Farewell. The Flying Pig Has Left The Building.

Steve Hynd, August 16, 2012

After four years on the Typepad site, eight years total blogging, Newshoggers is closing it's doors today. We've been coasting the last year or so, with many of us moving on to bigger projects (Hey, Eric!) or simply running out of blogging enthusiasm, and it's time to give the old flying pig a rest.

We've done okay over those eight years, although never being quite PC enough to gain wider acceptance from the partisan "party right or wrong" crowds. We like to think we moved political conversations a little, on the ever-present wish to rush to war with Iran, on the need for a real Left that isn't licking corporatist Dem boots every cycle, on America's foreign misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. We like to think we made a small difference while writing under that flying pig banner. We did pretty good for a bunch with no ties to big-party apparatuses or think tanks.

Those eight years of blogging will still exist. Because we're ending this typepad account, we've been archiving the typepad blog here. And the original blogger archive is still here. There will still be new content from the old 'hoggers crew too. Ron writes for The Moderate Voice, I post at The Agonist and Eric Martin's lucid foreign policy thoughts can be read at Democracy Arsenal.

I'd like to thank all our regular commenters, readers and the other bloggers who regularly linked to our posts over the years to agree or disagree. You all made writing for 'hoggers an amazingly fun and stimulating experience.

Thank you very much.

Note: This is an archive copy of Newshoggers. Most of the pictures are gone but the words are all here. There may be some occasional new content, John may do some posts and Ron will cross post some of his contributions to The Moderate Voice so check back.


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Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Medicare will kill Grandma...Part II

Commentary By Ron Beasley


Well Obama has spoken once again  and  once again he was a guy who could sell ice to Eskimos.  The rationing issue is a big one and as Fester pointed out below rationing has not been a problem with Medicare.  And maybe that's a problem.  I'll return to a post of a few weeks ago:



My 86 year old mother is in really good health but had started to be short of breath. They ran some diagnostic tests and discovered she had a bad heart valve. She was referred to a cardiologist who was ready to split her chest open and replace the valve. I asked him several questions:






  1. She is in relatively good health now � following the surgery will she ever recover to be as good as she was before? The answer was probably not!



  2. I told the doctor that I heard that being on a heart lung machine can have a negative impact on memory and asked him if that was true. The answer was yes, especially in older people.



  3. The next question was what will happen if the valve is not replaced? The answer was the shortness of breath may gradually get worse.



  4. I asked him if it were his mother would he suggest the surgery? The answer was NO!





The bottom line is they were going to perform a procedure that would cost 50 thousand plus dollars that would have left my mother worse off after the surgery because Medicare would pay for it.


Now it's bad enough that they would perform a procedure that was probably not in the best interest of my mother (and her family).  But let's be real - health care resources are limited, there is only so much society can afford.  So do you spend that 50 thousand + on my 87 year old mother or on a 10, 20, 30, 40 or 60 year old.  It may seem cold but it will be necessary to apply a cost benefit test - yes, that's rationing.  Of course we have rationing now but it's based on insurance company profits.  I have had friends and relatives die at a relatively young age as a result of that rationing.  Yes, with a public plan there will be bureaucrats but private insurance companies also have bureaucrats and their rationing is profit driven.


So the bottom line is what do you want the motivation for the bureaucrats to be?  Profit driven - do you want the CEO of the insurance company to make several million dollars a year or do you want it based on a cost/benefit analysis?


And of course there is the question "how much is a life worth"?  It's more difficult than that.  Is a 50 year old life worth more than an 87 year old life? - Is a 20 year old life worth more than a 50 year old life?  These are questions we will be forced to answer.  I'm 63 - if I was told they could spend X dollars on me or on a 20 year old I would vote for the 20 year old.  I would not want to deny the 20 year old the wonderful life I have already experienced.  Needless to say I'm not a Republican.



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1 comment:

  1. EarlJuly 23, 2009 at 12:51 AM

    Needless to say I'm not a Republican.Repeating the obvious is barely necessary in this case.
    It's kind of nice being one of the adults in the room, isn't it?

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