Deer, Meet Headlights

Awesome. Michelle did not expect to get actual questions challenging her insane assertions, someone finally mentioned that insurance companies are evil, and they were, for whatever reason, in a bar. Do those people still have jobs at Fox since this aired?

Michele Bachmann: Heart transplants are irresponsible.

Did Shep Smith bite the folks at Faux Bidniz? Isn’t that the problem? I’ve heard enough stories about the folks in the US America insurance biz and she thinks they’re the paragon of morality?

Bachmann Intellectual Underwhelmed is more like it.

It may be a difference with no distinction, but I can’t (easily) determine whether Roger Ailes has any control over Fox Bidniz — which doesn’t seem to have a measurable audience yet, at least in US Murrika.

Got curious because CNBC is famously (within media circles, anyway) independent of NBC News.

@ManchuCandidate: You only hear the best horror stories — it’s even more profoundly convoluted. They mentioned “competition” in the segment, pointing out that you can’t cross state lines to get a better deal, meaning in most states there’s an insurance oligopoly. So much for markets.

But for causes I can’t begin to understand myself, there may be good reason why the health-insurance market is segmented by state. The more you learn, the more your head asplodes. Which most policies don’t cover.

New reality TV show, ‘Loo & Michelle + H8’. Warning, lotsa unhinged (including Dobb’s hips) pestorking.

Michelle Bachmann is unhinged. She’s like the new Katherine Harris.

I’ll take the lady in brown for 100, Alex. Um, the one who makes sense.

@nojo: I’ve never understood portability issues either, but suspect it has to do with tax revenues. If Health Inc. out of Delaware offers me a cut rate plan, they would pay no state taxes in either Delaware or the ‘tucky, allowing them to charge marginally lower premiums with higher profit margins. But I may be wrong.

Whenever Fox trots out Michelle Bachmann you can be sure the super kraziness is ready to flow. How can one human being so consistently be against everything that may improve the life of a less fortunate person? To top it off she claims to be a Christian without laughing. Jesus Christ would have nailed himself to the cross had he known some of his followers would start up a religious cult that would become this twisted and evil.

That was a thing of beauty. Notice how confused Bachmann gets when asked to go beyond her superficial talking points. That vacuous beauty queen smile starts to fade and she vomits no more than five words even remotely relevant to the question asked before going back to her Limbaugh designated talking points.

She is completely fucked in the head and revealed she has zero idea how health insurance works. Sure, you can call 150 insurers in 50 states – but they’ll all look at the same consumer health reporting bureau where a record of your blood pressure at a check up measured 121/81 and they decide 1) your premium is going to exceed your annual salary, 2) you’ll be rejected for coverage or 3) you will not be covered for anything that can be attributed to hypertension (ie everything). She might as well say the GOP will send bibles to dying people without health insurance.

@FlyingChainSaw: She doesn’t even understand car insurance. If there was any legal means by which I didn’t have to pay Arizona rates for my car, I sure as shit wouldn’t. But short of committing fraud and claiming I don’t live or drive my car in Arizona, no insurance company is going to charge me the lower rates Texas gets.

I think Bachmann could easily fit two, maybe three, cocks in her mouth at the same time. I’d pay to see that.

@Promnight: The hell?

@Jamie Sommers: If you saw the usurious rates that New Jersey car insurance companies charge, you’d be fond for Arizona. San Francisco street-parking rates are a bargain in comparison. The time I lived in Northern Prom-land, which I try to blot out of my memory, I paid more each year to insure my fuel-efficient hooptie than it was worth.

@JNOV: Just saying, she sucks.

I love how the Fox Hosts throw out that bit about Medicare and Medicaid “horror stories” without any evidence to back them up. Just another example of the right spinning its own reality. Also peculiar is this comparison between the purchase of health insurance and automobile insurance. The simple fact is you can’t purchase auto insurance out of state that does not meet your state’s auto insurance coverage guidelines. Doing the same for health insurance wouldn’t alter the cost one bit. What conservatives want is for a person in one state to be able to buy health insurance in another state that does not mandate the same level of consumer protections and coverage. What you’d end up with, of course, is a rush to the bottom where insurance companies move their company headquarters to the state with the least regulation and offer policies that allow them wide discretion in screwing over customers, denying claims, hiking rates, dropping you as soon as you become expensive etc.

@Promnight: Aaaaand I have to go to bed now, with that image in my head. Thank you so much.

i haven’t been around stinqueville much lately. why? i have exactly 5 weeks left in israel to have every test and procedure-for free.
here’s how it works: first you have to see a “family doctor” who does absolutely nothing except give you a referral for the specialist you need to see. you must see an ob/gyn for your hormonal needs, a shrink for psychotropic or sedating meds. i have an ear infection right now in my right ear, saw the doc yesterday who referred me to an ENT. i’m afraid i’ll get there and he’ll tell me he only treats left ears, sorry.
the main hub where you pick up your referrals looks and feels exactly like the DMV. you actually swipe your card in a machine to get a number–like a bakery!
when ratbastard and i moved to turks and caicos, our aetna insurance covered nothing, so we dropped it and signed up for international insurance. we have recently been dumped by the 4th company we sent a check to. at the first claim they scream pre-existing condition! fuck you!
the only insurer who will take us on is lloyds of london.
i think instead of paying that bill, i’ll save it for a plane ticket back here.
insurance companies are so evil, their #1 mission is to not pay you, i despise them. i now despise the system here.
it’s tough out there for a dedicated hypochondriac, god forbid one actually has to cope with these systems when they’re really sick.

and i finally had to bury my laptop. i’m using RB’s, haven’t been on line for awhile and the first thing i have to hear is bachmann? GAAAAH.

@baked: Oh, how I’ve missed you! I am so sorry to hear about the tsuris. That’s no good.

Yeah, just about the only thing that keeps me going is the health insurance (I pay the entire premium), I get through my job. Otherwise, I’m uninsurable.

Hang in there, my darling, and please come home soon.

:-*

@baked:

We miss you, baked. Hope to hear more from you soon.

P.S. This sounds like typical HMO hell. The Washington state Group Health Cooperative–widely touted as a model for a national health insurance cop-out–works pretty much the same way.

@HelenWheels:

No one can touch my lovely Kitty for pure battshittery. Bachmann is a pale copy.

Welcome, btw. Have you been around long? This is the first comment I’ve ever seen from you, but I am notorious for being uninformed.

@baked:

We miss you, my lovely. I hope it isn’t anything serious.

@JNOV: @Original Andrew: @Tommmcatt Floats:
oh i miss you too!! and all my stinquers!! nothing serious is wrong with me tommycatt, i’m as healthy as a horse. when my 35 year old sister died from cancer i became a raging hypochondriac. i get scanned a lot and as annoying as the system here is, i’m workin it baby. i’m a professional!
how are you OA, your righteous indignation always reminds me of me.
i always agree with you. we must calm down.
and jnov, i don’t know where home is, my love. i’m all over the map.
nojo’s city is my only permanent residence. i will be in T&C in a month, and you’re coming down, right?

i see new people! hi new people, welcome! i’ll assume you’ve been lurkers for awhile, so i don’t have to tell you we bite. ok, i bite.

and now i have hours on RB’s puter til he gets up…catching up. i pick up my new one today. i don’t know how Lefty does it. i go through 5 laptops to her one. i carry you all around with me everywhere always, and i’m always dropping it on its head.

i see daveH. been looking for you. it was one year ago that you smacked me upside my head for carrying on over my philandering husband. well, things worked out. he is the very picture of a happily married man. my birthday was a few weeks ago. in 10 years he has a) forgotten b) scribbled a card or c) admired the gift i bought for myself-from him.
THIS year i got the hat trick. dozens of roses, long loving letter, and an exquisite diamond star of david necklace. daveH, i look to you for this answer, as you are the east german judge. the letter was typed and printed, and his illegible signature scrawled at the bottem. for all i know he dictated it. i subtracted style points for this. what say you?
oh, and instead of pestorking hot israeli sabra’s, he’s dealing with his crushing 50th birthday by—growing a ponytail!and buying a scooter! oy.

@baked: darling! will you ever travel to the west coast?

I have no judgment for you and R.B., you know I approach this from a public health point. If your head feels okay in it and nobody is getting a disease, I do not judge.

And happy damn birthday to you, gorgeous. You have earned the right to every year.

ADD: I buy MacBooks – once you go Mac, you never go back. I had my first MacBook for seven years. Despite water damage, dropping, etc.