Re: Big government is bad. Big business is good.

People just can't seem to realize that the reason the elite want to privatize government is that they want to make a profit.

Should we profit off sickness, Texas

Quark,

I think we're in complete agreement!

Ben

Quark,

But the leech doesn't deny treatment, either.

Ben

TAX BREAKS DON’T WORK. TAX BREAKS DON’T WORK. TAX BREAKS DON’T WORK. TAX BREAKS DON’T WORK. TAX BREAKS DON’T WORK. TAX BREAKS DON’T WORK. TAX BREAKS DON’T WORK. TAX BREAKS DON’T WORK. TAX BREAKS DON’T WORK. TAX BREAKS DON’T WORK. TAX BREAKS DON’T WORK. TAX BREAKS DON’T WORK. TAX BREAKS DON’T WORK. TAX BREAKS DON’T WORK. TAX BREAKS DON’T WORK.TAX BREAKS DON’T WORK. TAX BREAKS DON’T WORK. TAX BREAKS DON’T WORK. TAX BREAKS DON’T WORK. TAX BREAKS DON’T WORK. TAX BREAKS DON’T WORK. TAX BREAKS DON’T WORK. TAX BREAKS DON’T WORK. TAX BREAKS DON’T WORK. TAX BREAKS DON’T WORK. TAX BREAKS DON’T WORK. TAX BREAKS DON’T WORK. TAX BREAKS DON’T WORK. TAX BREAKS DON’T WORK. TAX BREAKS DON’T WORK.

'CLUNKERS FOR CARS' WAS A TEST PROGRAM YOU FARGING IDIOT.

Thom,

I have listened to you describe health insurance corporations as "leeches on our backs." I vehemently disagree with this characterization. As a citizen, I feel compelled to come to the defense of the lowly medicinal leech. Medicinal leeches, unlike health insurance corporations, actually have medical value. Comparing leeches to health insurance corporations casts an unfair stigma on the poor leech.

For some background, here is a link to a 2004 USA Today article:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2004-07-07-leeches-maggots_x.htm

Now, if you want to undo this libel committed on leeches, you might read this article and feature a segment on leeches on "Geeky Science." You could even do a side-by-side comparison of leeches and insurance corporations as to which provides a legitimate service!

On a more serious note:

As you've mentioned on your show, the pharmaceutical industry in the United States spends more money on PR and advertising than it spends on actual research (beyond that needed to force a drug back under patent monopoly protection). The bulk of pharmaceutical research, as you also point out, is paid for by We the People as taxpayers. I think we can safely assume that this same problem applies to a greater or lesser degree to the medical equipment industries and medical research in general. That should be enough to set up my argument.

I would like you to consider the following proposition and, if you agree with the premise, raise it and hammer away at it on your show.

1. Taxpayers heavily subsidize medical research (this term for my purposes includes pharmaceutical, treatment, and equipment research as appropriate) through their payment of federal income taxes, state income taxes, property taxes at the state level, and other taxes. The federal government subsidizes research and development through various grants to researchers and medical schools. State income and property taxes fund the operation of state universities where the bulk of this research and development occurs (even if this subsidy is simply providing lab space and time).

2. The cost of medical treatment has driven many people (insured and uninsured) into bankruptcy or worse, and has locked many people out of the health care system due to cost.

3. The vast majority of those driven into bankruptcy, or those who are uninsured or otherwise unable to afford medical treatment in the United States, are or were U.S. and state taxpayers or their dependents.

4. The purpose of taxes is to provide services such as police and fire protection, military protection against invasion, maintain the infrastructure, care for those unable to care for themselves, and generally run and protect the commons. Thus, taxpayers have either direct or indirect access to the fruits of their tax payments. (Direct access would, for example, include police, use of the roads, etc. Indirect access would mean things like the military -- I can't walk onto an Air Force base and demand to pet one of "my" missiles, but those missiles are supposed to be there for my protection nonetheless.)

5. Many taxpayers, insured or uninsured, cannot afford the medications or treatments they need, even though their taxes subsidize or have subsidized the development and implementation of these very treatments. Therefore, they forego treatment or are denied treatment by providers for inability to pay.

6. Therefore, these taxpayers are being denied any form of access, direct or indirect, to the fruits of their tax payments which have subsidized medical research as defined above!

7. The question therefore is, Can taxpayers be denied access, direct or indirect, to the fruits of their taxes? The answer should be an emphatic "NO!"

8. This also raises another question: Should taxpayers who are denied access to the fruits of their taxes refuse to pay that part of their taxes that is used to fund medical research? I'm thinking of something similar to those who refuse to pay a "war tax" for moral reasons.

I don't think I've ever heard this aspect raised on your show, or anywhere else for that matter, and it is perhaps overdue to be raised, and raised again. You might also raise this with Bernie Sanders this Friday.

Looking forward to your answer to these topics!

B Roll - re: "who wouldn’t realize that you can’t present paid corporate hacks as objective political commentators?”

Ummmm - Fox, MSNBC, NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN - in short the whole freakin' MSM. They ALL present paid corporate hacks as objective political commentators, with painful regularity.

Walter Cronkite may have died last month, but the kind of Journalism that he practiced has been dead since the Reagan administration.

B Roll,

It's interesting that Keith, Rachel and Ratigan are more and more talking about corporations.

I thought Richard Wolffe was smarter than that. Maybe he's a stealth Tory "plant!"

btw, I love it when you speak Spanish to me...

Interesting discussion re: "Cash for Clunkers," "too-big-to-fail," etc. on MSNBC's "Morning Meeting" yesterday:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/32269388#32269388

(Making Progress, have you listened to this show? If so, what's your opinion?)

Mark,

Re: The question today is just how much inequality this country can stand before it reaches that critical point where the the people become not merely observers, but actors.

I think it's starting. People in this country are angry, though many don't understand what's behind it all (i.e., the corporations.) I experienced this in real time when I picked up an RX yesterday.

The pharmacist (whom I slightly knew) was in one of his frequent irritable moods. I started talking with him to try to figure out what was bothering him. He said he thought this country was going to have a revolution. I agreed with him (tho who knows what form that will take.)

He started telling me about watching the Mike Huckabee's show on Fox. (Immediately, my heart sank.) He said that Huckabee had a very interesting segment about our "founding fathers." He told me that all ot them were ministers (!)

Of course, my mouth opened before my brain told it not to. I told him that was not correct --- that many of the founding fathers were deists, and that Thomas Jefferson even cut out all the parts of his Bible which referred to miracles, the divinity of Christ, etc., and that that Bible is still published today.

I told him that I am angry, too, and explained about corporations, Wall Street, etc. That was alot for him to absorb (and he had another customer by then.) I walked away and wished him well.

My mind was slightly blown by this exchange.