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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Monday, August 24, 2009

Lies and damned Lies

Commentary By Ron Beasley


If you listen to the talking heads on the beltway you might hear that the US has the best health care in the world.  Of course that is simply not the case.  In fact the US is 46th in infant mortality, Cuba is 44th.  The World Health Organization rates overall health care rating of the US at 37th, Cuba is 39th.  Now these same people tell us how horrible the health care is in countries with "socialized medicine".  Having lived in both Europe and Japan I knew these were lies. 


Today on Fresh Air former Washington Post reporter T.R. Reid discussed his research on health care systems around the world and dispelled all the myths.  It's worth a listen but if you don't have time Reid also had a brief summary buried deep in the Post yesterday, 5 Myths About Health Care Around the World.  The myths he covers are:



  1. It's all socialized medicine out there.

  2. Overseas, care is rationed through limited choices or long lines.

  3. Foreign health-care systems are inefficient, bloated bureaucracies.

  4. Cost controls stifle innovation.

  5. Health insurance has to be cruel.


All of course are lies pushed by insurance company oligarchs trying to protect their nine figure pay checks.



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5 comments:

  1. geoffAugust 24, 2009 at 3:06 PM

    Matt Talbbi has some fun video clips up at Rolling Stone related to his new article on the 5 steps Congress has taken ensure no real bill passes. And Ken Silverstein over at Harper's, at the end of his short note on the Obama Movement Myth notes one of the excuses already starting to be considered for healthcare cluster-fuck II - the Obama fiasco. Hey where in the world is Dave Chappelle when he's needed - could he be the one to subject Obama to some satire or would that be a sacrilege.

    ReplyDelete
  2. HyperionAugust 24, 2009 at 3:06 PM

    the frontline episode from april 2008 has a lot more detail. this is where i first heard about the swiss.
    www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sickaroundtheworld/

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  3. HyperionAugust 24, 2009 at 4:03 PM

    also Reid, not Read.

    ReplyDelete
  4. MagginkatAugust 24, 2009 at 4:14 PM

    Thom Hartmann has a simple answer for the uninsured. We already have the program. We don�t need another 7000 pages of BS to provide health care for the uninsured.
    Dear President Obama: A Modest Medicare Proposal
    http://magginkat.wordpress.com

    ReplyDelete
  5. Ron BeasleyAugust 24, 2009 at 4:21 PM

    Hi Maggie
    Thanks for dropping by. I covered the Hartmann solution in this post.
    Hyperion
    I spelled it right 50% of the time.

    ReplyDelete

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