Mike Luckovich for January 02, 2022

I take issue with the phrase “health-care system”. It’s misleading. In the 1st place, it’s not a system. A system is something that’s designed to achieve a particular end, in a coordinated way, usually as efficiently as possible. (Think computers or automobiles.) In the 2nd place, it’s not about care, it’s about capitalism.

What we have in lieu of a true health-care system (you know, the kind that every other industrialized democracy on the planet has and loves) is a haphazard scattering of profit centers concentrated in areas where the money is, with vast swaths of the nation under- or un-served. By contrast, the US Postal Service and the public schools are true systems that serve every square centimetre of the country. (And yes, the metric system too is a true system, well and intentionally designed, not like ACHU, the Accidental Collection of Heterogeneous Units that the US alone in the world still clings to.)

So I recommend using the phrase “health-insurance industry”, because it’s more accurate.

I don’t mind caring for the unvaccinated who get themselves (and likely others) infected. Not that they deserve treatment, but the death penalty is disproportionate to their crime.

That said, the above only applies if all eligible VACCINATED and boosted patients are treated first, unless they have a legitimate MEDICAL basis for not being vaccinated. (No religious [superstitious] exemptions — if they have so much more faith in imaginary sky gods over real science, let them be healed by their faith healers and college dropout right-wing media POOPagandists if beds are needed first for those who did accept the free gift of grace from medical science.)

With the very rare exceptions of the severely immunocompromised, NO ONE DIES OF COVID, even the Delta or OMIGOD variants, if they have been fully vaccinated and boosted. No one.

And no person who has been fully vaccinated and boosted, and done their part to follow science and protect themselves and others, should ever be denied access to treatment for a heart attack, stroke, automobile accident or any other medical treatment because of the COVIDIOTS who refused to accept a FREE GIFT OF GRACE from modern medical science.

No person who rejects the science of prevention should ever be treated ahead of those who did.

If they do not accept the SCIENCE of prevention, they cannot be provided care from the SCIENCE of treatment ahead of those who did comply with all the FREE opportunities to receive a free gift of salvation from disease and death by the grace of science.

Our ‘Health care System’ is set up to provide the least care while making as much money as possible. The most advanced country, ours, has the worst possible health care system.

The Health Care system had a pre-existing condition and then the Trump Virus did it in.

This mess was brought to you by Obama Care and Dementia Joe Biden! Let’s go, Brandon!

The Covid Patient pointing the finger . . . was he one of the numerous un-vaccinated that has caused the need for Last Rites be given to an almost dead Health Care System in America? Asking for those who can’t ask for themselves. They couldn’t get a hospital bed for their non-related Covid emergency and died.

and don’t forget dental care sadly overlooked by Lyndon Baines Johnson when he was setting up the only health care system in the U.S. that being for the old folks. And then finally get yourself a good secondary and you’ll be A, O.K until you have to meet your maker. Then you might need a super lawyer depending on the life you led. Medicaid though is a poorhouse bargain rate of a system.

This one is for the troll who has the vocabulary of a 8-year old and debating skills of a sack of hammers (favorite phrases include “Dementia J.” and ending his two liners with LGB).

In 2017 a neurolinguistics and cognitive assessment study reviewed decades of Trump’s on-air interviews and compared them to Q&A sessions following his inauguration. The analysis revealed differences that were are striking and unmistakable and pointed to a deterioration reflecting changes in the health of Trump’s brain.

In interviews Trump gave in the 1980s and 1990s (with Tom Brokaw, David Letterman, Oprah Winfrey, Charlie Rose, and others), he spoke articulately, used sophisticated vocabulary, inserted dependent clauses into his sentences without losing his train of thought, and strung together sentences into a polished paragraph, which — and this is no mean feat — would have scanned just fine in print.

Trump fluently peppered his answers with words and phrases such as “subsided,” “inclination,” “discredited,” “sparring session,” and “a certain innate intelligence.” He tossed off well-turned sentences such as, “It could have been a contentious route,” and, “These are the only casinos in the United States that are so rated.” He even offered thoughtful, articulate aphorisms: “If you get into what’s missing, you don’t appreciate what you have,” and, “Adversity is a very funny thing.” Now, Trump’s vocabulary is simpler—he repeats himself over and over, and lurches from one subject to an unrelated one.

Deterioration in the fluency, complexity, and vocabulary level of spontaneous speech (unscripted utterances, not planned speeches and statements) is a good indicator slipping brain function due to normal aging or neurodegenerative disease. With respect to the average 70+ male, be it Trump or Biden, some decline in cognitive functioning over time would be expected. The difference is Trump fell off the linguistic and cognitive cliff and Biden can still hold his own.

Unfortunately you lost opspecial at ‘neurolinguistics’.

Well Mike, you seem to admit something needs to be done about healthcare in the nation, but the ACA and universal healthcare is still a no-no in your book. So, what other option is there, for you?

Yep, it’s messy but most people want to come to America for their medical care. Our standards are the highest in the world. We’re not good at cost containment, though. Thank goodness for the ACA: it has saved countless lives.

Hey, Dementia Joe! Fix this mess that you and that idiot Obama created! Let’s go, Brandon!

Q-publicans are against any public health care, because it must be socialism and it cuts into their profits.

Yup, the One Liner Idiot Clowns Keeping It Tawdry (O.Lick.It) Keep up the No Replies! Thanks.

I see “opspecial” is providing his usual flipping lies, again.

Republican idiots like ops special want to make it worse, of course.

All he has are lies and insults from right wing fantasy land.

The mods should remove him for obnoxious harassment.

So true. Almost like Robin Hood except they steal from both the rich and the poor as well as the government.

Universal health care, like every modern democracy in the world, please.

Here’s the thinking behind trollish comments. The troll can dash off a quick one-liner — never more than a dozen words, half of them insults — post it in several dozen places, then sit back and watch sane people waste their time composing well-reasoned paragraphs in response. Then the troll might throw another occasional 1-liner into the conversation to spark another spate of time-wasting restatements of obvious facts, cogent logic, and sensible reasoning, with the bonus that some of those will actually quote the troll’s own words, thereby giving them yet another public exposure. The real bonus comes when the trollish comment gets so many responses that it gets promoted to that strip’s “featured comment” of the day, where it’ll be the ONLY thing that 98% of the visitors to the strip will ever see.

There’s an obvious solution to this situation. Anyone care to take a stab at what it might be?

let’s ban opspecial!

This message is approved by Rick Scott, Ted Cruz, Rob DeSantis, Gregg Abbott, and Marco Rubio.

The comical right-wing bickering over those ‘Trump vaccines’

Amid the pandemic’s grim tableau of death, illness and disinformation, a moment of comic relief broke through in December. It was the darkest kind of comedy, to be sure, but we’ll take whatever we can get these days. The occasion was Donald Trump’s belated endorsement of the coronavirus vaccines — which almost instantly provoked an eruption of panic and fury among his cultists.

Suddenly, however, he blurted the truth at an event in Dallas on December 19, when Bill O’Reilly asked whether he had gotten a booster shot. “Yes,” he said, as some in the audience began to boo him. Trying to quiet the jeering, he urged his followers to “take credit (for the vaccines). Take credit for it. It’s great. What we’ve done is historic. Don’t let them take it away. Don’t take it away from ourselves. Don’t let them take that away from you.”

What he meant, of course, was don’t let “them” — whoever they may be — take credit away from him. While whether his administration’s role in fostering vaccine research was essential or not is a matter of dispute, he seems determined to secure his own place in that historic development. He reiterated the point during an interview with the fanatical anti-vaxxer Candace Owens, who promotes toxic “cures” such as colloidal silver instead.

On Christmas Day, Jones said the man he once promoted as the nation’s savior is “ignorant or one of the most evil men who ever lived.” A few days later, Jones warned that he may “dish all the dirt” on Trump, whom he said is surrounded by “bad advisers,” and urged his followers to “move on” from the “pathetic” ex-president.

Meanwhile in another precinct of Cuckooland, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene struggled to defend her “favorite president of all time.”

https://www.rawstory.com/trump-vaccines-2656206295/

Greed is what motivates the american health care system. I had a operation that cost over $75,000. All of which was paid by my various Insurance companies. 10 months later I got a bill for $2.19 for the gloves the Doctor used.

Until we get the insurance monopolies out of healthcare we’ll continue to have the most expensive, most dysfunctional wealth-care system in the world. Some things shouldn’t be done for a profit. Texas Children’s Hospital team just gave a patent free covid vaccine to the world. That’s putting people before profits, something big pharma and our parasitic insurance industry will never understand.

Don’t feed the trolls. No Iams Low-Fat Troll Biscuits nor Nestle Trollhouse Cookies.