You Terrify Me - A Rebuttal to "You Scare Me"

Submitted by porphyrys on Thu, 09/17/2009 - 16:30

Posted in

The completely juvenile and unintelligent open letter written by Lou Pritchett to President Barack Obama speaks for itself. However, if you were looking for a few good arguments to sock those republicans at the office around with, I thought I would offer a rebuttal to Mr. Lou’s faking joke of a letter.

Dear President Obama:
"You are the thirteenth President under whom I have lived and unlike any of the others, you truly scare me." I suppose this is your declarative statement to give yourself credibility and intimidate people into believing your bullsh*t. I’ve only lived under 5 presidents, does that mean I’m only 5/13ths as knowledgeable as you on the subject? All I can say, at least some people do research before running their faking mouths!

"You scare me because after months of exposure, I know nothing about you." Oh! So you are blind? deaf? Or you just don’t pay attention to any form of media around you?! You want to know more about his history… just google it! There is plenty of information out there. Do you want to hear it straight from the source (Barack himself) about his history or ideology? Read one of his books! I apologize if I jumped to conclusions thinking that you were literate, I just figured because you had penned a letter… you might be able to figure out how to pick up a book or perform an internet search. You don’t know anything about him because you don’t want to know anything about him, there is a big difference!

"You scare me because I do not know how you paid for your expensive Ivy League education and your upscale lifestyle and housing with no visible signs of support." Maybe your upbringing was different than the “average Joe’s” but we “normal” folk get things called scholarships and student loans (do I need to spell these out phonetically for you?). Obama had both and in fact he was paying off his student loans for years after graduation from university. He was only able to pay off his costly student loans after he started receiving the royalties from his best-selling book (remember? the one you forgot to read). As for his house on the south side of Chicago, royalties from his books as well as Michelle’s high paying job with University of Chicago hospitals helped to pay for that. Let me know if you need further explanations or if I need to help you find a dictionary to define some of the larger words I used above.

"You scare me because you did not spend the formative years of youth growing up in America and culturally you are not an American." Lou, you are really starting to piss me off with all of your ridiculous claims but I’ll keep playing nice and try to explain this to you. First of all, what exactly are the “formative” years of youth? He was born in Hawaii, lived there until the age of 6 and then returned to Hawaii when he was 10. He spent a total of 4 years living outside the US, in Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia. Why do you think experiencing other lifestyles during childhood is bad? How terrible that our President is actually cultured and aware of the world outside the US of A!

"You scare me because you have never run a company or met a payroll." I guess his 10 years of political experience don’t count? I admit, it isn’t a lot of experience but it is still more than a lot of other political candidates over the years. Maybe you are just worried because he’s never bankrupted a company… oh, or bankrupted a country for that matter, that gets to be on our last President’s resume.

Lou Pritchett

Submitted by P. Veazey (not verified) on Wed, 10/21/2009 - 02:20.

Lou is nothing more than a redneck with a narrow minded view of the world.

In response to porphyrys

Submitted by sweetsuzee (not verified) on Wed, 09/30/2009 - 01:04.

Dear porphyrys -

Before I begin my rant I will state that I am a registered Democrat and have been for well over 40 years. I have never been part of corporate America and have been a very hard working woman my entire life starting at age 14. I do not have a prejudiced bone in my body. I truly begged and pleaded with the honorable Barbara Jordan to run for president back when I believed she had the ear of America.

I read your reactionary respone to Lou Pritchett's letter to President Obama. Your immature and very uninformed ramblings, I fear, are the mindset of the majority of America who obviously cannot see the forest for the trees. As offensive as I found most of your nonsensical diatribe, there are only two issues I will address since they are related and I believe they are currrently the most important issue facing Americans.

In reference to the pending Healthcare Reform Bill you stated, "... the reform plan is set to compliment the current healthcare system, not replace it! ...". I strongly suggest that you actually read the entire bill as I have. Page 16 will clearly show you that the private sector is to be REPLACED, not complimented, and this alleged OPTION bill is truly a ONE SYSTEM bill. Effective January 1, 2013 the private sector health insurance industry is prohibited from ever signing up any new clients except dependants of those already in their rolls.

The second issue is about the comparison and alleged needless waste that you blame the private sector for. Health officials in both countries say the most recent statistics show the five-year survival rates for prostate cancer are 99 percent in the United States and 74 percent under Britain's National Health Service (NHS). They also provide a very lengthy list of various cancers where your chances of survival are much better if you are treated in America. This is published by the NHS, not the AMA !!!

The journal "Lancet Oncology" has reported that American cancer patients live longer than those anywhere else on the globe. American women have a 63 percent chance of living at least five years after a cancer diagnosis, compared with 56 percent of women in Europe.

For American men, the numbers are even more dramatic. Sixty-six percent of American men live five years past a diagnosis of cancer, but only 47 percent of European men do. Of cancers that affect only women, the survival rate for uterine cancer is 5 percentage points higher in the U.S. than the European average, and 14 percent higher for breast cancer. Among cancers that affect only or primarily men, survival rates for prostate cancer are 28 percent higher in the U.S., and for bladder cancer, 15 percent higher.

The Britain's NHS keeps costs down by rationing care through long waiting lists for service. The Manhattan Institute’s Dr. David Gratzer reports that an estimated 20 percent of British lung cancer patients considered curable when they were first placed on the waiting list for chemotherapy or radiation were incurable by the time they obtained treatment.

It is truly quite a simple task to cut the percentage of GDP spent on health care. All you have to do is ration it. Cut the amount of care that people are allowed to receive and you will cut the costs. That is precisely what they do in the UK and if you read our pending legislation, all 1018 pages of it, you will see that there will be czars upons czars of people to determine just what healthcare will be allowed and which will not.

How dare anyone say that I may not have a procedure that my doctor truly believes I need?

In the UK women under 25 are not allowed to have PAP smears. It's amazing how many women die of cervical cancer having never reached their 25th birthday. In Great Britain, men do not start getting screened for colon cancer until age 75. In the U.S. men are urged to get their first colonoscopy at 50. You think it's "waste" and I think it's "survival".

Perhaps you might consider opening your mind and visiting http://freestudents.blogspot.com/2009/08/nhs-life-expectancy-and-america... and
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/06/12/are_we_scaremongers...

Yes, porphyrys, Joe Wilson was correct. Obama is lying.

Sincerely,
sweetsuzee

Re: sweetsuzee's response

Submitted by porphyrys on Sun, 10/04/2009 - 10:08.

I would like to reply to your questions regarding the healthcare reform bill. I had actually only read the bill summary as supplied on the presidential website. After reading your response, I took the time to look at the bill in it's entirety.

I do see on page 16 where it gives a restriction regarding the signing of new customers under healthcare reform. It does say that an insurer is not able to sign any customer that does not have existing coverage as of the first day of Y1 that the reform bill is in effect. However, you will also notice that coverage can be extended to a dependent. If someone has not been previously insured but now would like to be insured under an existing plan as a dependent this is still possible, therefore it will not completely stop coverage to "new" customers if people are still signing as dependents.

My point was that the reform bill will compliment the current system, and I stand by this statement. The reform bill will not make anyone give up their current health plans. If you are happy with your current coverage and service given by your insurer, you are welcome to stay with that company. You are even welcome to begin covering your dependents under your insurance plan so that they might continue to use that insurance provider once they become independent. In that sense, insurance companies will still have a fair share of the market. The bill is really for the aid of the people who are currently un-insured. These people cannot get health insurance through their jobs and/or they cannot get health insurance due to high premiums and/or they cannot get health insurance due to a pre-existing condition (as deemed by the insurance company). Therefore, the healthcare reform bill, if insurance companies are in fact "doing a good job" and people like their service will not change anything in their current market. It might end up helping the end consumer by adding competition to the market and therefore lowering premiums and other heathcare related expenses.

Really, the point to all my rambling is that - insured and happy clients of insurance companies will keep their existing plans. Those that go without health insurance now will have an option to get coverage so they have an equal chance at medical treatment as those that are able to afford insurance now.

I hope this was able to better explain my point of view. You are also welcome to read my other articles regarding healthcare on this site. I am happy for the criticism and the chance it gives me to review my own thoughts and come up with new conclusions.

Just briefly, about the cancer statistics, I would be very interested to your response to Pericles questions as these are the same questions that I have after reading the statistics.

Cheers! -Porphyrys

Smtl else

Submitted by Pericles on Wed, 09/30/2009 - 19:33.

Firstly, do these US figures include survival rates of people who are not covered by insurance? (or do they go untreated?)

Secondly, have you thought that a lot of the differences in
overall mortality and in five year survivals between the U.S. and
Europe can be accounted for largely by overdiagnosis and lead time
bias, respectively?

So the results may well indicate that if you have a good insurance in the US then you get good diagnosis since you don't have to be in a waiting list just in several European countries. What about all those who do not have insurance or it has been revoked/denying for some reason or for those with crappy insurance that do not get into the statistics and simply die?

Let's see

Submitted by Pericles on Wed, 09/30/2009 - 18:58.

You call porphyrys immature while you fail to comment about Prichett's comments which are significantly more dangerous and racists than porphyrys comments. You use the NHS as an example. Since I spent a significant amount of my time in the UK, let me partly agree with you that indeed the system is suffering there and needs to be fixed. I am also aware of the trick they play with the waiting lists and it is obvious that they are gearing towards a private system since it is known that the Brits are following the Americans.

However, people in the UK are not refused insurance because of conditions and are no doctors employed by insurance companies which have to meet quota on denying insurance. If British people have an injury where 2 or more fingers are damaged they do not have to chose to put back the cheap one.

In addition, when there is a terminally ill patient on a bed, no insurance company will try to get money from them. Also there are no bankruptcies due to medical bills.

The US system is the best in the world IF and only IF you have good insurance or a lot of money.

I also read the article on realpolitics.com. The statistics seem to be the average of Europe. Do they talk about Europe as a continent or the European Union? The systems in different European countries vary significantly. Europe does not have a single system.

Bottom line is that you need a public-private system and you also need to stop allowing the insurances to profit from the pain and suffering of human beings.