Kevin DeGraaf’s Blog

There are now more than 43 million Americans without health insurance and at least 25 million more who are under-insured.  As much as one-third of health-care spending is wasted on administration, billing and unnecessary procedures.  Medical bankruptcies have skyrocketed, destroying the financial stability of American citizens, with or without insurance and through no fault of their own.  We’re spending over $7,400 per capita annually, far more than any other country, and performing very poorly according to many indicies of health care outcomes.

To those who oppose universal, single-payer health care as a solution to these problems, I invite you to respond to the following questions.

1. Do you agree that the current American system is unacceptable?  If not, why not?
2. Would you be comfortable with any government intervention, e.g. the creation of a universal HSA/HDHP (health savings account with high-deductible health plan) system?  Alternatively, should the government withdraw from the matter entirely, closing down Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP and the VHA, revoking the EMTALA, and leaving Americans to fend for themselves in a completely free market?
3. Do you recognize that there are fundamental problems endemic to having separate insurance risk pools?  Wouldn’t it be more sensible to spread this risk as widely as possible?  Doesn’t the existence of separate risk pools necessarily lead to a tragedy-of-the-commons situation in which each insurer is averse to investing in preventative care, even though every insurer’s long-term costs would be lower and everyone’s health would benefit if every insurer provided such care?  Can we really justify the existence of the hundreds of private insurance carriers, given that every dollar they spend — on anything — is money that should have been used to actually provide health care?
4. Do you recognize the advantages of monopsony buying power?  Wouldn’t this be a straightforward way to contain costs without compromising patient care?
5. Do you recognize any difference between fully-socialized health care and a single-payer system which would centralize the financing (ensuring universal, affordable coverage) while leaving service delivery in the private sector (taking advantage of the strengths of the free market)?  Do you recognize that, under a properly-designed single-payer system, individuals would be free to select any health care provider instead of being constrained by the dictates of their managed-care plan?
6. Do you have any qualms about allowing your fellow citizens to go without necessary health care in the name of preserving the right of the individual to accumulate wealth?  How would you respond to the assertion that I, as an atheist, take the lesson of Matthew 25:37-40 more seriously than do a large number of conservative Christians?
7. Most conservatives and libertarians, with the exception of the insane anarcho-capitalist fringe, recognize the necessity of “socialized” defense spending.  No one is seriously arguing that “from each according to ability, to each according to need” is a good policy on which to base the entire economy, but isn’t it recognized that this policy is the best one in certain limited cases, such as when the entire population must defend itself against threats?  If even fiscal conservatives can agree to collectively pool everyone’s resources to defend against armed invasion, terrorism, criminal behavior, fire, et cetera, is it really that much of a stretch to help each other defend against injury and disease?
8. Hospital emergency departments are stretched beyond capacity for many reasons, but one reason is that uninsured citizens often use them when a minor issue which should have been treated by a PCP worsens (because EDs must, under the EMTALA, accept any patient).  Wouldn’t everyone be better off if emergency rooms were cleared of these patients and freed up to handle genuine emergencies?
9. According to many sources, the United States is the only industrialized nation that lacks universal health care.  Every other civilized country ensures that all citizens have access to health care, whether that be through socialized medicine, a single-payer system, an HSA/HDHP scheme, or some other mechanism.  Are they all wrong?  While it’s true that an appeal to popularity would be fallacious, there’s a fine line between that and an appeal to universal consensus.  Are you really saying that it would be a socialist nightmare to live in one of these other countries?
10. Do you seriously contend that the United States, which has immense intellectual resources and is in the unique situation of being decades late to the universal health care party, would be unable to study the single-payer systems used by other countries and correct their flaws prior to implementation?  Or do you posit that issues such as long wait times for medical tests and procedures are inexorably endemic to single-payer health care no matter how it’s administered?

No one is claiming that single-payer universal health care would be a panacea, solving all the existing problems without introducing any new ones.  This approach certainly has its drawbacks, like any other.  The most important may be its vulnerability to moral hazard.  However, I think that that can be addressed (see point #10), perhaps by retaining some form of primary-care co-payments under certain circumstances.

At the end of the day, however, this debate is about identifying the system that will reduce human suffering to the largest extent.  It is clear to me that universal health care itself is non-negotiable in a civilized country, and that single-payer is the most rational way to implement it.

This Craigslist posting caught my eye:

Subject: Email Specialist
Contact: jobs.shelbymi@expresspros.com

Looking for tech/consultant with experience building/troubleshooting mass email systems from the ground up. System will be used to generate 1.4 million emails from an existing database. Dell ECM01 server and Fast E-delivery software already in place, but we are getting undeliverable on approx 80% of all emails.Our database is in the form of CSV Files which we import into Fast E-delivery with consistant problems regarding ODBC Text Driver - Numeric Field overflow. We are using 20 threads to send out emails and the license we purchased supports 30,000 emails per batch, of the 30,000 we are getting about 4,000 to go through. We use no attachments and the email consists of simple HTML with a few hyperlinks. Primary causes of undeliverability are as follows: “Blocked by SPAM filter” “Unknown Error” “Timeout” “Rejected” in that order.

Please submit resume and salary requirements for immediate consideration. Contract/consulting position - not permanent.

Let me get this straight: you are advertising a consulting job (not a permanent position) to help you send mass emails imported from some CSV files, and you’re getting an 80% rejection rate? That just screams “EVIL SPAMMERS!” to anyone with half a clue. Would those “few hyperlinks” be advertising weight loss patches or penis enhancement pills, by any chance? I hope that none of my fellow sysadmins are gullible and/or unethical enough to go to work for such an obviously scummy operation.

I built a DTV antenna out of coat hangers and plywood using these plans. My antenna looks goofy, but it works well — I was able to pull in 15 digital stations with no pre-amplifier and without having to mount the antenna in my attic or on my roof.

Behold!  (Click to embiggen.)

Theists are more than welcome to engage me in discussion, but let’s review some basic ground rules of rational debate:

• Be organized. Arrange your thoughts in a structured, coherent manner. Address one topic at a time, gradually building toward a conclusion.
• Be concise. Thoroughly develop your ideas and explain your points, but don’t ramble on endlessly.
• Support your assertions. Factual claims need to be backed up with evidence.  It is not acceptable to quote from “holy” books in ways that assume that these texts are reliable sources.  For example, to a Christian who would support his position with the Bible: would you, as a non-Muslim, accept the truth claims made by the Koran as evidence?  Obviously not, so why would you expect a non-Christian to accept the claims of the Bible?
• Understand the opposing position. Between the Internet and dead-tree publications, there is a staggering amount of information available about any conceivable subject, including atheism. Arguing from a flawed understanding of atheism is not conducive to a productive discussion and is inexcusable.  (I strongly recommend reading Ebon Musings).
• Be open-minded. Follow the evidence wherever it leads. If your position fails to withstand rational analysis, be prepared to discard it.  I went through this transformation (deconversion) and, while it was not pleasant, I can assure you that the clear air of rationalism is vastly preferable to the hopelessly illogical morass of theism.

I would now like to direct your attention to a comment whose author has demonstrated epic failure to grasp these basic, intuitive principles.  At 4,118 words (the equivalent of eleven double-spaced printed pages), this jumbled mess of craziness falls far short of being worthy of a line-by-line rebuttal.  I invite the author to revise his “essay” according to the above principles and re-submit it for consideration.

However, having briefly skimmed it, I do feel the need to address some of the commenter’s more egregious statements:

It has been brought to my attention and concern that you feel you have renounced Christ and his gift to all who believe.

I do not “feel” that I have renounced Christianity. I have renounced it.  Period.  This is a matter of public record and has been made abundantly clear, on this blog and elsewhere.  (Feel free to select the “Religion” tag and read my history of posts along these lines.)

I will first address your skepticism with the knowledge and grace given to me through Christ before I bring in the calvary in the form of John Calvin, Thomas Aquinas, William Law, and many other devout in the Christian faith.

You meant “cavalry”. “Calvary” is, according to your mythology, the place where the founder of your cult died.

God never expected his children to follow his will without conflict and question. It is quite the opposite, the Lord our God invites us to question his ways so that we may better understand him.

Really?  Your “holy” book seems to disagree.

O’ how we live in such an unbelieving world that demands answers and rejects faith!

You say that like it’s a bad thing.

You seem to reject the notion of faith and place folly on those who hold it true. I rebuke such a foolish and worldly statement.

Again, please work on your reading comprehension skills.  (See, two can play at the rudeness game.)  I don’t “seem to reject the notion of faith” — I do, explicitly and without equivocation, reject the idea that “faith” is a virtue.  Faith is a cop-out, a construct invented by theists to excuse the fact that their beliefs are not supported by evidence and do not cohere with reality. Feel free to take your “rebuke” and perform any number of anatomically improbable procedures with it.

Full trust in science is full trust in our senses. As humans however we are fallible. Our senses thus can be fallible. In other words by your own logic once again this is proven unsound. To have faith in science which is based on even small occasional fallible senses is unsound and foolishness.

First, the notion of having “faith in science” is absurd.  Science is accepted as a useful tool because it is coherent, logical, evidence-based and productive — at no point does blind belief have anything to do with it.

Second, given that human minds are fallible and can make mistakes, how do you know that theism (either in general, or your specific type) is correct?  Science is all about rigorous testing, evaluation and verification, and is thus self-correcting even when carried out by human minds that are vulnerable to making mistakes.  Religion offers no such mechanism.  You believe that the Bible is perfectly correct, but as a fallible human, how can you be sure of that?  Aren’t you just trusting your own mind?  Please see this post.

There are truths of moral action that are held as good for the common people around the whole world since the beginning of time. Everyone knows that it is better to tell the truth and not lie or not to steal. However, if this is governed by chemical reactions why would that be my ultimate reason for not doing so.

The argument from common morality?  Yawn.  Morality does not come from a deity; it is a product of secular reasoning.

If you posit that there is a God who is the source of all morality, you run into Euthypro’s Dilemma: “Does God approve of something because it is good, or is it good because God approves of it? If the former is the case, then there is an objective standard of morality outside of God, and we can simply bypass God and appeal to this standard directly. But if the latter is the case, then good and evil would be entirely determined by God’s whims, and there would be no genuine objective morality, and thus no moral order, at all. In this respect, the moral argument is self-defeating.” (Source.)

Please don’t just copy-and-paste long-discredited apologetic arguments.  It’s boring and a waste of everyone’s time.

Whether senses are used or not all thoughts, feelings, and experiences are verified by the mind. Such a dreadful waste if it were to be thrown away at the end of our time.

Yes, it is a terrible waste that humans die, that our bodies turn to dust, that our knowledge is erased, and that our relationships end.  However, reality is not controlled by our desires — wishing for something doesn’t make it so.  The fact that human lives end, and the unpleasantness of that simple truth, does not make belief in a magic afterlife at all reasonable.

Religion exists around the world since the beginning of time and the afterlife holds true to them all. How could this be unless God has made this idea innate to them? People hope that they wont waste away after death and for good reason; its because they wont. There mind wont let them think that and if they do it is because they fall into denial from truth.

There is a perfectly reasonable naturalistic explanation: humans tend to be gullible, not rational.  The promise of a pleasant afterlife was invented by religion as a way to comfort people who are scared of death.

Grace and peace to you from God our father and the Lord Jesus Christ. [...] Praise be to God and his overflowing mercies.

This is a discussion, not a sermon.  Interspersing benedictions makes you sound even sillier than you otherwise would.

“Whatever is moved is moved by another. It is evident to sense that something is moved, for example, the sun. Therefore, is is moved by some other mover. And either that mover is moved or not. If it is moved, the thesis is proved that it is necessary to hold that there is something moving that is immobile. This is God.”

Once again, recycling tired apologetics will get you nowhere.  The argument from design is asinine on its face.  Who or what created God?  How can you claim that the universe couldn’t “just exist”, and then argue with a straight face that it was magically poofed into existence by a God who “just exists”? That doesn’t solve the problem; it just pushes it back one step and introduces an unnecessary entity, violating Occam’s Razor (the principle of parsimony).

It is foolish to demand acts of God and proof of his existence for he is made known to all.

What’s foolish is to claim that there is sufficient proof of the existence of any god.  Your “proof” is evidence of nothing more than the gullibility of delusional human beings.

I voted this morning in Ypsilanti Township, Washtenaw County, Michigan.  The precinct in question used a Diebold voting machine (and we all know that Diebold isn’t just “in the tank” for Republicans; they actually built the damn tank).

When I approached the machine with my Obama/Biden ballot, the LCD readout indicated “TOT COUNT: 403″.  Four hundred three is a reasonable number of total ballots counted, since I voted around 10:15 AM in a small precinct.

I inserted my ballot, which the machine promptly accepted.  I watched the display, and “TOT COUNT” stayed at 403.  I waited ten seconds or so, and it still didn’t increment to 404.  I brought this to the attention of the elderly “inspector”, who dismissed my concern and assured me that my ballot had been counted.

I hope I’m wrong, and that “TOT COUNT” doesn’t mean what I think it means, and that my vote for the Democratic presidential ticket (and a slew of Libertarian candidates for other offices) wasn’t cheerfully delivered to the bit-bucket.

One of the theists with whom I frequently spar recently wrote the following. The reply that follows is the comment that I left on her post.

Do we truly live in a world that does not need God? Do we have the bird’s eye view of all things to know that there is nothing that transcends nature?

Can you point out any instances in which an atheist of the freethought variety has claimed that we definitively know that there is no supernatural realm? Or is this just another one of your straw men?

I’m guessing that it’s the latter: that you are either ignorant of the freethought atheist position or are purposely misrepresenting it.

The proposition that there is a supernatural realm is not supported by any reliable evidence, and thus we reject it on a provisional basis. If acceptable evidence were to turn up, we’d be happy to re-examine this (or any) claim.

So far, all of the purported “evidence” presented by theists (when they aren’t trumpeting the virtues of blind faith) has not been convincing: subjective personal testimonies, flawed philosophical arguments, vague prophecies, pseudo-scientific nonsense like creationism and biblical numerology, etc.

To explain the available data, there is only one explanation that is coherent and parsimonious: there is no supernatural realm, or if there is, it has no effect upon the natural realm and is therefore meaningless.

I found myself in a gun-control debate earlier today.

Alex Weaver:

So far as I can tell, keeping and bearing arms in civil life is a means for certain kinds of people to assuage deep and overwhelming emotional insecurities, not a rational response to any threat faced by our present society.

My response:

That’s quite the stereotype. Would you happen to have any evidence demonstrating that law-abiding firearms owners must have such insecurities?

[Another commenter] is correct to point out that concealed carry is useless against car-bombing and other such indirect methods of attack, but you (Alex) went far beyond that to decry defensive weapons use entirely (including a potent dose of ad hominem for good measure).

Are you prepared to back up the assertion that, facing an assailant who is armed with a gun, a knife, a baseball bat, or even just muscular strength and who is intent on committing murder, rape, and/or the infliction of serious bodily injury, it is irrational for innocent parties to have available a reliable method available to deter said attacker?

I’m no “gun nut” (although I suspect you would disagree). I fully support reasonable efforts to block the sale of firearms to those who are morally deficient and/or mentally unstable, and to dramatically strengthen the training, skill, and background check requirements for concealed carry permits. However, I cannot comprehend the reasoning of the ultra-dogmatic anti-gun position.

Criminal defense aside, suppose the government’s recent headlong plunge into tyranny continues unabated. Would this not constitute an ever-growing threat toward rational, liberal society? Are you so steeped in anti-firearm sentiment that you would deny everyone the means to throw off another repressive government, should that become necessary? (If you contend that small arms are insufficient to resist a modern superpower army, please direct your attention to Iraq.)

Alex Weaver:

Kevin, none of what you posted has any coherent relationship to either my actual position or my statements. Observing that the comments of Christopher here and in other threads, and of most others I’ve encountered who share his views, appear to reflect an intense emotional “need” to possess weapons in general and firearms in particular which is entirely divorced from the level of actual risk of the person in question facing any of the scenarios you describe, but which may be highly relevant to the level of threat posed to other citizens in connection with the gratification of said “need,” and is not even an anti-gun position, let alone “ultra-dogmatic.”

What I posted has a very straightforward, coherent relationship to Alex’s attack on gun owners. He made two assertions: (1) that gun ownership is a method for assuaging emotional insecurities, and (2) that gun ownership is not a rational response to any modern threat. I requested evidence for the first assertion, since the burden of proof is on the accuser, and provided two strong rebuttal examples to the second assertion (defense against criminals and defense against tyranny).

If Alex had claimed that a subset of gun owners, in his experience, exhibit emotional immaturity, I would not have objected, but there was no such disclaimer. If he had claimed that, for any given person living in a modern society, the level of risk of an attack in which a defensive firearm could prove useful was rather low, I likewise would not have objected, and that likewise was not even remotely made clear.

The statement that “bearing arms is [...] not a rational response”, without appropriate qualification, is dogmatic. I will be more than happy to consider retracting my assertion of Alex’s ultra-dogmatism pending further clarification toward that end.

I have no idea whether Alex will follow me over here, but he (or anyone) is free to jump into this discussion at any time.

The righty-tighties are up in arms over Planned Parenthood’s tax-exempt status:

A Minnesota conservative is calling for an end to the tax-exempt status and public financing of the country’s largest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood. According to Planned Parenthood’s latest annual report, the organization received more than $1 billion from revenues — nearly one-third of that figure came from “government grants and contracts.”

“Planned Parenthood brings in over a billion dollars in revenues, pays no taxes, and sits at the end of the year fat and happy with $115 million in the bank and brazenly works to go after affluent women rather than helping out poor women [...]“, said Bachmann.

Bachmann was one of several Republican lawmakers who denounced the abortion provider during a recent one-hour pro-life Special Order on the House floor called by Congressman Chris Smith (R-New Jersey). “We didn’t have one Democrat come to the floor and call on Planned Parenthood to either live up to their non-profit status or renounce that status, be truthful with the American people, and start paying taxes and not be eligible for any more taxpayer subsidies,” she argues. “As a matter of fact, in Houston, Planned Parenthood announced that they will be building a 75,000-square-foot building. How could that be possible — a 75,000-square-foot building?” Bachmann questions.

She states that, as a former tax lawyer, it has become clear to her that Planned Parenthood no longer fits the mold of a 501(c)3 non-profit and should be paying taxes. And Bachmann questions whether Planned Parenthood really uses public funds to help its efforts for “voter identification and community education” on family-planning issues.

To sum up, a Christian conservative is complaining that Planned Parenthood:

• Receives hundreds of millions of dollars in “government grants and contracts”.
• Brings in billions of dollars, pays no taxes, and sits “fat and happy” with cash in the bank.
• Utilizes large buildings.
• Is not held to its 501(c)(3) obligations.
• Is given a free pass by a major political party.
• Should start paying taxes on its donations and property.

Does that remind you of anything? How about, say, Christianity, which:

• Receives billions of dollars in government grants and contracts.
• Brings in billions of dollars, pays no taxes, and sits “fat and happy” with cash in the bank.
• Utilizes large buildings.
• Is not held to its 501(c)(3) obligations.
• Is given a free pass by a major political party.
• Should start paying taxes on its donations and property.

(When a Republican Senator dared to break ranks and investigate the activities of some ludicrously wealthy tax-exempt “ministries”, the Radical Right chose to retaliate instead of comply. How Christian of them.)

I’m willing to have a reasonable discussion about the role that Planned Parenthood should have in our society, especially concerning public funding, but the Radical Right should attend to the plank in its eye before whining gratuitously about specks elsewhere, mmmkay?

Here’s my comment on Crackergate (background, fight, fight, fight, whine, blah, whine, blah, blah, blah, whine, blah, blah, blah, whine, conclusion):

I applaud PZ’s actions. He has taken a lot of flack over this, even from within the freethought community. I want to make my stance perfectly clear: sending death threats over the alleged mistreatment of a magic voodoo cracker is insane… “words fail me” insane. Intentionally disrespecting this retarded belief is exactly the right thing to do.

Customer (Kevin DeGraaf) 07/29/2008 10:10 AM

Do you have an API for ordering prints (or at least assembling a shopping cart that can be manually purchased)?

Response (Courteney A) 07/29/2008 07:01 PM

Dear Kevin,
Thank you for contacting Shutterfly.

Shutterfly do have a shopping cart. This allows you to return later to place an order that you had been working on. This also ensures that an order you were working on is not lost if you sign out of your account or close your browser window. For your convenience, Shutterfly will save the contents of your shopping cart for a limited time (10 days) after you sign out. For more information about the shopping cart, please refer to the link below:

Title: Shopping Cart Overview
URL: http://crmweb.shutterfly.com/cgi-bin/helpfly.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=111&p_created=1127316234

If you need further assistance, please feel free to contact us.

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