James Barrios

Husband and Father. Clinical Cardiac Electrophysiologist with Our Lady of the Lake Physician Group. Former UAB Cardiology, EP and Medicine trainee. AMDG.

[James Barrios @JamesBarrios22]

@MikePereira such a nonsense explanation for that rule if that’s really the meaning. Ruling on “intent” is clearly a ridiculous thing to consider when the ball leaves hand of the quarterback going backwards. “Didn’t intend to score fewer points than my opponent so I guess I win”

[Charles C. W. Cooke @charlescwcooke]

He’s such a shameless liar. Leaving aside that the study is garbage per se, many of its supposed savings come from its assumption that doctors and hospitals will be paid *less*. It says this in Table 1. And yet Khanna claims the exact opposite will happen here. Astonishing.

[Anthony DiGiorgio, DO, MHA @DrDiGiorgio]

It’s amazing how confidently people talk about “universal high quality care that saves lives and saves money” as if it’s a dessert your mean parents are withholding out of spite.

A few reminders for the adults in the room:

Government isn’t magic. CMS can’t run a website without crashing. Medicaid MCOs can’t keep a provider directory accurate for a week. The idea that the federal government could centrally manage the entire healthcare sector while saving money is fantasy.

Tradeoffs don’t disappear because you declare something “a right.” You still need people to do the work. You still need prices to coordinate supply. If you erase those signals you get shortages, bottlenecks, burnout and eventually stagnation.

The UK and Canada have already run this experiment and the results are not subtle.

Americans don’t “prefer billionaires.” They prefer not to face the price of anything directly. The system that politicians built is designed to hide costs behind premiums, taxes and payroll deductions. If you actually priced care transparently most of it becomes affordable.

So we see the real entities exploring our current centrally planned system. Nonprofit hospital monopolies, 340B arbitrage, site-of-service markups, opaque negotiated rates, and bloated administrative bureaucracies have done more to inflate costs than any mythical cabal of billionaires.

Swap one set of perverse incentives for another and you still end up with gatekeepers, bureaucrats and middle managers deciding what care you get.

Adults understand these constraints. Children think wishes create outcomes. Healthcare isn’t expensive because Americans are “propagandized.” It’s expensive because we stripped away price signals, built a bureaucratic labyrinth, and pretend tradeoffs don’t exist

[Ed Livingston @ehlJAMA]

This sort of presentation of data is completely misleading.

The low life expectancy in the US is attributable to trauma and substance abuse deaths. The high death rate for those problems relates to poor public policy and not medical care.

Life expectancy in the US for medical care sensitive conditions, such as heart, disease and cancer are among the highest in the world.

[Anthony DiGiorgio, DO, MHA @DrDiGiorgio]

Bernie, you must not respect your constituents if you think they'll fall for this.

If I may, can we go through a few of the logical fallacies here?

You present a list of national life expectancies to conclude that the US should have your version of single payer: Medicare for All.

Yet, atop your list is a country that doesn't even have a government payer.

There's no equivalent of Medicare in Switzerland. Everyone is covered by private insurance companies there.

So clearly a single government payer isn't the key to a long life span. In fact, among the countries you list, the only one that has something close to the policies in your "Medicare for All" legislation is Canada. All the other nations have robust private options.

You then list Japan as the #2 country. Well, you must have forgotten that, in the USA, Asian Americans have an average lifespan of 85.2 years. Yet, these Asian Americans exist in a system without single payer.

In other words, not every group living under US health care is trapped in the dystopia you describe.

You also neglect to mention that if you erase the deaths due to car accidents, violent crime, drug overdose, and suicide from all those countries, the US rises to the top of the list.

There's a lot wrong with the US healthcare system. I'd never argue otherwise. Yet it does specialized care very well. If you have a heart attack, stroke, trauma, or cancer, the US outcomes are among the best.

Look, I understand the desire to fix an extremly complex healthcare system with something that will fit on a bumper sticker. It's an easy slogan. People would feel good knowing they have some government card guaranteeing they need not pay cash for healthcare services.

But you neglect to mention they'll end up paying in other ways. Like with their time, such as in Canada, where the average wait for an MRI is over 4 months, and in some provinces, it's over a year. Or they may pay with their lives, like the 17,000 Canadians a year who die while on surgical waitlists.

That's what single payer gets us. It won't magically make Americans into safer drivers or less violent individuals. It won't make a dent in our life expectancy.

It will make costs skyrocket, though, be they measured in money, time, or deaths.

As the great Thomas Sowell put it, “It is amazing that people who think we cannot afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, and medication somehow think that we can afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, medication and a government bureaucracy to administer it.”

So, please, Bernie, show us all a little more respect.

[James Barrios @JamesBarrios22]

A good read for all my “Elsewhere” friends (explore this piece from the simultaneously heartbreaking and revivifying Mr. Rose, and you’ll find out what that means) and a sharp reminder of where we were 20 years ago when the levees broke and waters rose. https://t.co/SDAU664TvM?

[Dustin Grage @GrageDustin]

Here is the clip of Ron DeSantis categorically denying the report from @ABC that he ignored a call from Kamala Harris.

[Guy Benson @guypbenson]

Listen carefully to what he says. Consider what Kamala just tried to do, and the context in which she tried to do it. And note that DeSantis is going out of his way not to criticize the federal support in Florida, on which he’s coordinated with POTUS (as also confirmed by Biden):

[Guy Benson @guypbenson]

spit-in-your-eye corruption

[Mary Katharine Ham @mkhammer]

A Friday night news dump F you. Brazen stuff. These people have no privacy on government devices. Their messages belong to us. The worse you behave, the more you get paid as long as it’s in service of the correct side. Disgraceful.

[Charles C. W. Cooke @charlescwcooke]

This is the sort of extraordinarily brazen tack you take only when you know that the media is in full campaign mode in your favor.

[Pradheep J. Shanker, M.D. @neoavatara]

I have no idea who will win in November.

But I 100% know that Kamala Harris is on a sugar surge right now that won't last the entire Fall.

Both sides are being exceptionally stupid right now.

[Greg Price @greg_price11]

"Kamala Harris was never named the 'border czar' by Joe Biden. She was simply tasked with addressing the root causes of illegal immigration to America."

This is what people who call themselves serious journalists are arguing right now.

[Mary Katharine Ham @mkhammer]

I like when anyone gives you the longer faux nuanced talking point Ds distributed about what she did and it’s like “cool, so border czar?” Because they all know that’s what it is and what they said and meant then. It’s just inconvenient now so you’ll be gaslit.

[Mary Katharine Ham @mkhammer]

If you bring a flag to light,
That falls within free-speech rights!
If you steal one from a pole,
We can arrest that big asshole!

[Jessica Riedl 🧀 🇺🇦 @JessicaBRiedl]

I don't understand claims that Biden was a top-15 president. The reasons I typically see are:

1) He defeated Trump. Ok, that's really important to many people, but its not really a presidential accomplishment. And his failures are likely to return Trump to the oval office.🧵

[Charles C. W. Cooke @charlescwcooke]

Republicans shouldn’t kid themselves. Harris can absolutely win. The Democrats have many problems, but the GOP isn’t popular, either. Even a marginal change can upend everything. https://t.co/kjQV5Bd6Ic

[Pradheep J. Shanker, M.D. @neoavatara]

Trump is an exceptionally weak candidate.

Harris definitely can win.

[Charles C. W. Cooke @charlescwcooke]

It's a tightrope because she said we needed to ban fracking on live TV but now wishes she hadn't said that. https://t.co/uznpaW6Aq6

[Jessica Riedl 🧀 🇺🇦 @JessicaBRiedl]

By the way, for those asserting that out of pocket health care costs consume all our extra wages - its around $500 per person more annually than comparable economies. Bad, sure, but we still come out ahead in net wages.
https://t.co/0LLMMPl5vv