Vermont Bedtime StoryLittle uninsured girl: Tell me a story Dr. Dynasaur. I'm scared because I might get sick and we don't have any insurance.
Dr. Duck: That's okay, I've covered 99% of Children in Vermont.
Little uninsured girl: You have? That's not what my numbers say. My numbers say that 62% or 86,460 of Vermont's children are covered by employers and parents that can afford to buy insurance.
Dr. Duck: Uh...I mean't 99% of uninsured children.
Little uninsured girl: That would leave 53,100 children without and of those you covered 47,680 or 89% with Federal dollars from CHIP grants. Should I say thanks to you or to Bill Clinton and the Republican Congress?
Dr. Duck: Uh...
Little uninsured girl: I'm sad because 11% of the uninsured children are still uninsured. How did you get 99% anyway? My math teacher says, "that's bad math." I thought doctors are supposed to be good in math?
Dr. Duck: Uh...
Little uninsured girl: We are a pretty small state, Dr. Dynasaur. I mean 608,827 people isn't really a lot. The City of Detroit has almost a million. You couldn't find some insurance for the rest of us? Why don't you ask Senator John Kerry to float us a loan?
---
Dean claims he provided health insurance for 99% of children in Vermont. He didn't exactly do that though. Bill Clinton and the Republican Congress did it with the CHIP program. Vermont is using Federal grants provided by CHIP to cover its children. Just like many other states.
Regarding the 99% figure, according to Kaiser Family Foundation only 89% of "uninsured" children are covered by the State. Leaving 11% of poor "uninsured" children in Vermont... uninsured.
In 2000, there were 139,560 total children in Vermont. Even taking the numbers out of the whole population of children: 4% of children in Vermont still have no health insurance.
Where is he getting 99% from?
...and a very nice post to return with, I must say!
Thank you. ;-)
WELCOME BACK, DEAR ROSEMARY!!!! HAIL TO THE QUEEN OF ALL EVIL!!!! HAIL TO THE QUEEN OF ALL GOOD!!!!
SMA, you pho-eater,
Is Rosemary also the Queen of All that is neither Good nor Evil? If so, then isn't she just the Queen of All?
Yours,
Wince
*Another one bites the dust! Another one bites the dust!*
Whoops, sorry, that's Queen.
Where did he get the 99% from? He got it from New Hampshire, and Vermont, and Arizona, and Texas, and MICHIGAN! YYYYEEEAAAAAGGGGHGHHHH!
Welcome back.
BTW, whenever I read a post with this many numbers in it, my eyes glaze over.
Can you summarize for me please?
Maybe his intelligence is "erroneous" too.
OK, I went to the Kaiser Family Foundation web site. It says 4% of the people under 18 are uninsured.
Did I read that right?
But why is this a big deal? I mean, he covered SOME uninsured children. Would you rather those children he DID cover go back to the tyranny of no access to medical care?
Why worry about specifics? That's your motto, isn't it?
What if that "specific" were your child?
There is still more to do. 100-96=4. Not 99. Bad math.
Welcome back Rosemary. :) Thanks for the logic, reason and sanity...
Ara:
Yes, that's right 4% of all children, in Vermont, are uninsured. That of course means 96% of all Vermont's children are insured, not 99%.
If we discount children that are insured through their parents/employers. We are talking about 53,100 that had none. Of those children, Howard Dean and the State of Vermont insured 89% not 99%.
Brian:
Would you rather those children he DID cover go back to the tyranny of no access to medical care?
No absolutely not. And I'm not saying that insuring the kids wasn't a good thing. What I'm saying is that his 99% number is wrong. Also, the credit isn't Dean's alone it partially belongs to Bill Clinton and the Congress that passed the CHIPS program and the Federal money used to pay for those kids.
Why worry about specifics? That's your motto, isn't it?
What are you talking about? My motto? What motto is that?
I think that his record is actually very good, 4% is well below the national average and he should boast about it. I just think that since we have raw data available he should use it.
Since what he has done is good, we wouldn't want people to accuse him of lying, would we?
Well. . .Well. . .
I just can't believe it, a politician exaggerating his accomplishments or lying about things to promote his political agenda.
I never, Next thing you know you will be tellin me that politicians can't walk on water either.
Next thing you know you will be tellin me that politicians can't walk on water either.
Well, actually I've seen Kerry walk on water. Okay, not really walk but skate and not really water but ice. Close enough!
She's back! Yeaaaah!
I never, Next thing you know you will be tellin me that politicians can't walk on water either.
Can we get some of them to try? Please?
BTW, whenever I read a post with this many numbers in it, my eyes glaze over.
And thus we see why Ara still thinks it's more important to vote Democratic than to actually think hard about the issues. ;-)
Brian-
Lack of health insurance does not mean lack of access to health care. It means long waits in the ER and delaying some elective surgery, but nonprofit clinics and hospitals CANNOT turn people away based on inability to pay, and most of them will not use a debt collection agency. It's really bad for their image, among other things. If they do not provide charity care, they lose their tax-exempt status. Most of them budget for charity care, like any other expense, and seek profitable service lines to make up for it. In addition, NO hospital can turn away emergency patients, although the for-profit sector will do their best to collect on the bill afterwards. So if you're in a car wreck, and you're uninsured, try to get yourself taken to St. Somebody.
Paying for medicines is another matter entirely, that's a problem that is getting bigger all the time.
The true fact of the matter is, the insured pay for the uninsured through cost-shifting. Of course, if something were done with medical liability reform there'd be enough cash left over to take care of ALL of the uninsured, since about ten cents of each dollar collected in liability insurance premiums actually goes to injured patients- the rest is sucked up by insurance companies, lawyers and expert witnesses. Not to mention the huge cost of "defensive" medicine.
Of course, the best goal would be comprehensive tort reform, but I'm not holding my breath. I just hope John Edwards doesn't come anywhere near the Oval Office.
Actually, the world's best health care system is in Castro's Cuba. Except that they cannot offer the designer wheel chairs and crutches and non-generic drugs like our democrat candidates are going to give us if we'd only vote for them.
Socialized medicine.........not this voter.
Well, like the old saying goes-
We want our health care good, fast and cheap.
Pick any two of those qualities- but you can't have all three at once.
How heartless of you, Dani, to suggest that the hideous beast money should actually have some relation to medical care.
As a physician, who do you think you are to demand that someone pay you money, anyway?!?!?!?
You are the source of all evil in America, aren't you?
I'am follow up with you.
I'am follow up with you.
Yup, I'm trying to catch up with Rosemary.
LOL
Glad to see you're back with a vengeance! :)
Welcome back,
Personal attacks were your ticket out.
Welcome back,
To that same old place where you wrote it out.
Well the names have not changed since you hung around,
But those threads have remained and they still abound.
Who'd have thought they'd lead ya (Who'd have thought they'd lead ya)
Here where we need ya (Here where we need ya)
Yeah we tease her a lot cause we've got her on the spot, welcome back,
Welcome back, welcome back, welcome back.
credit to John Sebastian for the original lyrics
(originally posted in the wrong thread, oops.)
In one of my classes at CSUN, an International student gave a presentation on freedoms. She brought up an interesting point about healthcare in the U.S.--she said that American's have freedom of speech, religion, etc. but in other countries people are granted freedoms of healthcare and employment. She wondered how free we are to speak if we are unheathy and what kind of worship can happen if we are out of work.
I had never thought about it in that way. She also commented that in most countries, but not all, where there are healthy people that can celebrate a good standard of living that feeds their families, other freedoms are enjoyed as well.
Interesting...
Health is not a product of health care. Health care, on the contrary, addreses illness . Healthy people are a product of a good lifestlye, and until we are able to drastically reduce the incidence of smoking, drunk driving and drug use, we are not going to improve the health of this country's people by much.
Free healthcare will do little to raise our average lifespan. This has been clearly demonstrated in the area of prenatal care, where there is no shortage (well, at least not until all the OB/Gyns quit, that is). Yet, we still cannot reduce infant mortality to the ultra low levels seen in some European countries.
And now, of course, we have the obesity epidemic and all its attendant ills, a phenomenom not seen in other countries, and a problem that partially results from our own successes.
You see, all the miracle treatments and wonder drugs now add very little. Since the invention of vaccines, antibiotics, aseptic technique and anesthesia we have been on the margin of diminishing returns with increasingly high costs. Public Health is now, as ever, where the gains are to be made. Only it's not as easy as cleaning up the water supply. We can hardly put Antabuse and Prozac in it, after all.
Rosemary, did you go somewhere? Steven Malcolm Jamaal Warner Anderson Lane Pickett Fences Flesh-Eating Eel Swami is acting like your "return" was the second coming of Jesus. All the same, I knew you weren't going to be down for more than a few days. Oh, you suck!