Alan Grayson on Real Time
By Heather Saturday Oct 17, 2009 5:00am
From Real Time with Bill Maher Oct. 16, 2009.
Alan Grayson did a great job on Bill Maher’s show and countered some of Bill’s nonsense—like him citing a study that he doesn’t source—that the problem with our health care system’s costs are too many doctors just wanting to prescribe unneeded drugs, unneeded tests and unneeded surgeries. Grayson disagrees with Maher and says that our real problem is the amount of money the insurance companies are taking off the top and making money from denying care.
Grayson responds by saying “One person’s unnecessary test is another person’s life saving test. You can’t get around that”. He reminded Maher that the Bush administration skewed a study to show what they wanted it to show when it came to the amount of money trial lawyers are adding to the total cost of health care in the United States and he gets Maher to concede that “studies can say anything”.
When asked if he was disappointed in the President and how he’s “thrown in with these corporatist Democrats” and Maher says he knows Grayson is not one of them Grayson likens himself to Huey Long and says “You’ve got to put some jam on the bottom shelf where the little man can reach it”.
Grayson defends President Obama and says reads things a little differently and he thinks Obama is trying not to repeat Bill Clinton’s mistakes on getting health care reform passed.
Grayson says “Instead he’s letting Congress decide how to do things and it’s going way too slow. There’s a 122 Americans who die every single day because they don’t have health care. And I’ve been saying that for weeks. We’ve got to pick up the pace. We’ve got to save those lives. But I understand what the President’s doing and you know, people attack him and he turns the other cheek like any good Muslim would do”.
When Maher says his comment is going to be played on Fox News, Grayson says they have no sense of humor. Maher says it will be used as an attack ad against him and Grayson says they’ve got plenty of material already, so he's not too worried about it.
Grayson finished up the interview by saying we should be out of Afghanistan already and that he didn’t support a “war tax” but would be against anyone sending troops anywhere if we don’t have a good reason to be there.
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I didn't realize what a smarmy shitbreath Maher is.....
Kinda comes with the territory.
Maher needs to get over his all drugs are bad crap. He may have been blessed with great dna but not everyone is. Also humans evolved eating meat, roots, just about anything. Why is it that suddenly we shouldn't be meat eaters. What about the Inuit? They survived for centuries eating pretty much nothing but fat and meat. Their diet is extremely low in vegetables and fruit and nuts were non-existent. Yet they had very low heart disease levels until foods from the lower 48 started being made available. Personally I think we don't know jack about diets and we should get over it and just enjoy whatever time you have on this planet.
and seemed almost Beckian in his disdain for vaccination. I missed last week's show, but it sounds like Bill went off about vaccinations. Funny, for a guy who's generally pretty pro-science, I'd have thought he'd be more supportive of vaccination.
While I don't support people having to get vaccinated, I would probably get one myself if offered. Seeing that over sixty young, healthy people have already died from it has me rather concerned. I'm 46 and healthy, but I smoke. "Normal" flu can kick my ass for over a week. I can't afford to miss a week+ of work in these times. And, of course, my employer offers no health insurance.
If you would read up on Vitamin D and the immune system, you would make sure your system has enough Vitamin D in it. No virus can exist in a Vitamin D environment! If everyone had enough Vitamin D in their systems, the vaccine industry would collapse overnight. Your skin manufactures Vitamin D with sufficient sunlight, or you can take the vitamin.....either way, it's a win-win situation. It's for sure the FDA isn't going to recommend Vitamin D.
I drink quite a bit of milk and I'm outside 8 hrs+ a day, but I try to minimize my sunlight on the skin. Being fair-skinned, I've got to balance my my skin cancer risk.
and yes, there is a danger of TOO much sunlight, but most people don't get enough, or if they do get sunlight, they are so covered in sunscreen, the good rays can't get through.
I don't know how to do a "link", or I would give you the one from natural news about Vitamin D having been around for 60 million years!
Just copy and paste the URL in the comment field. Easy.
> No virus can exist in a Vitamin D environment
Sorry, but you're gonna have to cite a study, otherwise I'll call bullshit.
August 19, 2009
I was watching ABC news, and the network doctor mentioned he takes abouut 1000 IUs of D. The suggested requirement was 400IU, which I was getting in a one-a-day.
Anyway, I got a 400IU supplement, so now, I'm up to 800IUs a day. I had always had a problem with sinuses, and when I blew my nose, there would be traces of blood. Since upping the vitamin D, that problem has cleared, never to return. Skin is better, too.
I think when I go to the store, I'll get some sardines.
taking too much of? I know that excess Vitamin C and the Bs can be pissed out, but what about D?
I take 4000 IU a day........never heard of an overdose of vitamin D.......:)
It's oil soluble, so it can accumulate. That's why I'm going a bit slow on it. I *think* that under 2000IU a day is OK.
Calcium is another issue related to vitamin D. Once again, I *think* there is an issue of D leaching calcium from your bones, if you don't have enough calcium.
I eat yogurt, and take a calcium supplement.
You can maximize your calcium by reducing protein, which inhibits your ability to absorb calcium and magnesium. We eat far too much protein in this country. A person can get along pretty well with about 30% of the protein most people eat.
by getting Vitamin D, and you CAN OD on Vitamin D. You can OD on water. "The dose makes the poison" is the old saying I got from pesticide class.
Women getting treatment for breast cancer take mega doses of D, but they have to be checked because the rates at which they're dosed is too high for normal circumstances.
Also oxalic acid leeches calcium out of your system, which is why Rhubarb leaves are poisonous. Spinach has some oxalic acid, which is why your teeth can feel weird after eating it
It helps absorption of calcium. After a dexa scan, my femural neck was found be osteopenic, so I take Vitamin D and Tums, by prescription. Here's the 'funny' thing (as in it's not funny at all) Medicare will pay for my prescriptions, but not this. However, if I fell and snapped my femur at the neck because of the thinned bone, they'd have to pay for a hip replacement.
I can't find the documentation, but Vitamin D helps absorption of calcium if calcium is present in the diet. However, under circumstances of a diet low in calcium, since Vitamin D increases calcium circulating in the bloodstream, I *think* I read somewhere that calcium comes from the bones.
Hence, I make sure that both Vitamin D and calcium are present in sufficient amounts. That way, the Vitamin D does what it's suppose to.
and, no doubt, very interesting...
yet, i wonder how those pushing this theory would explain yellow fever and dengue fever. or ebola. all caused by viruses, yet in sunny tropical regions.
... propagates faster in warmer climes.
p.s. INAD, and neither is anyone else who has commented on this.
When it came to H1N1 he went off on his it's the food not the illness that's the problem, Vaccines aren't the answer, and so on and so on. He pissed off a lot of people and rightfully so last week. His ego got banged up quite a bit between shows and he tried everything he could this week to get someone anyone to on air agree with him. Half if not more of this week show the last show of the season felt like he was desperately trying to repair his ego. Oh and it was the whole show not just later on at the beginning he dismissed the concerns people had about his comment last week, several time during the show he brought it up even if it was off topic. Bill’s last week gaff took over the show. Alec Baldwin was right Maher shouldn’t have brought the baggage he had left over from last weeks show onto this weeks show.
I love Maher an all but this weeks show was hard to watch because bill couldn’t stop his ego from taking over the show.
I just finished watching the show, and it was OK to me. The shows that are hard for me to watch is when he gets some of these Republicans, like Jack Kingston on the panel reciting a playlist of Republican talking points.
He was in a bit of a snit over the vaccine thing, but it didn't ruin the show, because the panel carried a lot of the load.
BTW - got the regular flu vaccine a week or so ago, for the 1st time. I figure with two strains out there, if I come down with something, I could rule out one.
But it was hard to watch for me because Bill would not stop trying to get someone to agree with him. I think the most telling part was at the start of the panel right after Maher finished giving his views on H1N1 and Vaccine he asked "do you agree" to the panel and it was dead silence. That should of been the sign to Shut up about it, but no he keep going and even pulled a "we have to leave it there" after he spewed a bunch of crap and didn’t want the panel to respond.
He can be very funny and sometimes spot-on, but the guy is basically a dick. His ego has been his main concern for many years. I used to go watch his show being taped here in L.A. He would talk to the audience before it started, and it was interesting how pissy he would get if anyone contradicted him or made a comment that was less than adoring.
I have no idea why he's jumped on this stupid McCarthy-Carrey anti-vaccination bandwagon, but it's making him look like a moron. He's got him some blind spots, no doubt about that.
Bill was downright stupid last week. For bill frist to come across reasonable, and for maher a complete knuckle dragging irresponsible moron was bizzarroworld.
He was at his nadir saying this is a weak strain of influenza.
In light of the 11 dead young people this week alone are evidence enough for him to start walking back his didactic aversion to the vaccine.
check it...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tB5DLf1Qt78
is it just me, or does bill maher seem to get dumber and dumber?
i just can't seem to watch his smug self without getting irritated...
Grayson does very well here... smart guy that cannot be bought off...
...after he asked Grayson about a special war tax...and got a very direct "No"
Love that reference. Huey wasn't perfect, but he took on Standard Oil there in Louisiana... and kicked their asses. He was a real contender for President in the '36 election, which is probably why he was bumped off.
Grayson, stick around. I'll support you when you run for President in 2016. --MaryK
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Do you teach in the language dept. there? That's where I got my BA in Spanish......a lonnnnnng time ago........:)
Used to be East Texas State. Most famous alumni is Sam Rayburn.
I don't teach yet, working on my second Master's in English. (My first MA, in Humanities: Bardic Storytelling, didn't get me a job, but it's great credentials as a songwriter.) Probably continuing for a doctorate. Still in the same building, the original library.
I'd love to vote for Grayson. He would kick some serious ass.
To answer some of the questions and comment it really is necessary to monitor the consumption of red meat one eats, I am the first to agree that it is good for you what scares the hell out of me is the Chemicals and drugs they use to fatten the beef, remember the meat industry would have nEVER EVER volunteered they were feeding animal meat to cattle till the first cases of Mad Cow disease were reported. Mr Grayson makes a strong point on the drug issue as well, the point is the Scum in the Pharma industry try to use a Blanket open end TV announcement to cover their liability, and still try to weasel out of it.
Now we come to pay caps and Trail Lawyers why should there be pay caps on settlements the unknown is what they are do not what to pay for, anyone ever break a bone and have 1-2-3 or more other problems come up that weren't even thought of, but were aggrivated by the injury, WHY should these loathing scum suckers be given a free ride, so they do not have to cut into their profits. Then you have the Trail Lawyer your last vestiage of hope and these pieces of human garbage want ot take this away, remember after everything that has happened the Trail Laywer is the LAST hope a person has to receive ANY JUSTICE. If Hospitals and Doctors would step up IMMEDIATELY when something is found wrong indentify the problem 95% of the problems would be erased just because of the civility, you mean that if the hospital and Doctor stopped the billing right after the error was found spoke with the party involved did the corrective surgery all couldn't come to a reasonable conclusion rather than the present months and years of coverup dragged out legal garbaage that the INSURANCE INDUSTRY in doing now.
Myself I say hide you pay through the nose and pay dearly, NO cash 75% interest compounded daily as the Insurance Industry tries to appeal it. I really do not want to here about capitalism there is no capital ism just SOCIALISM and it is called CORPORATE SOCIALISM, privatize the profits socialize the losses.
REAPEAL the SHERMAN ANTI-TRUST ACT on the INSURANCE INDUSTRY
...but I hadda quit readin yours because of the dense, single-paragraph format it's in. Mebbe break it up into pieces, then it would be more accessible....I don't know if I agree or not....
1/3 of all medical costs are due to unneeded tests?? unneeded?
i would bet my left nut that that figured has been fudged. lord knows it is misleading--most likely intentionally.
we have gone seriously off-track if the national discussion about health care turns to the "problems" of the doctor-patient relationship and preventative care/testing. sure, maybe this has been abused, but to say THAT is the problem misses the larger point:
making a profit off of sick people is expensive, and over $230 billion in health care spending is to solely to cover insurance administration.
that's about 25% of the total healthcare costs... admin costs...
I'd venture to say those tests are "unneeded" only by the poor insurance companies that are required to pay for a portion of them. Imagine the profits if they could knock 1/3 of their "expenses" right off the top. Bigger bonuses!
Bill occasionally scores a point but generally a little of his libertarian nonsense goes a long way.
The answer may be, "all of the above".
Maybe we need single payer, reign in tests, subsidize healthy foods, stop subsidizing unhealthy foods, and so forth.
There's a little too much of this representing a facet of the problem as the entire problem.
The stupidity starts when we take "off the table" solutions used in the other industrial countries that the data shows delivers a comparable product at a substantially cheaper price.
...starts with the soil. That's where the food comes from.
More information here: http://acresusa.com
First, eat good food. Nobody will truly be healthy without it.
Definitely "all of the above". A big part of the problem is that doctors and hospitals get paid for every service they do, so there's an incentive to do as much as possible and charge as much as possible for them. Example: when I was in the hospital a while ago, they wouldn't let me bring in my own maintenance medications, and instead required that a nurse come in twice a day to give me a pill. When I got the itemized bill, I found that they charged $80 every time that happened.
All these little things add up, and the insurers can't monitor it to prevent abuse. Instead they go for the fewer, larger items like transplants and other major surgery, which of course are usually MORE necessary.
We're used to demonizing the insurance companies, but there's no denying that the doctors and hospitals (and patients) are to blame as well. There IS a lot of unnecessary crap out there. I've had doctors offer to do tests on me that even I knew there was no reason for, and they admitted as much when I asked.
Maher is an enigma for me. Sometimes he's very bright and profound.Sometimes he's just plain stupid. Go figure !
Grayson, on the other hand, is amazing...
His ego has gotten the best of him lately.
Maher is an enigma for me. Sometimes he's very bright and profound.Sometimes he's just plain stupid.
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The Chris Matthews syndrome.
will do anything to save a single life anytime in the foreseeable future.
It's all smoke and mirrors. All that's being negotiated now is who gets how much money from whom. It's all kabuki...
I think that Maher runs hot and cold. That applies to both how funny he is and how relevant he is. If you watch his monologue I think he never regained his pace once the audience didn’t go for his balloon boy/healthcare segue. I think he has end of season fatigue.
I disagree with Heather that Maher conceded to Grayson’s statement about statistics. It sounded more like Maher was trying to dismiss what he was saying.
I believe that getting rid of excesses in testing and treatments can save loads of money.
HOWEVER, relative to the issues of the insurance industry sucking billions away from the health of many to create financial benefit for the few, it’s a back burner issue
So far, I'm thrilled Alan Grayson is in D.C.
HOWEVER, relative to the issues of the insurance industry sucking billions away from the health of many to create financial benefit for the few, it’s a back burner issue
It does have some relevance, but it's not even worth dealing with until we get single payer. The biggest problem by far is the existence of the vampire health insurance companies. They're the ones ballooning the problem. Take that down and then you can deal with the problems in the actual doctor-patient relationship. But you have to get the elephant out of the living room first. (My, that's an apt image, isn't it?)
and him not conceding the point, but he did get him off of it at least. I think there could be an entire post devoted to the points Maher was trying to make and their merit which I wasn't going to get into when basically just trying to give a not too long synopsis of the segment for anyone that can't watch the video but wanted to weigh in anyway. I also don't think Maher should have started hammering him about some study that he doesn't source and even if he did Grayson probably didn't read and expect the man to have an informed response, which is why I thought his line of questioning was nonsense.
I completely agree on Maher being hot and cold, but I think that about most Libertarians. Wasn't it Thom Hartmann that described them as Republicans who want to smoke pot? I think I'd enjoy his show a lot more if he just had on better guests for his panel segments.
The panel on this season finale was a real disappointment. That and him spending a great deal of it whining about the complaints he had for his interview with Bill Frist. I was just mad that Maher made me have to agree with Bill Frist about anything last week.
What a whip! And young! And right! And smart! Smarter than Maher( I used to like Maher but he's becoming, err, a bit...well...dumb). Now if Grace-Son doesn't sell out he'll find his Karma is so cool he'll be richer than those no count dumb shits that do sell out.
Go for it Grayson, you're a mans man....and a leader. Not a politician. But, never ever, put your dagger down.
Mans-son
When it came to H1N1 he went off on his it's the food not the illness that's the problem, Vaccines aren't the answer, and so on and so on. He pissed off a lot of people and rightfully so last week. His ego got banged up quite a bit between shows and he tried everything he could this week to get someone anyone to on air agree with him. Half if not more of this week show the last show of the season felt like he was desperately trying to repair his ego. It was the whole show to I mean at the beginning he dismissed the concerns people had about his comment last week, several time during the show he brought it up even if it was off topic. Bill’s last week gaff took over the show. Alec Baldwin was right Maher shouldn’t have brought the baggage he had left over from last weeks show onto this weeks show.
I love Maher an all but this weeks show was hard to watch because bill couldn’t stop his ego from taking over the show.
I thought I was the only one who finds Maher unwatchable. I've tried a few times to watch his show and I just want to slap him. I'm getting a bit of a crush on Grayson, however. Stands up to conservatives, blue dogs or whomever is standing in the way of health care/insurance reform. Dreeeeemy :-)
Wasting everyone's time with multiple failed gotchas.
I normally love Maher, but his stance on medical issues are just straight out pseudo-scientific woo woo garbage.
I'm not so sure Maher is off the mark when it comes to food. I watched Food Inc, and I think there is issues with the food.
In the case of swine flu vaccines however, it seems the risks are greater in not having the vaccine, then in having it. At least, that is my call today, with what I've heard so far.
Agreed. Clearly, eating well is sound, good advice. (I try to eat well, but I live on the road; I haven't had a home-cooked meal in months.) But it rarely prevents all illness. And doubtful that many will be able to change their diets quickly enough or take enough vitamins (see above) to prevent before it hits.
And what I thought was most telling was Dr. Sanjay Gupta coming down with H1N1 and saying just how bad it was.
That's what it takes. Stupid talking points get tossed out when the person actually experiences the thing he's braying about.
But to say it has anything to do with things like the swine flu is New Age moronic garbage. Infectious diseases don't give a shit what you eat. The whole "it's the food" argument is more of the blaming-the-victim mentality that runs rampant in this country. It's an insurance company meme that's caught on, and I for one find it bizarre that people will happily parrot whatever will take attention away from the ones who have ruined health care in this country. Shit, that's what they WANT us to say.
Maher is a PETA supporter and pro-vegetarian, and I think his positions on food get filtered through those lenses. I don't think his motivation is a right-wing agenda.
There is an issue with food. For example, cattle stand still in feed lots, fed grains, and given antibiotics, otherwise they would get sick. It's not Rowdy Yates and Rawhide any longer. That food needs to be consumed in extreme moderation.
I was responding to Maher on general medical issues, espoused on many a show over the last several seasons.
In the case of the swine flu, I don't think that food has anything to do with it.
As a lefty if is hard to watch the conservatives go all anti-science when they run out of rationality and jump into some kind of evangelical mystcism. It is just as hard to watch my liberal friends when they dump reason and go all new age b.s. with the anti western science/medicine crap. I just want to scream. There is some part of every human brain that goes crazy when it can't connect all the dots rationally and then seems to automatically go all mystic and anti science. It's some strang default mode that clicks in when we run out of facts based on scientific method or deductive reasoning. This default mode can sure make all of us look nutty at times.
We already have enough tv "news" show hosts whose questions are ripped directly from right wing talking points. I'm normally a big fan of Maher, but in this case it appears that he has joined that bunch.
Sounds to me like he's joined the Jenny McCathy Hollywood New Age Bullshit crowd. Not everyone parroting this anti-vaccine idiocy is a wingnut.
I was referring to Maher's questions and comments to Grayson in the above clip.
but I love Alan Grayson all of the time. Keep up the great work, Alan.
More please!
Grayson is good. Very good. More people in our government (and out) need to tell the truth more often.
Bill gets into his libertarian asshattery and of course he's going to say stupid shit like that.
Grayson, on the other hand, was spectacular. I'm loving his "I don't give a shit" attitude about what the knuckle-draggers might say. Pity we don't have an ENTIRE PARTY full of people like him.
...Grayson completely upstaged him.
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