVeigh did in OKC but on a greater scale.

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

Obama nominating Bernanke for 2nd term.

[RichatUF]

oops...The Skinny Bastard...

[Jim Ryan]

The administration has moved from farce onto self-satire with this torture baloney. Via Insty: Powerline

Clarice, I've been nagging myself to go buy some supplies. I hate paying hundreds of bucks for something that isn't going to happen, so I procrastinate. But I have little kids and if the dollar collapses, it's game over. I'll probably drag myself out to the supply store this Saturday.

[Sue The Skinny Bastard]

Rich,

You're welcome.

[hrtshpdbox]

Uwe Reinhardt, named looked familiar, and a search of my Gmail pulled up a back-and-forth e-argument I started with him over a letter he wrote to the WSJ about the war (said letter being a particularly insulting and tiresome take on "we armed and coddled Saddam, then we called him evil!"). The prof's a hard lefty.

[RichatUF]

bishop-

He could find obstruction of justice and perjury. He'll find who took Obama's strawberries.

[DrJ]

Matt,

The Nobel number is just one more data point, but I believe a significant one.

I'm getting back into this discussion rather late, but I don't think there is any relation between Nobel Prizes and the country that commercializes products.

Nobels are awarded for fundamental contributions of substantial scientific importance (at least in the "real" Nobels); these traditionally have been funded by government agencies and this sort of funding will continue even if the health care system is nationalized. It is small science, and not really that expensive.

Commercializing technology is another matter entirely. The work that wins Nobel prizes is published in the open literature, and anyone is free to do with it what they will. Usually it is so early that is ferments for quite a while before anything useful is done with it (Mullis is an exception).

Otherwise, how do you explain the prominence of Asian semiconductor companies? They have scanty Nobel Prizes, yet they dominate all aspects of semiconductor manufacturing.

No, the US leads in the medical field simply because there is a financial incentive to introduce a product here. The infrastructure helps. But I'd bet if India had stronger financial incentives than the US, the medical business would all move there. Those incentives won't happen, at least not soon, but if they did, the field would change almost overnight.

[Sue The Skinny Bastard]

and that Al-Nashiri was in [redacted] custody because it was widely believed in Middle East circles that [redacted] interrogation techniques involves sexually abusing female relatives in front of the detainee.

Who is the redacted country?

[bishop]

I'd say Egypt or Syria, but I doubt they sent him there. who actually wrote this report and what are the sources, bTW it looks like the CIA came through in part with Cheney's records request.

[Sue The Skinny Bastard]

I was thinking Jordan. Egypt is probably more likely.

[Sue The Skinny Bastard]

Via the Powerline link above:

The report also notes that six years ago, the incidents it describes were referred to the Department of Justice for possible prosecution, and DOJ determined that there was nothing there that merited prosecution. For Barack Obama and Eric Holder to reverse that decision six years later, in hopes of political gain, is deeply contemptible.

Amen to that. However, I saw elsewhere, maybe Glenn Reynolds, where they have little compassion for the CIA after the undermining it did during the Bush administration. I doubt it was these people that are about to be persecuted by our esteemed AG's office.

[RichatUF]

Jim-

Was there really any doubt that the Obama Administration would go after CIA officals regarding interrogations and detentions.

Obama himself wrote in his book he would stand with Muslims if the political winds shifted in an ugly direction. Muslim terrorists lost in Iraq and were unable to hit the US-for Muslims that was an ugly shift in the political winds.

[RichatUF]

Sue-

Syria.

[Ann]

I felt so safe under Bush and Cheney that I haven't thought about emergency supplies in quite awhile. Considering the terrorists Obama is releasing from Gitmo and the Libyan Lockerbie guy with prostrate cancer that would love to go see Alah, I think it is prudent we all consider restocking.

Clarice, Can you post your list? Anyone else have ideas and/or websites. (I am not kidding)

[Jim Ryan]

Rich, I don't attribute that much depth to O. I think he's trying to throw his lunatic base a bone at a time when his polls are in free-fall. O doesn't care about Muslims. He only cares about himself.

[Sue The Skinny Bastard]

I originally thought Iraqi, since that was what Saddam did. Not sure they would believe Iraqi intelligence was working with us though.