Benen notes, “the new health care law in the United States creates a system that isn’t similar to the Canadian system at all, so condemning the Affordable Care Act by pointing to Canadian budget problems doesn’t make sense.”

Yes. But even if it is similar, it’s still better than no system at all.

Yes. But even the underlying premise that something that needs work is something that shouldn’t exist, is completely stupid. When brakes go in a car, you get new brakes, you don’t say “Ha! Told you cars were a bad idea!” Because you’d sound like an idiot. Because you would, in fact, be an idiot. Conservatives are idiots.

I hope Obama is well-protected these next couple days. It’s hard to underestimate the number of nutcases running around. (Whenever one of these crazy people really does something completely insane, I will (do) blame the media. In part.)

I think (hope) that comment (the first two sentences) is less a statement of serious concern, and more a meta-statement on how concerning the concern over the concern of fearful morons is.

The main thing hurting Canada, it seems, is the weather.

The US ranks higher. Because seniors have health care. Of course Canada outranks on the Human Development Index.

See what happens when people get healthcare?

A single day of stock trading doesn’t represent much more than the random noise of morons. Yes, health insurance stocks generally went up relative to the general market much more than you would otherwise expect. Yes, that probably reflects some generally held belief about the impact of legislation on these companies’ bottom lines. First, “generally held” and “correct” are two very different things. Second, what’s good for private insurers isn’t necessarily bad for those being insured.

Nate Silver (via Yglesias) determines, “This would mean that the total value added from passage of the bill is $16.04 billion.” That’s market cap increases of publicly traded and privately held private insurance companies.

I was thinking this isn’t spelled out properly, but it is in Silver’s original post. In it, he notes that the numbers probably imply that “the increase in share prices today reflects an expectation of higher volumes — but probably not higher profit margins, which are likely to remain fairly low in the industry.”

And the main thing to note is that it’s all about discounted cashflows. Silver does: “The bottom line is that, by the stock market’s estimation, the private health care industry appears as though it will benefit if the Senate enacts its plan. But the benefit — about $16 billion in discounted cashflows — is small as compared to the total magnitude of the program, and likely reflects an increase in the size of their customer base rather than any anticipation of higher profit margins.”

But I think the $16 billion comparison to the $447 billion subsidy (over a ten year timeframe?) isn’t quite the correct comparison. $16 billion should be compared to the present value of the subsidies over forever, appropriately discounted.

I’d always thought organ donation should be opt-out instead of opt-in, but the Israel plan is an interesting type of middle-ground.

I’ve never understood opposition to opt-out. I mean, I do, but I don’t.

Chris Rock has a bit about watching for skin colour in crime reports: “Everybody waits for the film to see what colour the guy was that did the crime?… Black people are like ‘Please don’t let it be a black guy, ok?’”

When there’s some jackass spewing shit everywhere, I have to think “Please don’t let it be a Jew, ok?” Lieberman, Morris, Pipes, Goldfarb, Wolfowitz, the list goes on I’m sure.

I don’t have Joseph Heller’s Good as Gold with me (it’s in storage, i.e. at my parents’ house), but how Gold feels towards Kissinger, that’s how any aware Jew of this generation will feel towards Lieberman. He’s the worst kind of human being.

UPDATE: I have to add Bill Kristol to the list. What a jackass moron.

But for the first world (and soon for the States, hopefully), the main issue is going to be technology, and its increasing ability to solve the long tail of medical problems, at great cost.

Charles Wright, via Marc Lee:

There is a crying need for massive, eye-catching, sustained public education programs to disseminate accurate and balanced information based on evidence, rather than on the marketing biases of big pharma. This communications initiative should be designed and presented by advertising professionals who can match the medical industry’s techniques, but with the close collaboration of independent experts who understand the evidence. Don’t ask your doctor if you need [the latest miracle drug being pushed on television]; ask your doctor to explain why you really need each of your prescriptions and what the side effects are. The same approach would help the public to understand the sound reasons for not insuring every new technology and drug that comes along

Even assuming it will be more cost-important for the government to prevent the exploitation of its citizens than it will be profit-important for big pharma to exploit them, all those informed opinions are for sure out the window as soon as someone knows anyone with some disease that can be cured by some uninsured technology or drug. People have a tendency to think “if it’s out there, and I need it, I should have access to it,” when it comes to healthcare, no matter how many informative commercials they for some reason pay attention to.

New to the list is this:

Vellacott, who was not available for further comment Monday, said in the release “a growing body of research reveals significant health problems caused by abortion,” including breast cancer, cervical injury, uterine perforations, hemorrhaging and infections. The release does not include statistics from research studies.

Of course this isn’t the kind of thing people just forget about, at least not for a few days.

In the question period, the issue was raised (here is the actual audio, the full session is available here):

Yesterday the minister responsible for status of women refused denounce the unacceptable statements made by a conservative MP who implied that abortions contributed to the development of breast cancer. Besides being wrong medically, this assertion is meant to make women feel guilty. We would expect that the minister would defend women and the right to abortion with vigour, rather than saying things worthy of Sarah Palin.

That was Nicole Demers, of the Bloc.

This was the response, from Helena Guergis, Minister of State (Status of Women):

…this member is actually fully aware that there are elected members of this house who have said very similar things at different times. Members in this house represent their constituencies and they are free to have any opinion that they choose to. It does not mean it represents the government. Please let me highlight one of our most recent achievements to protect women across this country…

(In case you’re wondering, the recent achievement (there was only one) was that the citizenship guide now informs immigrants that female genital mutilation is not tolerated here.)

I feel the shared frustration of humanity past present and future a I explain this: a fact is not something you can disagree with. When the study says one thing, you can’t just say the opposite.

Shit on science, shit on women, it must be easy when you’re so full of it.

On the bright side, what I enjoy about all of this is the use of Sarah Palin as a bookend on the acceptable limits of political ridiculousness.

Maybe not in the States where Obama is Hitler and Palin is not immediately written off by everybody, but so far as the rest of the world is concerned it looks like in the area of political discourse Palin is the real Hitler replacement so far as Godwin’s law is concerned.

According to a CDC report (via Felix Salmon),

There are a dozen countries that deny entry if a person has HIV. These countries are: Armenia, Brunei, Iraq, Libya, Moldova, Oman, Qatar, the Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Sudan, and the United States.

This proposed rule will remove the United States from the list of countries that continue to have entry restrictions for HIV-infected individuals.

It’s always interesting how the US, which of course dominates any chart involving earnings or defense spending, finds itself frequently ranked next to generally second world countries on lists like this.

I guess it’s because the US isn’t really a first world country, it’s a first world country with a third world baby inside it.

Speaking of which, back to Palin’s suggestion of our keeping the faith that we can give back healthcare to the private sector, um, why do we live longer than you and spend way less on healthcare?

I hope she becomes president. Then all the smart people can come here. Of course then we’ll be obliterated, but at least we can die smirking.