Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: heric Date: 29 Aug 09 - 06:27 PM Don't be sold an 80's Chrysler with photovoltaics glued to the roof and labeled as a "Green Car," because that is exactly the path we are currently on. |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: heric Date: 29 Aug 09 - 06:16 PM I didn't even know that Wyden-Bennett was out there as a contender. Destruction of the employment based model is Reform. Public Option is Reform. They are not mutally exclusive - they are highly compatible. (Employer mandates and insurer mandates are incrementalism. Don't let's be fooled by naming games.) |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: heric Date: 29 Aug 09 - 06:09 PM (but let's not get sidetracked as we have been for a thousand posts now.) Single payer / NHS is NOT an option and never was. Public option and its possible betrayal is the main issue. Promised reform versus de facto incrementalism (which is what got us to where we are) is an issue. |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: heric Date: 29 Aug 09 - 06:04 PM . . and even more whole truth |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: dick greenhaus Date: 29 Aug 09 - 05:54 PM Heric- The whole truth, please. "Survival in the USA is high on a global scale but varies quite widely among individual states as well as between blacks and whites within the USA," he tells WebMD. The highest survival rates were found in the U.S. for breast and prostate cancer, in Japan for colon and rectal cancers in men, and in France for colon and rectal cancers in women, Coleman's team reports. In Canada and Australia, survival was also high for most cancers. The highest survival rates were found in the U.S. for breast and prostate cancer, in Japan for colon and rectal cancers in men, and in France for colon and rectal cancers in women, Coleman's team reports. |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: heric Date: 29 Aug 09 - 05:52 PM In my opinion this is by far the best article that has appeared in any newspaper this month: Hit the Reset Button |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: Alice Date: 29 Aug 09 - 05:43 PM A friend/coworker of mine just told me our company health insurance (Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas) won't pay for her mammogram because they say she has a pre-existing condition, even though she has never had cancer. |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: Don Firth Date: 29 Aug 09 - 03:57 PM To get a grasp of what drives the American health care "system," this would be an hour well spent (aired last night): CLICKY. Don Firth |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 29 Aug 09 - 01:54 PM the US is in a position of needing to dismantle the existing system before it can errect a new one, That just isn't true, and it isn't how things are done, unless you are Pol Pot or similar. The system of health care that existed in Britain before 1948 wasn't "dismantled", it was either incorporated into the NHS, or it continued, and continues, alongside it. A major reform to the medical insurance system in the USA, which would mean that everyone was covered, and that it would no longer be possible for private insurance companies to exclude people and to rip them off is perfectly achievable, and does not involve "dismantling the previous system". If it caused a shake out of the private insurance companies, all to the good, and could lead hopefully to a situation in which for-profit insurance companies were no longer a significant part of the scene. Private health insurance in the UK manages very healthily without such companies. There would be no reason for any upheaval in the actual medical provision - family doctors would continue to be famiy doctors, hospitals would continue to be hospitals. Changes and improvements could come on stream as the need for them was recognised. The system that emerged would be different from that in other countries, just as is true in these various countries. But there's no reason it shouldn't be a perfectly good system, providing quality affordable health care to all, just as all these other countries manage to do. |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: heric Date: 29 Aug 09 - 01:53 PM . . . and we certainly don't want a system like the UK's where cancer survival is abysmal. We're not going to let people die just to say "Me and my neighbors get lots of free shit!" |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: CarolC Date: 29 Aug 09 - 01:28 PM The US can't really be said to have a health care "system". What it has is a lack of a system, so there is nothing to dismantle. What the US has is a health care market, which is something else entirely. So what needs to be done is to build a health care system, as other countries have done. We're in a much better situation for doing that than they were when they built theirs, since we can learn a lot from the systems that are being used in other countries, and their successes and failures. We can also learn from the successes and failures of other countries about the best way to approach the question of how to define our community. The only reason we don't currently have a universal health care system is as noted above, we are in bondage to huge corporate interests that only care about money and don't care how many people have to die in order for them to maximize their profits and enrich their shareholders. |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: Riginslinger Date: 29 Aug 09 - 12:32 PM And Chongo Chimp can be found in many threads! "Like many people who have posted here, as a European, I find it hard to comprehend why the most powerful and wealthy nation at this time can't or simply won't extend such universal care to its community." Emma - As previously posted, the US is in a postition of needing to dismantle the existing system before it can errect a new one, or it has to do both at the same time. And before it can extend universal care to its community, it has to define what its community is. That's how the discussion got off on anthropological issues in the first place. |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: Little Hawk Date: 29 Aug 09 - 10:34 AM His presence here is about as appropriate as Chongo Chimp's would be... |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 29 Aug 09 - 10:22 AM Kennewick Man may deserve his own thread, buty he surely doesn't belong in this one. |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: Little Hawk Date: 29 Aug 09 - 10:11 AM Because it is in bondage to huge monied interests that are privately owned, Emma, and whose actions are intended to benefit themselves, not the general public. It is a financial Oligarchy, intent on securing profits. |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: Emma B Date: 29 Aug 09 - 10:00 AM I know little about Kennewick Man apart from what I have read on the web; however, in a neolithic tomb on Orkney built around 3,000 BC of the remains of some 342 individuals (probably covering several generations) some were found to have abnormalities that would indicate a severe genetic disability in the population probably resulting in blindness and deafness etc. Nevertheless these individuals lived to the same adult age as their contempories showing that even these (primitive, by our standards) ancestors had care and concern for those in their community not so fortunate as themselves. Like many people who have posted here, as a European, I find it hard to comprehend why the most powerful and wealthy nation at this time can't or simply won't extend such universal care to its community. |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: Little Hawk Date: 29 Aug 09 - 09:47 AM It doesn't matter anyway. All humanity are of one spirit, and they would be wise to act that way and get along with each other harmoniously and help one another. |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: CarolC Date: 29 Aug 09 - 09:34 AM So we can say that Kennewick man, regardless of where in the world he originated (and the latest findings are that he is most closely related to the Ainu of Japan), is not indicative of anything at all at this time. |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: Riginslinger Date: 29 Aug 09 - 09:23 AM "NHS started in 1948. Not exactly "a couple of decades" after the war." Thanks for the clarification, McGrath. Like I said, the European systems developed after the war. The American system started before the war was over and has been evolving for decades since that time. There have been skeletal remains found older than Shuka Kaa, they just haven't been able to extract DNA yet. |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: CarolC Date: 29 Aug 09 - 01:34 AM The skeletal remains known as Shuka Kaa are older than those of Kennewick man and DNA testing has linked him to native people all the way from Alaska to Peru. All of that aside, though, everyone benefits when all have access to good health care, and everyone pays when all of us don't have access to good health care. All other considerations are just distractions. People had been using horses and wagons for centuries prior to the 20th century and we changed that in a very short period of time, even though that had been an ongoing practice for much longer than a few decades. We can do it with regard to health care as well, especially considering the fact that there are quite a few working models that we can learn from that are already in existence. We don't have to reinvent the wheel. |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: Little Hawk Date: 28 Aug 09 - 09:23 PM WHOAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!! By God, they really had a gift for OUTRAGE back then!!! And for absolute, total bullshit too. Perhaps some progress has been made in the past 180 years... ;-D |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: dick greenhaus Date: 28 Aug 09 - 09:02 PM The kind of negative campaigning that's going on now is nothing new. For a bit of perspective, here the full text of a poster from the 1830s, circulated by canal, steamboat, toll road and stagecoach interests (there's a woodcut at the top showing a child being crushed by a train while an unfortunate carriage is being flung off to othe side). MOTHERS LOOK OUT FOR YOUR CHILDREN! ARTISANS, MECHANICS, CITIZENS! When you leave your family in health, must you be hurried home to mourn a DREADFUL CASUALTY! PHILADELPHIANS, your RIGHTS are being invaded! Regardless of your interests, or the LIVES OF YOUR LITTLE ONES. THE CAMDEN AND AMBOY, with the assistance of other companies Without a Charter, and in VIOLATION OF THE LAW, as decreed by your courts, are laying a LOCOMOTIVE RAIL ROAD ! Through your most Beautiful Streets to the RUIN of your TRADE, annihilation of your RIGHTS and regard- less of your PROSPERITY and COMFORT. Will you permit this? Or do you consent to be a SUBURB OF NEW YORK ! ! Rails are now being laid on BROAD STREET to CONNECT the TRENTON RAIL ROAD with the WILMING- TON and BALTIMORE ROAD, under the pretense of constructing a City Passenger Railway from the Navy Yard to Fairmount ! ! This is done under the auspices of the CAMDEN AND AMBOY MONOPLOY ! RALLY PEOPLE in the Majesty of your Strength and forbid THIS O U T R A G E ! |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies) Date: 28 Aug 09 - 08:16 PM Lets do the timewarp? US in the darkages, everyone else with the programme. No story.. |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 28 Aug 09 - 08:09 PM NHS started in 1948. Not exactly "a couple of decades" after the war. |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: Riginslinger Date: 28 Aug 09 - 07:34 PM It puzzles me that people fail to see that these things are all interconnected. But leaving that behind, the US got started with private health insurance during WWII because companies couldn't offer employee raises. So health insurance being tied to work was already in place when the European nations began to rebuild after the war. That being the case, health insurance evolved along different lines than it did in other parts of the developed world. So the US is faced with having to change something that has been ongoing for a number of decades. Other developed nations were able to start anew without pre-existing conditions. |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: Don Firth Date: 28 Aug 09 - 07:31 PM The jury is still out on Kennewick man. I used to live in Kennewick, while I was working at a radio station in Pasco, across the Columbia River. I've heard two different reports as to where Kennewick man's bones were found: one, that he was found in Columbia Park, just up the pike from the town of Kennewick by a couple of people (Will Thomas and David Deacy) attending the annual "Atomic Cup" hydroplane races on the Columbia River. Another, that he was found on the shores of the lake raised by McNary dam, downriver from Kennewick. The bones now reside in the Burke Museum at the University of Washington, just a ten minute drive from where I now live in Seattle. Analysis is still under way and not many conclusions have been arrived at yet. It is not certain where Kennewick man came from. Some 9,000 years ago, there were several waves of migrant hunters who followed game herds over ice bridges, and although many anthropologists and paleontologists think he might have been Caucasian, that is uncertain. And trying to claim that he was one of the "original" settlers and what we now consider to be Native Americans are the "immigrants" is hypothetical at best. Kennewick man apparently died with an arrowhead in his body. So—who done it? Maybe someone who regarded himself as one of the original settlers and Kennewick man as an unwelcome immigrant. I wouldn't try to base any kind of argument about immigrants, or who got here first, on Kennewick man. Don Firth |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: gnu Date: 28 Aug 09 - 07:17 PM 1000 posts. Sad. |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: Donuel Date: 28 Aug 09 - 07:10 PM npr had a show tonight with the actual recordings of debates for national health care going back to 1912 to Teddy Roosevelt and up to the 50s 60s and 70s |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 28 Aug 09 - 07:06 PM Even so, none of their descendants would be likely to have lived in Europe. It might be interesting if it were true that some of the ancestors of today's Native Americans might have come from Europe. But it wouldn't have any other significance, or given later immigrants from this side of the Atlantic any special birthright in the American continent. Silly drift. Start a thread about it if you want to discuss it. It doesn't belong in here. ...................... What's the line of the oppositionists on proposals to stop insurance companies imposing "pre-existing conditions" exclusions, and so forth? Is that seen as "socialist" as well? |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: Little Hawk Date: 28 Aug 09 - 07:02 PM Well said indeed. |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: Don Firth Date: 28 Aug 09 - 06:56 PM ". . . rather silly politicking by people who, whatever their public posturing might proclaim, pretty clearly have very little love for millions of their fellow Americans, and absolutely no confidence in the ability of their country to do something that all other developed countries have managed to do." Kevin, may I quote you to some of my fellow Americans? That's the situation in a nutshell. Well said! Don Firth |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: Riginslinger Date: 28 Aug 09 - 06:50 PM There are several pre-clovis finds. Kennewick Man was one of them, and there is nothing to debunk about it. |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 28 Aug 09 - 06:25 PM Any "descendants of Kennewick Man" would presumably be Native Americans. Accepting for a moment that there might be credible evidence about his origins, he might have had some European ancestors, but it's hard to see how he could have had any European descendants. This is silly drift anyway. ........................ But then it's a thread about some rather silly politicking by people who, whatever their public posturing might proclaim, pretty clearly have very little love for millions of their fellow Americans, and absolutely no confidence in the ability of their country to do something that all other developed countries have managed to do. |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: CarolC Date: 28 Aug 09 - 06:22 PM Here's a good talk with Howard Dean about health care reform. Definitely worth listening to, and lots of questions and answers after the talk... http://fora.tv/2009/07/23/Howard_Deans_Prescription_for_Real_Healthcare_Reform#fullprogram |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: Bobert Date: 28 Aug 09 - 06:15 PM Well, Eugene Robinson had an intreresting take on health care reform in this morning's op-ed... He said that when it comes down to it, liberal and conservative and everyone in between is somewhat resistant to change... Yeah, no gun pointed at their heads and it's business as usual, i.e. the status quo... B~ |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: CarolC Date: 28 Aug 09 - 05:54 PM Well, certainly Hispanics weren't the first people here. But they're hardly newcomers, and they're not more recent than the other Europeans who showed up after Columbus. By the way, that Kennewick man thing was thoroughly debunked, but that's a subject for another thread. |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: Riginslinger Date: 28 Aug 09 - 05:32 PM Of course, it's really a matter of numbers now, but what we call Native Americans today were once immigrants themselves. The descendants of Kennewick Man find that hard to forget. |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: The Barden of England Date: 28 Aug 09 - 05:28 PM Riginslinger - I presume the Native Americans said much the same about the immigrants. Were they right too? John Barden |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: Little Hawk Date: 28 Aug 09 - 05:20 PM Now there's one hell of a good point! You look at all the land the USA grabbed from Mexico in the 1800s, including some of the best land Mexico had back then...boy, it's really something. Why did they grab it? Well, they had the military strength to, right? Ask the Indians about stuff like that. |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: Riginslinger Date: 28 Aug 09 - 05:19 PM Unless such person is a descendant of Kennewick Man, in which case the Hispanics are the squaters. |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: CarolC Date: 28 Aug 09 - 04:49 PM There are millions of old Hispanic people living in this country whose families have been living on the landmass that is currently called the United States of America for more than four hundred years. I think someone is forgetting that the US took quite a lot of land from Spain upon which were living quite a few people who were of Hispanic ancestry. They've probably even been living in on the land that is now this country longer than the family of the person who is saying they don't exist. |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: Little Hawk Date: 28 Aug 09 - 04:33 PM You won't find very many older people who oppose public health care in Canada or Europe, Rig, but there is much immigration from the Third World to Canada and Europe. Immigration is a separate issue to health care. The reason many older Americans oppose it is that they are ignorant of what it's like, fooled by corporate scare propaganda, and clinging to what they are already familiar with in fear of change. It's not uncommon for older people to fear change, and for younger people to support it. It's been happening that way ever since ancient Rome and Egypt, if not long before. |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: Riginslinger Date: 28 Aug 09 - 04:19 PM Really, it has nothing to do with the Irish. There are people with questions as to the motivations of so many older people who openly oppose public health care. I heard young Hispanics make the comment about not wanting to support a bunch of old white people over and over when I lived in California. If folks don't want to take that mind-set into consideration, it's their business. |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: Little Hawk Date: 28 Aug 09 - 03:18 PM Yeah, Rig. It's almost as terrifying as all those filthy Irish coming over in the mid-1800s, isn't it? (satirical remark) |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: Riginslinger Date: 28 Aug 09 - 02:50 PM "But since there's millions of old Hispanic people in the US who depend on those programs right now, it makes absolutely no sense whatever." There ars some older Hispanics, no many. A major portion of the Hispanic population arrived since the disasterous Amnesty Bill of 1986, and there are tens-of-millions of those. |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: Bill D Date: 28 Aug 09 - 02:23 PM "Who has the moral right to say, "That's enough! Raise the drawbridge!" When does 'moral' become superceded by 'practical'? With no limitations, there will come a time, metaphorically, when the drawbridge cannot BE raised because of the crowd standing on it, looking for room. We need to be fair & sensible, but we do need rules. Same with health care, I'm sorry to say. If a cure for acne was discovered but it came from an endangered turtle and cost $10,000, 20,000,000 teenagers would demand treatment. There **WILL* be limitations and restriction in some aspects...access simply cannot be infinite. |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: CarolC Date: 28 Aug 09 - 02:15 PM All of that stuff could possibly make some sort of sense in some possible alternate reality, but only if there were no old Hispanic people currently in the US who depend on medicare and social security. But since there's millions of old Hispanic people in the US who depend on those programs right now, it makes absolutely no sense whatever. |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 28 Aug 09 - 01:44 PM Without immigrants working in providing services our NHS would be in serious trouble. And I suspect the same would be true of health services in the USA. |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: Don Firth Date: 28 Aug 09 - 01:41 PM This is a nation of immigrants. Who has the moral right to say, "That's enough! Raise the drawbridge!" This matter has nothing to do with civilizing our health care system. Don Firth |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: Riginslinger Date: 28 Aug 09 - 01:39 PM If I had a dollar for every time I've heard a young Hispanic say, "I ain't gunna pay money out to support a bunch of old white people," I'd be a multi-millionaire. Some old white people believe them. |