George, calling Ron "naive" when you haven't looked into the facts is abusive and wrong-headed behavior -- it suppresses rather than enhances the conversation.

I invite you to apologize, and to post here the demographics of the uninsured from the most detailed source you can find.

Then you won't be calling someone "naive" because their intuition fails to line up with your intuition, and we'll be having the respectful conversation that we, and this topic, all deserve.

According to one source: "At least 18 million of the uninsured are under the age of 35 and earn more than enough to purchase health insurance that would cost less than $100 per month. Many of the uninsured qualify for health care coverage through SCHIP, Medicaid or other existing government programs but for whatever reason, about 11 million simply refuse to take advantage of these taxpayer-funded programs. About 2 million of the remaining Americans receive health care as inmates in our prison system since they use jail, penitentiary or prison mailing addresses. Many of the remaining uninsured would never obtain insurance even if it were offered; they are illegal residents, prostitutes and drug addicts. All of these residents currently receive good medical care in emergency rooms or free clinics."

From another: http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/52405

Obama Again Inflates Number of Uninsured Americans--Falsely Claiming '46 Million of Our Fellow Citizens Have No Coverage'

In fact, the latest available government statistics on the number of uninsured in America comes from the Census Bureau’s “Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2007,” which is published every August. (The Census Bureau report that will estimate the number of uninsured in 2008 will be released later this month.)

The current report says that there were 35.920 million uninsured U.S. citizens and 9.737 million uninsured foreign nationals in the United States.

Table 6 on page 22 of the report says that in 2007 there were a total of 45.657 million uninsured people residing in the United States. The table provides a breakout on the demographics of these 45.657 uninsured, indicating that it includes 33.269 million native born citizens and 2.651 million naturalized citizens, for a total of 35.920 U.S. citizens who are uninsured.

The report also states there were also 9.737 million persons in the United States in 2007 who were “not a citizen” and who did not have health insurance.

The Census Bureau does not ask people their legal status, so the report does not indicate how many of these 9.737 million uninsured foreign nationals were illegal aliens, or legal permanent residents, or people studying or working in the United States.

Steve: There is a difference between calling an argument dishonest and calling a person dishonest. And it's a third thing to claim an argument is wrong because the person is obviously dishonest because of X.

Read closely:

1. "Joe gives argument A, however argument A is dishonest - it relies on 'facts' that are untrue."

2. Joe repeats argument A, so Joe is dishonest.

3. Argument A is false because Joe is dishonest.

Note that statement #1 says nothing about Joe's honesty -- he could believe argument A is true and be mistaken.

Statement #3 is the Ad Hominem attack -- trying to establish the truth value of an argument by calling the person names.

I used statement #1. Eric Basir used statement #3.

You apparently felt defensive because you're a leftist. Transcend that identity for a moment.

Count up all the distinct, basic arguments favoring Single Payer. Analyze each. When you discover that over 50% of these distinct arguments rely on misdirection, distortion, shameful rhetorical tricks, or outright dishonesty, you will realize that my statement was accurate.

Eric - nice ad hominem attack. There are real solutions available. You're the one name calling and questioning the motives of others. It just damages your credibility.

Read the details of the Switzerland and Singapore models, then tell me you really think Single Payer is better.

"One million NHS patients have been the victims of appalling care in hospitals across Britain, according to a major report released today," London's Daily Telegraph reports:

In the last six years, the Patients Association claims hundreds of thousands have suffered from poor standards of nursing, often with "neglectful, demeaning, painful and sometimes downright cruel" treatment.

The charity has disclosed a horrifying catalogue of elderly people left in pain, in soiled bed clothes, denied adequate food and drink, and suffering from repeatedly cancelled operations, missed diagnoses and dismissive staff.

The Patients Association said the dossier proves that while the scale of the scandal at Mid-Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust--where up to 1,200 people died through failings in urgent care--was a one off, there are repeated examples they have uncovered of the same appalling standards throughout the NHS.

"One million NHS patients have been the victims of appalling care in hospitals across Britain, according to a major report released today," London's Daily Telegraph reports:

In the last six years, the Patients Association claims hundreds of thousands have suffered from poor standards of nursing, often with "neglectful, demeaning, painful and sometimes downright cruel" treatment.

The charity has disclosed a horrifying catalogue of elderly people left in pain, in soiled bed clothes, denied adequate food and drink, and suffering from repeatedly cancelled operations, missed diagnoses and dismissive staff.

The Patients Association said the dossier proves that while the scale of the scandal at Mid-Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust--where up to 1,200 people died through failings in urgent care--was a one off, there are repeated examples they have uncovered of the same appalling standards throughout the NHS.

The Calgary Herald reported in June 2007 that "an internal hospital investigation has concluded the high-profile death of a Calgary teen from appendicitis could not have been prevented, although health officials promised Tuesday to make several changes to the medical system following the case":

But the family of Jordan Johanson--who died in March following a 12-hour wait for surgery on his burst appendix--maintains the young man could have been saved had he received timely treatment.

"A Montreal man, bed-ridden with acute appendicitis, waited six hours for an ambulance Thursday after calling 911 four times, raising concerns the city's emergency-response service is putting patients at risk," the Montreal Gazette reported last month:

Even as 57-year-old Jean-Marc Gagné lay begging to be taken to an emergency room, more than half of Montreal's fleet of ambulances sat idle at hospitals around the city.

Urgences Santé has lots of ambulances but not enough paramedics to fill them, according to the Montreal agency's chief of operations, Benoît Garneau.

Sounds like just clumsy negotiating. Trying to trade the empty promise of supposed future work for a hard dollar discount today.

Part of being a professional is to deliver services with quality. Another part is to handle the negotiations well.

Sara, I predict you'll do even better in future when you don't take negotiation gambits personally. Treat them -- interpret them -- as valuable information about the other person's mindset.

If he asks you to do a "good" job it likely means he's had serious quality problems before. He's really looking for reassurance.

If he asks for a discount, it's a fabulous opening to tell him how much discount you give to folks who prepay. Since his offer is empty, ignore it and make a positive statement, such as "I do offer a 10% discount when a client prepays for three or more articles."

If he presses it and wants a discount in exchange for an empty promise, just laugh lightly and say "You're going to get a great value at my regular price, and you're going to be very happy with the results. For a single article, my price is my price. When would you like to get started?"

When you only know one answer, you tend to see the question narrowly.

Canada's system may work for Canada -- though their own experts admit it's failing.

For the US, much better models of real universal coverage can be found in Switzerland and Singapore -- both cover 100% of citizens, and neither are plagued by the waiting lists or the crushing bureaucracy of the Canadian and UK systems.

Most leftist defenses of Single Payer for the US, like Bryce's, rely on misdirection, distortion, shameful rhetorical tricks, or outright dishonesty. (Notice he ignores three different GOP health reform plans that fix all of his stated complaints, but without a government takeover of health care.)

To recap his 10 points:

1. apples and oranges: health care != police
2. dishonest: Congress' coverage (FEBPS) is provided by private companies
3. irrelevant: Plan A's flaws don't make Plan B less flawed
4. straw man
5. straw man
6. straw man
7. dishonest: every government sponsored "competitor" gets subsidized by taxpayers who thus get exposed to massive unfunded risks, i.e. Fannie Mae. No government backed "competitor" has ever worked as Bryce is advertising 8: straw man 9: straw man 10: straw woman plus ad hominem

See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

If this is the best the Left can do, no wonder the rush to Socialism is in trouble.

I used to be more of a believer in the "sandwich" approach. Then I experienced some negative reactions. When the only time someone gives praise is when they're about to criticize, the praise itself becomes dreaded.

Before that starts to happen, work on giving recognition and praise alone when it's deserved. Create an atmosphere of positivity.

Not a bad start - so tell me, what would a follow up system look like, in your mind? How would a disorganized person start changing their approach?

Ditto the above. The only way to make this even better might be some brief examples or anecdotes, or some how-to advice. If I'm to "hold everyone accountable" -- what does that mean exactly, what would it look like, and how could I tell if it's happening or not?

A great start -- I'd have liked it even more if there were more detail and more examples.

Allan -

Your article reminds me of Mintzberg's "The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning" -- he shares your skepticism of over-planning and the over-promising too often associated with strategic plans.

Thanks for sharing.

Not impressive.

1. A "do and don't" list should not list the same basic point in both sections -- either say "do fill out the profile" OR say "don't leave the profile blank". Putting in both is redundant and reads like you're trying to pad the article.

2. Leave the exclamation points in middle school. Overuse comes across as juvenile.

I'd have preferred a shorter list with more content, and some reasoning -- the "why" behind each recommendation.

If it's true (as I believe) that all true change comes from within, then the nurturing approach will do a better job of calling forth that change.