Rolling Stone has updated their site with the full text here:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/29988909/sick_and_wrong
or print version:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/29988909/sick_and_wrong/print
or download this digest-sized PDF version:
http://jump.fm/HEYHH
Showing posts with label Matt Taibbi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Matt Taibbi. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Friday, August 21, 2009
Matt Taibbi: Sick and Wrong
This is Rolling Stones current information on this week's lead political story:
http://www.rollingstone.com/nationalaffairs/index.php/2009/08/19/matt-taibbi-on-health-care-reform-sick-and-wrong/
Maybe I just like free content, but I hate the way RS plays hide and seek with their most important political content this way. The videos don't seem to work, so I therefore provide links to alternative information sources below. ASAP I will have the full text from some probably independent online source and edit it into this blog entry. Why? Because...
...WE STEAL CONTENT!
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The take-away (most of which occurs between minutes 6:00-7:15): Health Care Reform properly has two prongs that have been utterly gutted by the political process. The first significant thing you could do to reduce health care costs is to eliminate or radically reduce the administrative overhead (i.e. the amount of papers that get filed and pushed around from place to place, a.k.a. "chasing claims"); and the second thing that could be done is to create a public run plan that would force private health insurers to compete with the cost-cutting methods of the VA and Medicare and thereby force costs down across the industry.
Thirty percent of the waste in health care delivery arises from the administration of hundreds of different plans that simply don't need to exist between health care professionals and their clients. This simple goal could be accomplished by a single-payer system the terms of which could easily be understood because it's just one plan instead of hundreds; and can be easily illustrated as the difference between a walk down a single hallway versus being trapped in a labyrinth with hundreds of hallways and dead-ends.
The only real reform being contemplated now is regulation over the existing health care insurance system that prohibits these private insurers from dumping patients or from denying them the care which they have legally contracted to receive. In other words, the private health insurance industry will now have to play fair. If they intend to continue making the profits they make right now they'll have to hike up their prices instead of denying people care. But they get to continue to exist and go on their merry way if they can behave like tolerable corporate citizens even while their business model is bankrupting the whole country.
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OMG, Maria Bartiromo is a complete tit. She desperately needs a pink slip. If nothing else, just remember this moment the next time she tries to come across as sage.
Yes, the U.S. has the best health care system in the world and to which most people are denied access; or even when they have access they may still face bankruptcy due to astronomical prices. Wonderful...we should be so proud.
What kind of health insurance would Jesus carry?
http://www.rollingstone.com/nationalaffairs/index.php/2009/08/19/matt-taibbi-on-health-care-reform-sick-and-wrong/
Maybe I just like free content, but I hate the way RS plays hide and seek with their most important political content this way. The videos don't seem to work, so I therefore provide links to alternative information sources below. ASAP I will have the full text from some probably independent online source and edit it into this blog entry. Why? Because...
...WE STEAL CONTENT!
------
------
The take-away (most of which occurs between minutes 6:00-7:15): Health Care Reform properly has two prongs that have been utterly gutted by the political process. The first significant thing you could do to reduce health care costs is to eliminate or radically reduce the administrative overhead (i.e. the amount of papers that get filed and pushed around from place to place, a.k.a. "chasing claims"); and the second thing that could be done is to create a public run plan that would force private health insurers to compete with the cost-cutting methods of the VA and Medicare and thereby force costs down across the industry.
Thirty percent of the waste in health care delivery arises from the administration of hundreds of different plans that simply don't need to exist between health care professionals and their clients. This simple goal could be accomplished by a single-payer system the terms of which could easily be understood because it's just one plan instead of hundreds; and can be easily illustrated as the difference between a walk down a single hallway versus being trapped in a labyrinth with hundreds of hallways and dead-ends.
The only real reform being contemplated now is regulation over the existing health care insurance system that prohibits these private insurers from dumping patients or from denying them the care which they have legally contracted to receive. In other words, the private health insurance industry will now have to play fair. If they intend to continue making the profits they make right now they'll have to hike up their prices instead of denying people care. But they get to continue to exist and go on their merry way if they can behave like tolerable corporate citizens even while their business model is bankrupting the whole country.
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Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
OMG, Maria Bartiromo is a complete tit. She desperately needs a pink slip. If nothing else, just remember this moment the next time she tries to come across as sage.
Yes, the U.S. has the best health care system in the world and to which most people are denied access; or even when they have access they may still face bankruptcy due to astronomical prices. Wonderful...we should be so proud.
What kind of health insurance would Jesus carry?
Monday, July 6, 2009
The Welfare Queen of Wall Street:
Matt Taibbi on the Goldman Sachs Bubble Machine
Crappy PDF of Rolling Stone article here:
http://zerohedge.blogspot.com/2009/06/goldman-sachs-engineering-every-major.html
From tech stocks to high gas prices, Goldman Sachs has engineered every major market manipulation since the Great Depression...
Nearly correct text OCRed here (forum "corrects" for naughty words):
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3159732&pagenumber=1
Taibbi on Goldman Sachs' Semi-Sorta Reply/Non-Reply:
http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/2009/06/30/on-giving-goldman-a-chance/
Taibbi on Goldman Sachs front-running:
http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/2009/07/02/is-goldman-legally-frontrunning-its-clients/
"You acknowledge that we may monitor your use of the Services for our own purposes (and not for your benefit)."
And finally, Taibbi on the Obama/Goldman Sacks Snuggling:
http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/2009/04/09/summers-raked-in-27-million-in-speaking-fees-from-wall-street-44-washingtonpostcom/
Most importantly, I’m sensing in these economic appointments a kind of drearily cynical parsing of the approval-rating situation here — Obama knows he’s still flying high with the “Yes We Can!” t-shirt crowd, and knows that most people simply are not going to give a shit if he packs his Treasury Department with Goldman alums and lobbyists, despite the fact that he explicitly promised to do otherwise.
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Bottom line: The U.S. federal government and Goldman Sachs have a long and jaded history of revolving door appointments and obvious favoritism for GS and against other players. When you are Goldman Sachs or some other big player, what might otherwise be financial malfeasance is actually perfectly legal. When you make huge, country fucking mistakes the taxpayers will bail you out. Whatever usury you are collecting isn't probably enough. The name of the game is power through debt and it doesn't really matter how much real wealth you have (although its a lot!) as long as you can squeeze everybody else by the balls.
Power.
to.
Squeeze.
So yeah, Obama is just another corrupt asshole so far. His appointments are a fucking joke for the people of this country. Salvation will not be forthcoming. We all wasted our votes on this asshat.
http://zerohedge.blogspot.com/2009/06/goldman-sachs-engineering-every-major.html
From tech stocks to high gas prices, Goldman Sachs has engineered every major market manipulation since the Great Depression...
Nearly correct text OCRed here (forum "corrects" for naughty words):
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3159732&pagenumber=1
Taibbi on Goldman Sachs' Semi-Sorta Reply/Non-Reply:
http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/2009/06/30/on-giving-goldman-a-chance/
Taibbi on Goldman Sachs front-running:
http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/2009/07/02/is-goldman-legally-frontrunning-its-clients/
"You acknowledge that we may monitor your use of the Services for our own purposes (and not for your benefit)."
And finally, Taibbi on the Obama/Goldman Sacks Snuggling:
http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/2009/04/09/summers-raked-in-27-million-in-speaking-fees-from-wall-street-44-washingtonpostcom/
Most importantly, I’m sensing in these economic appointments a kind of drearily cynical parsing of the approval-rating situation here — Obama knows he’s still flying high with the “Yes We Can!” t-shirt crowd, and knows that most people simply are not going to give a shit if he packs his Treasury Department with Goldman alums and lobbyists, despite the fact that he explicitly promised to do otherwise.
------
Bottom line: The U.S. federal government and Goldman Sachs have a long and jaded history of revolving door appointments and obvious favoritism for GS and against other players. When you are Goldman Sachs or some other big player, what might otherwise be financial malfeasance is actually perfectly legal. When you make huge, country fucking mistakes the taxpayers will bail you out. Whatever usury you are collecting isn't probably enough. The name of the game is power through debt and it doesn't really matter how much real wealth you have (although its a lot!) as long as you can squeeze everybody else by the balls.
Power.
to.
Squeeze.
So yeah, Obama is just another corrupt asshole so far. His appointments are a fucking joke for the people of this country. Salvation will not be forthcoming. We all wasted our votes on this asshat.
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