Friday, October 5, 2012

Fishnet Friday


____________________________________________

How to get health care in a socialist country:

City Square

Swedish man fakes stroke to get approved for an X-ray

Mats Johannesson suffered from debilitating headaches, requiring 47 ambulance trips to the hospital, and Swedish medicine would only give him painkillers. Finally, he fakes a stroke so that Sweden's government medicine would approve him for an X-ray. The X-ray showed that he had a brain tumor. Sweden's The Local reports:
"Johannesson, who is in his forties and was working as a truck driver, fell ill some five years ago. After seeking medical help from his local clinic in Mellerud he was referred to the nearest hospital, the Norra Älvsborgs lasarett, but was sent home again with some painkillers.
 “I asked for an x-ray but they didn’t think there was enough reason to carry one out,” Johannsesson said.
This continued on and off for the next five years. By last summer, Johannesson had gone to hospital by ambulance 47 times. Every time he was sent back by taxi – and without the x-ray he asked for....
On the May 20th this year, Johannesson collapsed again but was sent home once more without an x-ray. When it happened again on July 19th Johannesson was determined not to be brushed off.
“I thought to myself ‘ I am going to get a scan this time’,” Johannesson told The Local.
When the doctor came to check him over, Johannesson therefore pretended to have had a stroke, making himself go limp on the left side of his body . When the attending physician asked him to touch his nose with his fingertips, he missed on purpose.
 “And then they got worried and I was taken for an emergency x-ray straight away,” Johannesson said.
When they had performed the scan the doctor told him that there was no haemorrhage but that they had detected a tumour in his brain."
Sweden has had socialized medicine since 1955. The single payer system led to waiting lists. Waiting lists can lead to increased costs, as the National Center for Public Policy reports:
"One study that examined over 1,400 Swedes on a waiting list for cataract surgery found that 5.2 million kronas were spent on hospital stays and home health care for patients waiting for surgery. That was the equivalent of what it would have cost to give 800 patients cataract surgery."
It also leads to higher mortality rates:
"A recent study that examined over 5,800 Swedish patients on a wait list for heart surgery found that the long wait has consequences far worse than pain, anxiety or monetary cost. In this study, the median wait time was found to be 55 days. While on the waiting list, 77 patients died. The authors' statistical analysis led them to conclude that the "risk of death increases significantly with waiting time." Another study found a mean wait time of 55 days for heart surgery in Sweden and a similar rate of mortality for those on the waiting list. Finally, a study in the Swedish medical journal Lakartidningen found that reducing waiting times reduced the heart surgery mortality rate from seven percent to just under three percent."
Swedish politicians have tried some free-market reforms but they didn't seem to understand what is needed for a free market to work. For example:
"Although patients were free to choose which hospital in which they could get treatment, there were few penalties on providers that failed to attract patients. For example, in Stockholm, the county council did not permit any emergency hospital - public or private - from shutting down."
Welcome to America's future under Obamacare.

______________________________________________

Thursday, October 4, 2012

The Day After......


_______________________________________________________

Enablers of the Obama Myths Since 2008

NewsBusters - "An angry Chris Matthews sharply denounced President Obama's performance in the presidential debate lastnight, implying his knowledge of the facts was "first grade." Matthews also urged Obama to tune in to MSNBC so he could learn a thing or two....."
__________________________________________________________

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Tonight's the Night



______________________________________________________

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Obama Deputy Campaign Manager Stephanie Cutter Visits the Ladies of "The View"



Things aren't going well at 'Obama For America 2012' Headquarters these days.....

_____________________________________________________________

Famed Political Scientist / Hollywood Actor Ben Affleck Says Election is Over



"I think Republicans really had a chance to win, and they kind of ended up with like a sort of Mike Dukakis, Al Gore, Bob Dole type - who just couldn't get people to see him as a real person somehow. Romney just had such trouble coming off as just like the kind of person you see at the grocery store. And I truly believe that has cost him the election....." Read More
_____________________________________

Monday, October 1, 2012

Free Offer From The Democrat National Committee:


______________________________________________________________

Obama Campaign Spokeswoman Worried He Will Be Too “Professional” Sounding During Debates For Normal People To Understand…

Because, yes, they really do think you’re that stupid.

Beltway Confidential:
"President Obama’s campaign spokeswoman said she’s concerned Obama will sound too “professorial” to resonate with the low-information voters tuning into the presidential campaign for the first time during this week’s debate.
“[W]hat the American [people] are looking for is not just a professorial list of facts or accomplishments or even goals,” Obama campaign spokeswoman Jen Psaki said yesterday as part of her ongoing, almost-comical attempt to lower expectations going into the debates. She then lamented that Obama “has a tendency to give longer, substantive answers.”
Psaki’s concern that Professor Obama will appear during the debates is understandable given that “he was the third-lowest-ranked lecturer” at the University of Chicago Law School in 1999.
Still, Obama’s background as a professor is more of a running joke in conservative circles than a typical Democratic criticism of the president. So why would Psaki bring it up now (beyond, again, the absurd expectations game that both sides play)?
Maybe it has to do with their target audience. “He wants to speak directly to the families — the people who are on their couches at home, having snacks, drinking a beer, drinking soda, whatever it is, and tuning in for the first time — and that’s who he’s speaking directly to,” she said.
Psaki explained that Obama’s debate advisers “pointed out to him that he needs to work on tightening and shortening his answers.
_____________________________________________________________ 

Leaked: Obama’s National Security Strategy



_________________________________________________________