Trollin, Trollin, Trollin

Megan wants attention. Alas, we exist to give it to her, though at least it's not the kind she wants. A not shorter, then shorters.

Sigh:

Ezra complains that I called him a communist, or ignored the TOTALLY AWESOME EXAMPLES OF NATIONAL HEALTH CARE in order to compare it to the Soviet Union, which we all agree sucks. [sic - ain't no USSR no more]
Uh, no.
I said that these arguments about administrative costs and rationalizing production and eliminating wasteful competition turn out not to be nearly as good arguments as they initially sound.

Odd as this may sound, Megan is completely right. She "said" these things, she didn't argue them. Arguing a point requires providing your partners in debate, or those listening in, good reasons to adopt your position, whereas Megan operates on the basis that it being her position is reason enough. I can say that I am worth $11 trillion and that being a libertarian literally causes cancer in babies, but...
It's hard for me to believe that even Megan, or anyone, thinks Europe doesn't produce any kinds of innovations in medicine or any other field, but apparently she does. That said, I still can't parse the following;

But I'd argue that the difference is that Germany and France, unlike the Soviet Union, have companies which produce in American markets to provide them products.

I mean I honestly don't know what she's even trying to say. Germany and France develop new products because we develop them for them by buying the products they develop? What?
The onslaught of stupid that follows is too extraordinary not to note.

One key thing to remember is that there's a big difference between a situation where the government is a sizeable buyer/producer, and one where the government is essentially the only buyer/producer. ....
Look at defense spending. ... virtually everyone thinks defense procurement is an overpriced disaster, which gets innovation only at drastic cost. Unfortunately, there's no other way to go about it.

... I... How do you even respond to that? There's no other way to defend the nation but to allow military contractors to inflate their prices to the tune of untold billions. After all, up until the military industrial complex formed following WWII, we had never lost a war. Then we tied in Korea and lost Vietnam, obviously there's no other way.

Right now, the US has a market--no matter how screwed up--for medical goods. It is not a good market. But no one in the market, except Medicare, has enough pricing power to totally undermine the market mechanism, so it grinds out an equilibrium that bears some resemblance to consumer demand. In turn, Europe can buy those market-produced products. But if you kill the last market, everything suddenly looks very different. What's the right price for innovation? What should we research? Those questions stop being decided on the basis of the number of consumers served, and start being decided on the basis of who has the best lobby.

I just don't get it. How can Megan, or anyone seemingly literate in the most basic sense, think there are no scientists in Europe, or anywhere else in the world? Does she think the history of the vcr means we invented everything sold in Japan? There's stupid, and there's simply incoherent. The basis of Megan's attempt at an argument here is mindblowingly nonsensical.
And then there's this;

There's one more difference, which is that health care is not transportable.

This is why the organization Doctors Without Borders is actually a Dadaist art troupe who perform "operations" using giant prop bodies and surgical tools.
And she closes with something a medical executive told her;

But as anyone who has lived in Europe can attest, the beliefs about what happens in America are ludicrous. And I'm not talking about "the man on the street"; I'm talking about journalists, politicians, doctors. It's not uncommon for Americans getting treatment in Europe to be asked "You'd never be able to afford this in America, right?" by their doctors and nurses, when "this" is stitches or antibiotics. I'd be terrified of switching places with an American too, if American health care were actually one eighth as bad as most Europeans seem to believe. Yet despite that, as far as I know the net migration is actually the other way.

Yes, then they ask the American not to shoot them, then they say "Eugh-haugh-haugh!"

But the main point is not that one system is better than the other.

And as Sarah Palin argued, the real quitters are the ones who don't quit.

Question Answered:

Look, all I'm saying is that Obama's inability to fix the economy in under six months means the previous 80 years' worth of data regarding the relative performance of the economy during Democratic versus Republican Presidencies is now inapplicable. If you can't handle that, you have the problem, not me.

A Public Plan and the Law of Unintended Consequences:

Dear Hilzoy, please forget that you're done dealing with my intellectually dishonest self and give us a link?

The Politics of the Possible:

I bet I can be so annoying you HAVE to link to me, Krugman. Dammit, I need traffic.

Sasha Baron-Cohen Strikes Again:

Why is she writing a movie review, and why does it read like a short paper stretched out to meet a word count?

We went and saw Bruno last night.

Or, "we saw Bruno last night". English major.

And we're done. Nutella and Susan are right, Megan is in a manic phase. She must be feeling up because of the engagement. She's not even trying to hide the stupid, in a way I like it, it makes this much easier.