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They Lie? Who Knew? — Why Now?
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They Lie? Who Knew?

David Hilzenrath of the Washington Post has a small piece of reality: Insurers Spin Data to Fight Public Plan.

As the article points out, a major segment of the people who like their current health insurance are people who have never needed to use it. It isn’t hard to be satisfied with something you never use, like those miniature spare tires. The test of good insurance is how they handle claims, not how they handle your payments.

This is the same thing that occurred along the Gulf Coast with property insurance. Most people liked their insurance companies until 2004 and 2005 when they needed to file claims on policies that they had been paying premiums on for decades, and then they discovered that the companies didn’t intend to pay.

3 comments

1 Badtux { 07.23.09 at 2:30 am }

Another example is that Canadian woman named Shona Holmes who’s appearing on all the television shows claiming that she had a brain cancer and would have died before seeing a specialist in Canada. The only problem: According to the Mayo Clinic (before they had to remove the story from their web site in dismay), it was actually a benign cyst — a non-fatal congenital condition that is readily apparent on a MRI even for a primary care physician who can look at it and say “Oh, that’s a Rathke’s Cleft cyst”, is not an urgent surgery by any stretch, and a four month wait to get an operation for it might be unpleasant if you’re starting to have symptoms because it’s starting to press on your optic nerve but is hardly a “I’ll die if I don’t get the surgery *now*” kind of thing.

In short, just another right-wing liar repeating a right wing lie. Sigh!

– Badtux the Lying Liars

2 Kryten42 { 07.23.09 at 2:51 am }

I’ve come to the logical and rational conclusion that to be included in the rightwing *conservative* club, one must first fail a lie-detector test comprehensively. I suspect many of these people have to think a minute before telling anyone asking their real names. 🙂

I the only thing I am unsure about, is whether to label them pathological liar’s or compulsive liars. Everyone who is known to be a Republican or affiliated with the rightwing in any way should be forced to undergo compulsive psychotherapy for a minimum of a year. And if they fail, lock them up for everyone’s sake. 🙂

Pathological Liar
A pathological liar is usually defined as someone who lies incessantly to get their way and does so with little concern for others. Pathological lying is often viewed as coping mechanism developed in early childhood and it is often associated with some other type of mental health disorder. A pathological liar is often goal-oriented (i.e., lying is focused – it is done to get one’s way). Pathological liars have little regard or respect for the rights and feelings of others. A pathological liar often comes across as being manipulative, cunning and self-centered.

Compulsive Liar
A compulsive liar is defined as someone who lies out of habit. Lying is their normal and reflexive way of responding to questions. Compulsive liars bend the truth about everything, large and small. For a compulsive liar, telling the truth is very awkward and uncomfortable while lying feels right. Compulsive lying is usually thought to develop in early childhood, due to being placed in an environment where lying was necessary. For the most part, compulsive liars are not overly manipulative and cunning (see, Pathological Liar), rather they simply lie out of habit – an automatic response which is hard to break and one that takes its toll on a relationship (see, how to cope with a compulsive liar).

3 Bryan { 07.23.09 at 2:35 pm }

The Canadians are getting pretty torqued off about the lies being spread, and there are officials, especially Jack Layton from the New Democratic Party who drop down to provide facts and attitude adjustments regarding the lies about Canadian health care.

The local snowbirds go back to Canada if they have health problems because they have noticed that the local medical community tends to “over treat” problems. They are also unhappy that we don’t have walk-in clinics, but make people go to the emergency room.

Kryten, they are pathological. The lying is only a small part of their problems.