Obamacare: $940 Billion becomes $2.5 Trillion

[_Droopy]

Thomas Sowell ???

ROFL!

Last month Analytics argued with a Right Winger friend of mine on another forum about whether government can create wealth. My friend was following something he read from Thomas Sowell, but he didn't know how to respond to Analytics' argument so he emailed Sowell, and lo and behold, he actually responded. Responded with what? He essentially conceded the point that he was wrong and that government can in fact create wealth.

I guess that Harvard Education hasn't made him smarter than some of us folks here.

Yet more proof that you are nothing if not another Scratch, but with a real name. I disposed of this on that particular thread by looking at the original online source. Sowell only conceded that in a tiny, rare body of cases, such an argument can be made. He made no general concession to the point, nor to the rather obvious economic and logical proposition that government, as a general rule, creates no wealth, being itself a net consumer of wealth and itself engaging in no productive economic activity. Any "wealth creation" by the state can only be understood in a very narrow and derivative sense.

Sowell is widely understood to be one of the premier intellects and scholars of the late 20th century in economics, political economy, and social/political history, except, again, by intellectual poseurs who do not understand what serious intellection is.

[_Droopy]

Are you really this stupid? I already pointed out that Media Matters never even mentioned Heritage in that article and you continue to say they were trying to smear them? Media Matters proved the NEJM had nothing to do with that's urvey, which "a little homework" would quickly prove is your beloved FOX News hacks had any interest in truth and accuracy.

Hmmm.

I already pointed out that Media Matters never even mentioned Heritage in that article and you continue to say they were trying to smear them? Media Matters proved the NEJM had nothing to do with that's survey,

Let's take a look at what you and the article actually said

You also rely on Heritage Foundation, one of the more prominent Right Wing think Tanks. You do so while bashing Media Matters for America, but the fact is MM proved just how unreliable Heritage is when it eexposed it for misrepresenting a survey. Here is the original article:

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/03/17/for ... -care-bill.

Heritage claims the survey was conducted by the New England Journal of Medicine and said 46% of all doctors think the Bill will force them out of work. But when MM contacted them, they said they had nothing to do with it!

This is, of course, all smoke and mirrors. YOU, Kevin, may not have misrepresented Media Matters, but you blatantly misrepresented the what Heritage claimed. I linked to the original study, the NEJM website, and the Medicious Groups website. Heritage never claimed that NEJM had conducted the study, or published it. Media matters could not have "discovered" that NEJM had nothing to do with conducting the study, as anyone who had read the original study would have already known that, since Heritage never made such a claim.

The point was raised because you brought up the survey to support your idiotic conclusions that most doctors reject Obamacare. The fact that you had to rely on such an unscientific survey based on a silly newsletter is telling, and now you are trying to detract from this fact by focusing on a straw man about something Media Matters never said.

Most surveys are unscientific, at least those done for public consumption. The Medicius Group's study asked only a thousand physicians, but that's no more nor less than most such polls. We do know that there have long been massive doctor shortages in Canada and Britain, and other more fully socialized systems, so there is no reason to think it will not happen here (unless the laws of economics can be banned, along with CO2 and Twinkies).

[_Droopy]

As an aside, the problem here seems to be both Media Matters and Brian Kilmeade of Fox & Friends, who said:

For example, on Fox & Friends, co-host Brian Kilmeade said: “The New England Journal of Medicine has published a report and did a survey, and they said the impact of reform on primary care physicians, 46 percent, they say, feel reform will force them out or make them want to leave medicine.”

http://foxnewsboycott.com/bill-oreilly/ ... z0l5Mb0VKy

Graham seems to be ascribing to Heritage what Kilmeade claimed about Heritage, and using this to impugn Heritage, while Media Matters claims to have contacted the NEJM and been told that they had nothing to do with the study, and that a orginization known as the Medicus Group. "Gotcha!", cries Media Matters, and "Gotcha!" cries Kevin Graham.

Of course, Media Matters could have saved themselves the trouble, as the original Heritage Foundry article says:

A poll by The Medicus Firm posted in the New England Journal of Medicine’s CareerCenter shows that, on virtually every count, physicians understand and don’t like the congressional legislation. 62.7 percent of physicians feel that health reform is needed but should be implemented in a more targeted, gradual way; just the opposite of the sweeping overhaul embodied in the massive congressional legislation. Indeed, 46.3 percent of primary care physicians feel that “the passing of health reform will either force them out of medicine or make them want to leave medicine.”

And Graham posted the link to the original Heritage blog post, but apparently failed to read it before he used it.

So true, Kevin never said Media Matters mentioned Heritage in that article, the actual article, at /foxnewsboycott.com, does say that:

Media Matters for America contacted the New England Journal of Medicine, which confirmed it neither conducted nor published the “survey.”

NEJM spokesperson Jennifer Zeis told Media Matters that the study had “nothing to do with the New England Journal of Medicine’s original research.” She also made clear that the study “was not published by the New England Journal of Medicine,” and said that “we are taking steps to clarify the source of the survey.”

The “report” that right-wing media are citing actually appeared in Recruiting Physicians Today, which is an employment newsletter produced by “the publishers of the New England Journal of Medicine.” According to Zeis, that report actually “was written by the Medicus Firm,” the medical recruitment firm that conducted the “survey.”

UPDATE: Following inquiries from Media Matters, the “NEJM CareerCenter” website has now posted the following statement, making clear that Recruiting Physicians Today is a “free advertiser newsletter” whose content is “produced by physician recruiting firms and other independent groups involved in physician employment” and that Medicus was responsible for conducting and publishing the “survey” in question…

This of course, is nothing but puff, as, as I have now pointed out multiple times, Heritage correctly attributed the survey and its provenance at the outset. It was Kevin who misrepresented it.

[_Kevin Graham]

I am perfectly willing to concede that FOX (not Heritage) is the culprit here in directly misrepresenting the NEJM; but so is Investors Business Daily. Their source was most likely the article by the Heritage Foundation, which they misread and assumed the Heritage Foundation would never mention a stupid, unscientific newsletter-type survey, unless it was actually connected with the prestige of NEJM.

They were bamboozled by Heritage the same way Dafty has been, in thinking everything it publishes is top notch scholarship. The fact that Heritage mentioned this stupid discredited survey at all should cause alarm bells to be ringing about its credibility. They mentioned it for the same idiotic reason Dafty mentioned it. It served their political agenda.

I have already proved that the survey was bogus and not grounded in reality. Dafty says it doesn't matter if the survey was a newsletter or if it was unscientific. What matters to him is that its conclusion is favorable to his fear-mongering campaign.

Only an idiot would believe 65% of doctors are thinking to leave their profession based on the passage of this bill.

Now dafty is trying to divert by suggesting there is a "problem" with Media Matters for doing basic primary research by finding out from teh source (NEJM) because Heritage's article already explains things well enough. Well if that is true, then why did IBD and FOX misrepresent it?

THEY ARE THE ONES WHO MISREPRESENTED IT!!!!!

Not Media Matters! They never even friggin mentioned Heritage.

But there is nothing in the Heritage article that shows the survey had nothing whatsoever to do with NEJM. By going directly to NEJM and finding out the facts, MM did the right thing, which is much more than his Right Wing sources chose to do. The embarrassed parties here are FOX and IBD, but Dafty thinks MM should be embarrassed for doing basic research? What an idiot.