"Libertarian legacy?
Ron Paul's campaign manager, 49, dies uninsured,
of pneumonia,leaving family $400,000 debt of medical
bills.
What a testament to the Libertarian creed, which
abhors the idea of universal health care."
mo

http://tinyurl.com/5davpe

-- Posted on news://freenews.netfront.net - Complaints to --

"Jack" wrote in message
...
"Libertarian legacy?
Ron Paul's campaign manager, 49, dies uninsured,
of pneumonia,leaving family $400,000 debt of medical
bills.
What a testament to the Libertarian creed, which
abhors the idea of universal health care."
mo

What a great country! We don't need no stinking universal health care.
Everyone can buy their own insurance if they want to or not. It don't get no
better than that; we got the best damn health care system in the world.

Hawke

On Fri, 11 Jul 2008 09:38:50 +1200, Jack wrote:

"Libertarian legacy?
Ron Paul's campaign manager, 49, dies uninsured,
of pneumonia,leaving family $400,000 debt of medical
bills.
What a testament to the Libertarian creed, which
abhors the idea of universal health care."
mo

http://tinyurl.com/5davpe

-- Posted on news://freenews.netfront.net - Complaints to --


At least he didn't force his neighborhood, at gun point, to pay his
medical bills.

You really want to be one of the jack booted thugs forcing everyone
around you to cough up the dough for Your Kind... Comrade?
Gunner

"Gunner" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 11 Jul 2008 09:38:50 +1200, Jack wrote:

"Libertarian legacy?
Ron Paul's campaign manager, 49, dies uninsured,
of pneumonia,leaving family $400,000 debt of medical
bills.
What a testament to the Libertarian creed, which
abhors the idea of universal health care."
mo

http://tinyurl.com/5davpe

-- Posted on news://freenews.netfront.net - Complaints to --


At least he didn't force his neighborhood, at gun point, to pay his
medical bills.

You really want to be one of the jack booted thugs forcing everyone
around you to cough up the dough for Your Kind... Comrade?
Gunner

The guy wouldn't owe $400k if the left had it's way...he would have died a long
time ago from lack of treatment.

Gunner wrote:
On Fri, 11 Jul 2008 09:38:50 +1200, Jack wrote:


"Libertarian legacy?
Ron Paul's campaign manager, 49, dies uninsured,
of pneumonia,leaving family $400,000 debt of medical
bills.
What a testament to the Libertarian creed, which
abhors the idea of universal health care."
mo

http://tinyurl.com/5davpe

-- Posted on news://freenews.netfront.net - Complaints to --



At least he didn't force his neighborhood, at gun point, to pay his
medical bills.

You really want to be one of the jack booted thugs forcing everyone
around you to cough up the dough for Your Kind... Comrade?
Gunner

ROFLMAO!
It seems they coughed for you, sometime back, or had you
conveniently forgotten?

-- Posted on news://freenews.netfront.net - Complaints to --

On Fri, 11 Jul 2008 02:46:20 -0400, with neither quill nor qualm, "Tom
Gardner" quickly quoth:


"Gunner" wrote in message
.. .
On Fri, 11 Jul 2008 09:38:50 +1200, Jack wrote:

"Libertarian legacy?
Ron Paul's campaign manager, 49, dies uninsured,
of pneumonia,leaving family $400,000 debt of medical
bills.
What a testament to the Libertarian creed, which
abhors the idea of universal health care."
mo

http://tinyurl.com/5davpe

-- Posted on news://freenews.netfront.net - Complaints to --


At least he didn't force his neighborhood, at gun point, to pay his
medical bills.

You really want to be one of the jack booted thugs forcing everyone
around you to cough up the dough for Your Kind... Comrade?
Gunner

The guy wouldn't owe $400k if the left had it's way...he would have died a long
time ago from lack of treatment.

....and/or misdiagnosis, wrong treatment, or negligence, not to mention
hospital-only totally-antibiotic-resistant strains of ghastly bugs.

Wrong-leg amputations still happen at $7-per-aspirin hospitals.

----------------------------------
VIRTUE...is its own punishment
==================================

I missed the Staff meeting, but the Memos showed that Gunner
wrote on Thu, 10 Jul 2008 23:22:46
-0700 in rec.crafts.metalworking :
On Fri, 11 Jul 2008 09:38:50 +1200, Jack wrote:

"Libertarian legacy?
Ron Paul's campaign manager, 49, dies uninsured,
of pneumonia,leaving family $400,000 debt of medical
bills.
What a testament to the Libertarian creed, which
abhors the idea of universal health care."
mo

http://tinyurl.com/5davpe

-- Posted on news://freenews.netfront.net - Complaints to --


At least he didn't force his neighborhood, at gun point, to pay his
medical bills.

You really want to be one of the jack booted thugs forcing everyone
around you to cough up the dough for Your Kind... Comrade?

You'll notice that Jack hasn't offered even sympathy to the man's
family. Nor even a token five bucks to help with the bills.

Typisch liberal.


pyotr

--
pyotr filipivich
"I had just been through hell and must have looked like death warmed
over walking into the saloon, because when I asked the bartender
whether they served zombies he said, ‘Sure, what'll you have?'"
from I Hear America Swinging by Peter DeVries

I missed the Staff meeting, but the Memos showed that "Tom Gardner"
wrote on Fri, 11 Jul 2008 02:46:20 -0400
in rec.crafts.metalworking :

"Gunner" wrote in message
.. .
On Fri, 11 Jul 2008 09:38:50 +1200, Jack wrote:

"Libertarian legacy?
Ron Paul's campaign manager, 49, dies uninsured,
of pneumonia,leaving family $400,000 debt of medical
bills.
What a testament to the Libertarian creed, which
abhors the idea of universal health care."
mo

http://tinyurl.com/5davpe

-- Posted on news://freenews.netfront.net - Complaints to --


At least he didn't force his neighborhood, at gun point, to pay his
medical bills.

You really want to be one of the jack booted thugs forcing everyone
around you to cough up the dough for Your Kind... Comrade?
Gunner

The guy wouldn't owe $400k if the left had it's way...he would have died a long
time ago from lack of treatment.

"And at what a cost savings."

sarcasm off.

pyotr
--
pyotr filipivich
"I had just been through hell and must have looked like death warmed
over walking into the saloon, because when I asked the bartender
whether they served zombies he said, ‘Sure, what'll you have?'"
from I Hear America Swinging by Peter DeVries

"Larry Jaques" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 11 Jul 2008 02:46:20 -0400, with neither quill nor qualm, "Tom
Gardner" quickly quoth:


"Gunner" wrote in message
. ..
On Fri, 11 Jul 2008 09:38:50 +1200, Jack wrote:

"Libertarian legacy?
Ron Paul's campaign manager, 49, dies uninsured,
of pneumonia,leaving family $400,000 debt of medical
bills.
What a testament to the Libertarian creed, which
abhors the idea of universal health care."
mo

http://tinyurl.com/5davpe

-- Posted on news://freenews.netfront.net - Complaints to
--


At least he didn't force his neighborhood, at gun point, to pay his
medical bills.

You really want to be one of the jack booted thugs forcing everyone
around you to cough up the dough for Your Kind... Comrade?
Gunner

The guy wouldn't owe $400k if the left had it's way...he would have died a
long
time ago from lack of treatment.

...and/or misdiagnosis, wrong treatment, or negligence, not to mention
hospital-only totally-antibiotic-resistant strains of ghastly bugs.

Wrong-leg amputations still happen at $7-per-aspirin hospitals.

All three of you are as nutty as fruitcakes. First, Gunner: You didn't seem
to mind that the neighborhood paid your wife's bills, when she had an
emergency and you weren't insured. Even if you pay them back, you seemed
willing to squeeze the system for a loan. And what happens if you get
disabled? Then you've squeezed them for the whole tab.

Tom: The evidence is the opposite. Where they have universal healthcare,
they have vastly better preventive care. In the US, Mt. Sinai hospital in
New York, one of the best diabetes treatment hospitals in the world, can't
get insurance companies to pay for diabetes training and prevention. But the
insurance companies will pay for an amputation. There's free market
healthcare for you.

Larry: The misdiagnoses, etc. are occurring in hospitals that are part of
the *existing*, commercial healthcare system, not some universal healthcare
system. The problem you identify is with a system that runs for commercial
profit rather than for patient care.

What happened to the three of you, did you all start taking the wrong drugs
and get confused? You've got it all backwards.

--
Ed Huntress

On Jul 11, 5:57*am, "Ed Huntress"
All three of you are as nutty as fruitcakes.
What happened to the three of you, did you all start taking the wrong drugs
and get confused? You've got it all backwards.

--
Ed Huntress

I believe that healthcare should be a choice, not something that is
mandatory. I also believe the same for retirement. You should be
able to opt out of Social Security. Maybe there should be a way you
could prove that you providing for yourself and then pay a smaller
amount to a system to help pay for those less fortunate.

As it is we have dead doctors collecting from Medicare. And Social
Security funds being used by Congress to fund other things. My kid is
likely to pay more into Social Security than he will ever collect. A
negative return on his " investment ".

I can not imagine Congress coming up with a good plan for universal
healthcare. Look at their plans for the mortgage industry.

I don't think those three are nutty. Countries that have universal
healthcare have their problems too. A friend of my wife's husband
needed an operation in New Zealand and was scheduled to have it done
in two years ( in Austrailia yet ). Fortunately it was reported in
the papers and some other poor ******* got bumped.

Dan

wrote in message
...
On Jul 11, 5:57 am, "Ed Huntress"
All three of you are as nutty as fruitcakes.
What happened to the three of you, did you all start taking the wrong
drugs
and get confused? You've got it all backwards.

--
Ed Huntress

I believe that healthcare should be a choice, not something that is
mandatory.

Wait until you don't have a choice, and then see how you feel about
healthcare being "mandatory." Gunner's case, which he described here some
years ago, is a good example. His wife needed expensive care. They didn't
have insurance. So, what's he supposed to do, let her die?

I had a heart attack last year and the hospitals charged me $220,000. I had
very good insurance. The insurance company paid the hospitals $48,000, and
they apparently were happy. What was I supposed to do, negotiate with them
while they had me stuck full of tubes and they were rushing me into the
operating room? Is this a hospital, or a Mexican trinket shop?

The idea that healthcare should be a "choice" is unmitigated nonsense. There
is no choice. Hospitals have to care for you whether you can pay them or
not. That's the law in almost every place. You aren't going to say, "oh,
gosh, too bad, my wife has to die." Unless you're suicidal, you aren't going
to refuse necessary care. If you want to make it all a "choice," then you'll
have to provide fast-freeze lockers to take care of the bodies that get
stacked up outside of the main doors to the hospitals.

Your idea is as nutty as theirs, Dan. And, like Gunner, there is no chance
in hell you're going to shrug and say "too bad" if your family member is in
desperate need and you happened to make the wrong choice. All that's going
to happen is what's happening now: people who can't get insurance (I
couldn't get it at *any* price for a few years before 1980, until the laws
changed) or who can't afford it are going to wind up getting emergency care
on the public's tab. And it's going to be an inefficient mess, because it's
a pasted-together system that squeezes the hospitals and everyone else until
each mess is settled. We have one local hospital that just went under for
this very reason (Muhlenberg Regional Medical Center). For charity care,
they get paid $0.40 on the dollar, and it broke their back. Now the other
close-by hospital is so jammed that my mother's doctor won't even send her
there. And he's on their staff!

I also believe the same for retirement. You should be
able to opt out of Social Security. Maybe there should be a way you
could prove that you providing for yourself and then pay a smaller
amount to a system to help pay for those less fortunate.

Maybe. But that's a different thing altogether.

As it is we have dead doctors collecting from Medicare. And Social
Security funds being used by Congress to fund other things. My kid is
likely to pay more into Social Security than he will ever collect. A
negative return on his " investment ".

That's greed and corruption, not the structure of the healthcare system. If
you figure out how to keep people from being greedy and corrupt, let us
know. Their greed and corruption doesn't go away when everybody has to pay
their own way or die.

I can not imagine Congress coming up with a good plan for universal
healthcare. Look at their plans for the mortgage industry.

Their plan for the mortgage industry was the LACK of a plan. It was the
libertarian plan -- pretend the problem isn't there, and maybe it will just
go away. But it doesn't go away. It just rears around and bites us in the
ass. That was a case of giving free license for greed and corruption.

I don't think those three are nutty. Countries that have universal
healthcare have their problems too.

Of course, but they have better healthcare and live longer.

A friend of my wife's husband
needed an operation in New Zealand and was scheduled to have it done
in two years ( in Austrailia yet ). Fortunately it was reported in
the papers and some other poor ******* got bumped.

Take your anecdotes and stack them up against the reality of the numbers. If
you want, I'll point you to the epidemiological data sources I used in my
medical editing work. Then you'll realize how silly the anecdotes sound in
comparison.

--
Ed Huntress

Ed's pretty much right on the money IMHO. I was born and raised in
Canada, but the rest of my family returned to the US when I was 18. So
I've got experience with both sides.

I've gotta tell you, I wouldn't want the worry that an accident or
sudden illness could end my financial independence. My sister is a
lawyer that mostly works on Workman's Compensation type claims, and my
mother is a retired nurse. Listening to a few of their stories sure
makes you think about what could happen, even to the well prepared.
Here, if I'm injured, I know I can get good treatment, and I won't have
to sell/mortgage my home to get it. The fact that the system keeps
people from accruing huge debts for medical treatment has big benefits
to the workforce in general. Sure, there are some issues, but few of
them are because of the nature of our system, they have much more to do
with the nature of people.

Health care (or insurance) that is expensive for individuals has
implications that run through the whole functioning of a country.
Lawsuits are a big example, and it seems that a lot of the 'frivolous'
lawsuits in the US come out of the fact that people incur relatively
huge debts for fairly minor medical treatment. The idea that an
insurance company could refuse or modify a treatment recommended or
prescribed by my Doctor is also bothersome (to put it mildly) to me.

Every system will have its issues, and none of them are perfect.

Pete
--
Pete Snell
Department of Physics
Royal Military College
Kingston, Ontario,
Canada
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world;
the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself.
Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
------------ And now a word from our sponsor ------------------
Want to have instant messaging, and chat rooms, and discussion
groups for your local users or business, you need dbabble!
-- See http://netwinsite.com/sponsor/sponsor_dbabble.htm ----

Jack wrote:
"Libertarian legacy?
Ron Paul's campaign manager, 49, dies uninsured,
of pneumonia,leaving family $400,000 debt of medical
bills.
What a testament to the Libertarian creed, which
abhors the idea of universal health care."
mo

http://tinyurl.com/5davpe

So this guy freely chooses a life without health insurance (and if he's
good enough to be Ron Paul's campaign manager then it's most certainly a
choice he's made rather than having forced on him), something bad
happens because of his free choice, and this makes all of libertarianism
bad?

That's an interesting world view you have, there.

I would say that it validates the libertarian notion that we all get to
make our choices and suffer (or enjoy) the consequences. Then anyone
who's watching us, and is smart, benefits by learning from our mistakes.

Now that I've ****ed off all the extremists on the left, I'm going to
**** off the rest of the extremists by saying that health care is one of
those things that I don't think should be denied to folks of limited
means just because they don't have lots of $$. If we're going to assume
a moral responsibility for an emergency room to take care of the
indigent at great expense when they get _really_ sick, then it's just
downright stupid of us not to help keep them from getting to that point.
Since I find the notion of refusing to give someone proper emergency
care just because they don't have the resources to pay, I have to
support giving that same someone proper pre-emergency care somehow.

There are many, many things that work very well being handled by a
completely free market. But while I'm not wise enough to say just _how_
health care should be handled, I am convinced that a policy of "no
bucks, no care" is not at all the right way to go.

I will say that Japan's notion of health insurance -- where everyone is
required to have it, and you get subsidized if and only if you're poor
-- makes sense on the surface. I have no clue how well it would
translate to the US culture and legal structure, but what I've heard of
it seems to be good.

--

Tim Wescott
Wescott Design Services
http://www.wescottdesign.com

Do you need to implement control loops in software?
"Applied Control Theory for Embedded Systems" gives you just what it says.
See details at http://www.wescottdesign.com/actfes/actfes.html

On Fri, 11 Jul 2008 20:55:05 +1200, Jack wrote:

Gunner wrote:
On Fri, 11 Jul 2008 09:38:50 +1200, Jack wrote:


"Libertarian legacy?
Ron Paul's campaign manager, 49, dies uninsured,
of pneumonia,leaving family $400,000 debt of medical
bills.
What a testament to the Libertarian creed, which
abhors the idea of universal health care."
mo

http://tinyurl.com/5davpe

-- Posted on news://freenews.netfront.net - Complaints to --



At least he didn't force his neighborhood, at gun point, to pay his
medical bills.

You really want to be one of the jack booted thugs forcing everyone
around you to cough up the dough for Your Kind... Comrade?
Gunner

ROFLMAO!
It seems they coughed for you, sometime back, or had you
conveniently forgotten?

So when you buy a house on time payments, or pay for a TV on
time...other people are being forced to pay for it instead of you?

Does that mean I dont have to send in those pesky payments each month
on my medical bill?

Whoopieeeee!!!





-- Posted on news://freenews.netfront.net - Complaints to --

"Libertarian legacy?
Ron Paul's campaign manager, 49, dies uninsured,
of pneumonia,leaving family $400,000 debt of medical
bills.
What a testament to the Libertarian creed, which
abhors the idea of universal health care."
mo

http://tinyurl.com/5davpe

-- Posted on news://freenews.netfront.net - Complaints to
--


At least he didn't force his neighborhood, at gun point, to pay his
medical bills.

You really want to be one of the jack booted thugs forcing everyone
around you to cough up the dough for Your Kind... Comrade?
Gunner

The guy wouldn't owe $400k if the left had it's way...he would have died
a
long
time ago from lack of treatment.

...and/or misdiagnosis, wrong treatment, or negligence, not to mention
hospital-only totally-antibiotic-resistant strains of ghastly bugs.

Wrong-leg amputations still happen at $7-per-aspirin hospitals.

All three of you are as nutty as fruitcakes. First, Gunner: You didn't
seem
to mind that the neighborhood paid your wife's bills, when she had an
emergency and you weren't insured. Even if you pay them back, you seemed
willing to squeeze the system for a loan. And what happens if you get
disabled? Then you've squeezed them for the whole tab.

Tom: The evidence is the opposite. Where they have universal healthcare,
they have vastly better preventive care. In the US, Mt. Sinai hospital in
New York, one of the best diabetes treatment hospitals in the world, can't
get insurance companies to pay for diabetes training and prevention. But
the
insurance companies will pay for an amputation. There's free market
healthcare for you.

Larry: The misdiagnoses, etc. are occurring in hospitals that are part of
the *existing*, commercial healthcare system, not some universal
healthcare
system. The problem you identify is with a system that runs for commercial
profit rather than for patient care.

What happened to the three of you, did you all start taking the wrong
drugs
and get confused? You've got it all backwards.

--
Ed Huntress


They're all right wingers aren't they? That explains it. Forget about the
facts, they make up their own to fit their preconceived beliefs. They're the
modern version, although I hate to use that term to describe them, of the
people who kept riding horses and said that those newfangled automobiles
would never catch on. We have a horrible heath care system that can only go
broke at some point yet they can't accept that the national heath care
systems that every other industrial nation has is better. Oh well, in about
ten years, if they are still alive, they will see for themselves that
national health care is far superior to our horse and buggy health care
system. They'll probably still be denying it though.

Hawke

"Pete Snell" wrote in message
...
Ed's pretty much right on the money IMHO. I was born and raised in
Canada, but the rest of my family returned to the US when I was 18. So
I've got experience with both sides.

I've gotta tell you, I wouldn't want the worry that an accident or
sudden illness could end my financial independence. My sister is a
lawyer that mostly works on Workman's Compensation type claims, and my
mother is a retired nurse. Listening to a few of their stories sure
makes you think about what could happen, even to the well prepared.
Here, if I'm injured, I know I can get good treatment, and I won't have
to sell/mortgage my home to get it. The fact that the system keeps
people from accruing huge debts for medical treatment has big benefits
to the workforce in general. Sure, there are some issues, but few of
them are because of the nature of our system, they have much more to do
with the nature of people.

Health care (or insurance) that is expensive for individuals has
implications that run through the whole functioning of a country.
Lawsuits are a big example, and it seems that a lot of the 'frivolous'
lawsuits in the US come out of the fact that people incur relatively
huge debts for fairly minor medical treatment. The idea that an
insurance company could refuse or modify a treatment recommended or
prescribed by my Doctor is also bothersome (to put it mildly) to me.

Every system will have its issues, and none of them are perfect.

Pete
--
Pete Snell
Department of Physics
Royal Military College
Kingston, Ontario,
Canada

Trying to convince the naysayers that national health care is the way to go
is a waste of one's breath. They have decided it doesn't work as well as our
current system and nothing is going to change their minds. Why is it that
all the advanced countries have national health care and spend about half
what we do? Because it works. It's clearly the way to go and any reasonable
person can see that the minute they look at the facts. Unfortunately, these
people aren't able to look at the facts objectively. They are so programmed
by the political right wing that they wouldn't know the truth if it walked
up and smacked them in the face. The country just has to move ahead to a
modern health care system and ignore the likes of them. In other words we
have to help them out even though they are too stupid to know they need it.

Hawke

"Gunner" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 11 Jul 2008 20:55:05 +1200, Jack wrote:

Gunner wrote:
On Fri, 11 Jul 2008 09:38:50 +1200, Jack wrote:


"Libertarian legacy?
Ron Paul's campaign manager, 49, dies uninsured,
of pneumonia,leaving family $400,000 debt of medical
bills.
What a testament to the Libertarian creed, which
abhors the idea of universal health care."
mo

http://tinyurl.com/5davpe

-- Posted on news://freenews.netfront.net - Complaints to
--



At least he didn't force his neighborhood, at gun point, to pay his
medical bills.

You really want to be one of the jack booted thugs forcing everyone
around you to cough up the dough for Your Kind... Comrade?
Gunner

ROFLMAO!
It seems they coughed for you, sometime back, or had you
conveniently forgotten?

So when you buy a house on time payments, or pay for a TV on
time...other people are being forced to pay for it instead of you?

Does that mean I dont have to send in those pesky payments each month
on my medical bill?

Whoopieeeee!!!

Gunner, a man who doesn't understand the concept of sharing the risk and one
who stands for individualism and taking care of yourself. While at the same
time making society pay for his needs when he can't. Society forks out the
money to pay his medical bills then he makes token payments knowing full
well that he'll never pay off his bills and that sooner or later he'll have
more health problems that he also won't be able to pay for. Yep, he's the
kind you don't want in a for profit health care system. Maybe we can send
him to Mexico for his health care needs.

Hawke

"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...

"Larry Jaques" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 11 Jul 2008 02:46:20 -0400, with neither quill nor qualm, "Tom
Gardner" quickly quoth:


"Gunner" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 11 Jul 2008 09:38:50 +1200, Jack wrote:

"Libertarian legacy?
Ron Paul's campaign manager, 49, dies uninsured,
of pneumonia,leaving family $400,000 debt of medical
bills.
What a testament to the Libertarian creed, which
abhors the idea of universal health care."
mo

http://tinyurl.com/5davpe

-- Posted on news://freenews.netfront.net - Complaints to
--


At least he didn't force his neighborhood, at gun point, to pay his
medical bills.

You really want to be one of the jack booted thugs forcing everyone
around you to cough up the dough for Your Kind... Comrade?
Gunner

The guy wouldn't owe $400k if the left had it's way...he would have died
a long
time ago from lack of treatment.

...and/or misdiagnosis, wrong treatment, or negligence, not to mention
hospital-only totally-antibiotic-resistant strains of ghastly bugs.

Wrong-leg amputations still happen at $7-per-aspirin hospitals.

All three of you are as nutty as fruitcakes. First, Gunner: You didn't
seem to mind that the neighborhood paid your wife's bills, when she had an
emergency and you weren't insured. Even if you pay them back, you seemed
willing to squeeze the system for a loan. And what happens if you get
disabled? Then you've squeezed them for the whole tab.

Tom: The evidence is the opposite. Where they have universal healthcare,
they have vastly better preventive care. In the US, Mt. Sinai hospital in
New York, one of the best diabetes treatment hospitals in the world, can't
get insurance companies to pay for diabetes training and prevention. But
the insurance companies will pay for an amputation. There's free market
healthcare for you.

Larry: The misdiagnoses, etc. are occurring in hospitals that are part of
the *existing*, commercial healthcare system, not some universal
healthcare system. The problem you identify is with a system that runs for
commercial profit rather than for patient care.

What happened to the three of you, did you all start taking the wrong
drugs and get confused? You've got it all backwards.

--
Ed Huntress


I spend 2 years living in England in the late 1980's. For sniffles, and
sneezes the national health care system was fine. For serious problems good
luck. The company I worked for said their best recruiting tool was their
private health care policy and I had to, had to, had to make sure I
mentioned it when I was interviewing job candidates. Two stories:

1 guy I played basketball with tore cartilage in his knee (at work not on
the court). 1st available appointment with National Health Care system was 6
months. He managed to come up with private insurance somehow and got it
taken care of in about 2 weeks.

A co-worker of mine broke his foot one Saturday. National Health Care would
not even talk to him until Monday and could not look at him for at least 10
days. They well could have had to re-break the foot to set it properly.
Private insurance to the rescue.

I was common knowledge, regularly reported in the paper, that old people
were denied care and it was rationed to the "productive" people. I was
surprised that this did not cause and uproar.

Seeing how the government has mishandled education, social security, and
almost everything else it touches, I would hate to give them the health care
system.

CarlBoyd

"Carl Boyd" wrote in message
m...

"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...

"Larry Jaques" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 11 Jul 2008 02:46:20 -0400, with neither quill nor qualm, "Tom
Gardner" quickly quoth:


"Gunner" wrote in message
m...
On Fri, 11 Jul 2008 09:38:50 +1200, Jack wrote:

"Libertarian legacy?
Ron Paul's campaign manager, 49, dies uninsured,
of pneumonia,leaving family $400,000 debt of medical
bills.
What a testament to the Libertarian creed, which
abhors the idea of universal health care."
mo

http://tinyurl.com/5davpe

-- Posted on news://freenews.netfront.net - Complaints to
--


At least he didn't force his neighborhood, at gun point, to pay his
medical bills.

You really want to be one of the jack booted thugs forcing everyone
around you to cough up the dough for Your Kind... Comrade?
Gunner

The guy wouldn't owe $400k if the left had it's way...he would have died
a long
time ago from lack of treatment.

...and/or misdiagnosis, wrong treatment, or negligence, not to mention
hospital-only totally-antibiotic-resistant strains of ghastly bugs.

Wrong-leg amputations still happen at $7-per-aspirin hospitals.

All three of you are as nutty as fruitcakes. First, Gunner: You didn't
seem to mind that the neighborhood paid your wife's bills, when she had
an emergency and you weren't insured. Even if you pay them back, you
seemed willing to squeeze the system for a loan. And what happens if you
get disabled? Then you've squeezed them for the whole tab.

Tom: The evidence is the opposite. Where they have universal healthcare,
they have vastly better preventive care. In the US, Mt. Sinai hospital in
New York, one of the best diabetes treatment hospitals in the world,
can't get insurance companies to pay for diabetes training and
prevention. But the insurance companies will pay for an amputation.
There's free market healthcare for you.

Larry: The misdiagnoses, etc. are occurring in hospitals that are part of
the *existing*, commercial healthcare system, not some universal
healthcare system. The problem you identify is with a system that runs
for commercial profit rather than for patient care.

What happened to the three of you, did you all start taking the wrong
drugs and get confused? You've got it all backwards.

--
Ed Huntress


I spend 2 years living in England in the late 1980's. For sniffles, and
sneezes the national health care system was fine. For serious problems
good luck. The company I worked for said their best recruiting tool was
their private health care policy and I had to, had to, had to make sure I
mentioned it when I was interviewing job candidates. Two stories:

1 guy I played basketball with tore cartilage in his knee (at work not on
the court). 1st available appointment with National Health Care system was
6 months. He managed to come up with private insurance somehow and got it
taken care of in about 2 weeks.

A co-worker of mine broke his foot one Saturday. National Health Care
would not even talk to him until Monday and could not look at him for at
least 10 days. They well could have had to re-break the foot to set it
properly. Private insurance to the rescue.

I was common knowledge, regularly reported in the paper, that old people
were denied care and it was rationed to the "productive" people. I was
surprised that this did not cause and uproar.

Seeing how the government has mishandled education, social security, and
almost everything else it touches, I would hate to give them the health
care system.

CarlBoyd

What you're missing there Carl, among other things, is that we DO pay for
other people under our present system. If they can't afford care and don't
have insurance, you pay for it in three ways. The first is in
hospitalization rates, which determines your insurance rates. They nail you
because they can't nail *them*. There are other ways, including state and
federal support for charitable cases in hospitals. That's your tax money.

Secondly, the UK's system is hardly a good example. When you look at most
healthcare systems around the world, you find that these stories about
delayed care are not typical of most of them. Sometimes the mixed systems
are worse.

Third, the "sniffles and sneezes" advantage extends to all kinds of
preventive care. In the US, one of our biggest problems is that the
uninsured do not get preventive care. Even the insured sometimes can't get
it, as in the Mt. Sinai example I gave above, in which it's no problem to
get a foot amputated as a result of diabetic neuropathy or gangrene, but you
can't get preventive education or care because hospitals can't afford to
offer it. And most endocrinologists are not able to give enough of it in
their offices, because they won't get paid for it, either. This is one I
know from experience and from involvement with the charitable foundations
that deal with it.

All in all, if you know the basics on epidemiology, you can compare figures
between countries and you'll find that the US, aside from having a shorter
lifespan than many other developed countries, tends to have more medical
crises and emergency care. Again, that's because we have inadequate
preventive care and low-level treatment of chronic conditions.

If you're fortunate to have good insurance, count yourself lucky. I had to
pay my own way for myself and for my son last year, at a rate of $12,500/yr.
That's for a good, but not excellent level of insurance. A lot of people
can't afford it. That's part of the reason my rates were so high. And for
those who don't have insurance, their crisis care costs you and me a hell of
a lot more than it would if we had universal care.

--
Ed Huntress

Gunner wrote:
On Fri, 11 Jul 2008 20:55:05 +1200, Jack wrote:


Gunner wrote:

On Fri, 11 Jul 2008 09:38:50 +1200, Jack wrote:



"Libertarian legacy?
Ron Paul's campaign manager, 49, dies uninsured,
of pneumonia,leaving family $400,000 debt of medical
bills.
What a testament to the Libertarian creed, which
abhors the idea of universal health care."
mo

http://tinyurl.com/5davpe

-- Posted on news://freenews.netfront.net - Complaints to --



At least he didn't force his neighborhood, at gun point, to pay his
medical bills.

You really want to be one of the jack booted thugs forcing everyone
around you to cough up the dough for Your Kind... Comrade?
Gunner


ROFLMAO!
It seems they coughed for you, sometime back, or had you
conveniently forgotten?


So when you buy a house on time payments, or pay for a TV on
time...other people are being forced to pay for it instead of you?

In your tiny mind perhaps, however financial institutions exist to sell
money, the markup is called interest. Mind you, how would you ever know?
Chance would be a fine thing, if you were ever able to get time payments
with your financial record.

Does that mean I dont have to send in those pesky payments each month
on my medical bill?

Whoopieeeee!!!

You make monthly payments on a medical bill? Yeah, right!

-- Posted on news://freenews.netfront.net - Complaints to --

I too am going to back Ed on this one.
There was a period where I had no choice but V.A. medical care.
You want to know what socialized medicine is like?
Ask the vets.

My experience really sucked.
LONG delays getting any thing done.
No accountability.

No way to get a bad diagnosis changed.

It sucks folks.

Richard

Gunner wrote:
On Fri, 11 Jul 2008 09:38:50 +1200, Jack wrote:

"Libertarian legacy?
Ron Paul's campaign manager, 49, dies uninsured,
of pneumonia,leaving family $400,000 debt of medical
bills.
What a testament to the Libertarian creed, which
abhors the idea of universal health care."
mo

http://tinyurl.com/5davpe

-- Posted on news://freenews.netfront.net - Complaints to --


At least he didn't force his neighborhood, at gun point, to pay his
medical bills.

You really want to be one of the jack booted thugs forcing everyone
around you to cough up the dough for Your Kind... Comrade?
Gunner

Hmmm,

If my memory serves me right, didn't you have the government
(neighborhood?) pay a bunch of your medical bills not too long ago.

You don't seem to mind screwing the government (neighborhood) for money,
as long as the money goes in your pocket.

Truly a man of principal.

--
Abrasha
http://www.abrasha.com

Ed Huntress wrote:


What happened to the three of you, did you all start taking the wrong drugs
and get confused?

No, they watch FOX news too much, and believe everything they get fed there.

You've got it all backwards.

The poor schmucks don't know this.

--
Abrasha
http://www.abrasha.com

Abrasha wrote:
Ed Huntress wrote:


What happened to the three of you, did you all start taking the
wrong drugs and get confused?

No, they watch FOX news too much, and believe everything they get fed
there.

You've got it all backwards.

The poor schmucks don't know this.

It isn't that simple.
It also isn't really very hard.


--

John R. Carroll
www.machiningsolution.com

On Jul 11, 7:29*am, "Ed Huntress"

I believe that healthcare should be a choice, not something that is
mandatory.

Wait until you don't have a choice, and then see how you feel about
healthcare being "mandatory."

But I do have a choice, and I do have insurance. But with choice, I
get to pick what insurance I buy. Do I want the pick my own doctor or
do I want the go to the clinic and take whoever is available. Do I
want the insurance with a cap of 1 million dollars, or the 10 million
cap. Do I want the $100 deductable, or the $1000 deductable per
year. So I think I will always want to have choice, and never think I
will not have a choice until the laws change.

I had a heart attack last year and the hospitals charged me $220,000. I had
very good insurance. The insurance company paid the hospitals $48,000, and
they apparently were happy. What was I supposed to do, negotiate with them
while they had me stuck full of tubes and they were rushing me into the
operating room? Is this a hospital, or a Mexican trinket shop?

I think it should be against the law for hospitals to charge
different rates depending on whether you have insurance. This guy
with the $400,000 bill is getting ripped because he did not have
insurance.


The idea that healthcare should be a "choice" is unmitigated nonsense. There
is no choice. Hospitals have to care for you whether you can pay them or
not. That's the law in almost every place.

Right and in Washington State, insurance companies have to provide all
kinds of things
I do not believe in. Yep all the stuff that the AMA says is quack
medicine.


You aren't going to say, "oh,
gosh, too bad, my wife has to die." Unless you're suicidal, you aren't going
to refuse necessary care. If you want to make it all a "choice," then you'll
have to provide fast-freeze lockers to take care of the bodies that get
stacked up outside of the main doors to the hospitals.

That is what they do in New Zealand. Except they do not say they are
refusing to care for you. But a two year wait for a operation on a
brain tumor is the same thing.



Your idea is as nutty as theirs, Dan. And, like Gunner, there is no chance
in hell you're going to shrug and say "too bad" if your family member is in
desperate need and you happened to make the wrong choice.

No that is why I have insurance. But if I were rich enough, I could
self insure.

All that's going
to happen is what's happening now: people who can't get insurance (I
couldn't get it at *any* price for a few years before 1980, until the laws
changed) or who can't afford it are going to wind up getting emergency care
on the public's tab. And it's going to be an inefficient mess, because it's
a pasted-together system that squeezes the hospitals and everyone else until
each mess is settled. We have one local hospital that just went under for
this very reason (Muhlenberg Regional Medical Center). For charity care,
they get paid $0.40 on the dollar, and it broke their back.

Jez your insurance company paid less than $0.40 on the dollar. So
maybe it is your insurance company that broke their back.

Now the other
close-by hospital is so jammed that my mother's doctor won't even send her
there. And he's on their staff!

*I also believe the same for retirement. *You should be
able to opt out of Social Security. *Maybe there should be a way you
could prove that you providing for yourself and then pay a smaller
amount to a system to help pay for those less fortunate.

Maybe. But that's a different thing altogether.

As it is we have dead doctors collecting from Medicare. *And Social
Security funds being used by Congress to fund other things. *My kid is
likely to pay more into Social Security than he will ever collect. *A
negative return on his " investment ".

That's greed and corruption, not the structure of the healthcare system. If
you figure out how to keep people from being greedy and corrupt, let us
know. Their greed and corruption doesn't go away when everybody has to pay
their own way or die.

Maybe not, but greed and corruption can be worse when the gov is in
charge and the civil servant has little motive to check that
everything is on the up and up.



I can not imagine Congress coming up with a good plan for universal
healthcare. *Look at their plans for the mortgage industry.

Their plan for the mortgage industry was the LACK of a plan. It was the
libertarian plan -- pretend the problem isn't there, and maybe it will just
go away. But it doesn't go away. It just rears around and bites us in the
ass. That was a case of giving free license for greed and corruption.

I am referring to what Congress is proposing for a fix.


I don't think those three are nutty. *Countries that have universal
healthcare have their problems too.

Of course, but they have better healthcare and live longer.

A friend of my wife's husband
needed an operation in New Zealand and was scheduled to have it done
in two years ( in Austrailia yet ). *Fortunately it was reported in
the papers and some other poor ******* got bumped.

Take your anecdotes and stack them up against the reality of the numbers. If
you want, I'll point you to the epidemiological data sources I used in my
medical editing work. Then you'll realize how silly the anecdotes sound in
comparison.

This was the husband of someone that I personally know. Her daughter
lives near you. Not an anecdote.


--
Ed Huntress

On Jul 11, 12:17*pm, "Hawke" . In other words we
have to help them out even though they are too stupid to know they need it.

Gunner wrote:
On Fri, 11 Jul 2008 20:55:05 +1200, Jack wrote:

Gunner wrote:
On Fri, 11 Jul 2008 09:38:50 +1200, Jack wrote:


"Libertarian legacy?
Ron Paul's campaign manager, 49, dies uninsured,
of pneumonia,leaving family $400,000 debt of medical
bills.
What a testament to the Libertarian creed, which
abhors the idea of universal health care."
mo

http://tinyurl.com/5davpe

-- Posted on news://freenews.netfront.net - Complaints to --


At least he didn't force his neighborhood, at gun point, to pay his
medical bills.

You really want to be one of the jack booted thugs forcing everyone
around you to cough up the dough for Your Kind... Comrade?
Gunner

ROFLMAO!
It seems they coughed for you, sometime back, or had you
conveniently forgotten?

So when you buy a house on time payments, or pay for a TV on
time...other people are being forced to pay for it instead of you?

Does that mean I dont have to send in those pesky payments each month
on my medical bill?

Whoopieeeee!!!





--
Abrasha
http://www.abrasha.com

wrote:
On Jul 11, 12:17 pm, "Hawke" . In other words we
have to help them out even though they are too stupid to know they
need it.

Hawke

I do not consider myself as stupid. But
I am independent. I do not want your help.

And therein lies the problem Dan.
You think caring about an individual is the same thing as considering the
collective need.
It isn't.
This is just one more issue that ought to end up on the table with some sort
of considered effort to define what we all want, as a nation and not as
individuals, the minimum standard for an American to be juxtaposed with the
thought that we'd all like to have a prosperous future. As a nation, and not
individually.

After that, you can be all on your own, and listen, don't give me guff about
"socialist" leanings. We used to, and might once again be, a nation of laws
and not men under a constitution that recognizes the strengths of collective
action and the importance and primacy of individual rights. They aren't
mutually exclusive you know.


--

John R. Carroll
www.machiningsolution.com

John R. Carroll wrote:
Abrasha wrote:

Ed Huntress wrote:


What happened to the three of you, did you all start taking the
wrong drugs and get confused?

No, they watch FOX news too much, and believe everything they get fed
there.

You've got it all backwards.

The poor schmucks don't know this.


It isn't that simple.
It also isn't really very hard.




A man hears what he want's to hear
and he disregards the rest...

Paul Simon

--
(remove the X to email)

On Jul 11, 1:00*pm, "Ed Huntress"



Secondly, the UK's system is hardly a good example. When you look at most
healthcare systems around the world, you find that these stories about
delayed care are not typical of most of them.
Ed Huntress

But there is no way you can know that a US
universal healthcare system will be better than the
New Zealand or UK system.

My guess is that being bigger it will probably be
worse.

Maybe if Congress is forced to have the same
universal healthcare and not allowed to have
private insurance.

You young kids are optimists.

Dan

wrote in message
...
On Jul 11, 7:29 am, "Ed Huntress"

I believe that healthcare should be a choice, not something that is
mandatory.

Wait until you don't have a choice, and then see how you feel about
healthcare being "mandatory."

But I do have a choice, and I do have insurance. But with choice, I
get to pick what insurance I buy.

Good for you. For years, I didn't. And if they loosen up the regulations on
insurance companies again, as Cheney wanted and as Bush alluded to late in
his first term, I'd be without insurance once again. So would my son. That
would be the libertarian solution -- let the insurance companies decide who
can be in the pool.

Do I want the pick my own doctor or
do I want the go to the clinic and take whoever is available. Do I
want the insurance with a cap of 1 million dollars, or the 10 million
cap. Do I want the $100 deductable, or the $1000 deductable per
year. So I think I will always want to have choice, and never think I
will not have a choice until the laws change.

Unless we get a right-leaning government and they decide to loosen up on
insurance again.

I had a heart attack last year and the hospitals charged me $220,000. I
had
very good insurance. The insurance company paid the hospitals $48,000, and
they apparently were happy. What was I supposed to do, negotiate with them
while they had me stuck full of tubes and they were rushing me into the
operating room? Is this a hospital, or a Mexican trinket shop?


I think it should be against the law for hospitals to charge
different rates depending on whether you have insurance. This guy
with the $400,000 bill is getting ripped because he did not have
insurance.

Why? That would be price control, wouldn't it? That's the argument, and the
hospitals and insurers have won on that point in court. They offer a "volume
discount" to the insurance companies. That's their prerogative. What they
mean is, the insurance companies don't care whether the patient lives or
dies, so they have plenty of free-market leverage. Patients do not. There is
no market force in healthcare, except for that held by insurance companies.

The idea that healthcare should be a "choice" is unmitigated nonsense.
There
is no choice. Hospitals have to care for you whether you can pay them or
not. That's the law in almost every place.

Right and in Washington State, insurance companies have to provide all
kinds of things
I do not believe in. Yep all the stuff that the AMA says is quack
medicine.

Of course, that works both ways. What they don't have to provide, they often
don't. Their customers are in no position to judge what should be covered
and what should not, unless they're experts in medicine -- particularly in
knowing the statistical probabilities tied to risk factors. Quick -- what
are your chances of developing vascular disease after age 50 if you have a
BMI of only 25 but you have high intra-abdominal adiposity? What if your BMI
is 29 but it's almost all subcutaneous?

If you let the insurance companies operate as they wish, it's all over.
They're like the house in a casino. They know the odds perfectly. They know
how to make their offerings look better than they really are, and they know
who they don't want to let sit at the blackjack table. The customer/patient
who isn't equally expert is in a position to get thoroughly screwed.
Legislatures aren't likely to be good judges, either. Neither the insurers
nor the legislators have the incentives that would produce the best result
for the customer/patient/voter. And that's the problem: The system doesn't
really work. The interested parties' biggest job is to make it LOOK like
it's working. And they're pretty good at it. But any honest healthcare
expert will tell you that the US healthcare system is broken like a cracked
pot.

You aren't going to say, "oh,
gosh, too bad, my wife has to die." Unless you're suicidal, you aren't
going
to refuse necessary care. If you want to make it all a "choice," then
you'll
have to provide fast-freeze lockers to take care of the bodies that get
stacked up outside of the main doors to the hospitals.

That is what they do in New Zealand. Except they do not say they are
refusing to care for you. But a two year wait for a operation on a
brain tumor is the same thing.

'Sounds like a great system. Maybe theirs is broken, too. Maybe the job of
their interested parties is to make it look like they have good universal
healthcare.


Your idea is as nutty as theirs, Dan. And, like Gunner, there is no chance
in hell you're going to shrug and say "too bad" if your family member is
in
desperate need and you happened to make the wrong choice.

No that is why I have insurance. But if I were rich enough, I could
self insure.

And if you were poor enough, you'd have to self-insure.

All that's going
to happen is what's happening now: people who can't get insurance (I
couldn't get it at *any* price for a few years before 1980, until the laws
changed) or who can't afford it are going to wind up getting emergency
care
on the public's tab. And it's going to be an inefficient mess, because
it's
a pasted-together system that squeezes the hospitals and everyone else
until
each mess is settled. We have one local hospital that just went under for
this very reason (Muhlenberg Regional Medical Center). For charity care,
they get paid $0.40 on the dollar, and it broke their back.

Jez your insurance company paid less than $0.40 on the dollar. So
maybe it is your insurance company that broke their back.

The less than $0.40 on the dollar that insurers pay is on retail billing.
The $0.40 on the dollar that government pays on charity cases is based on
the insurers' rate -- in other words, just slightly more than 40% of costs.
Hospitals take a loss on charity cases. When they get too many, they can go
broke.

But insurers wouldn't care if they broke the hospitals, either, and they
sometimes do.

Now the other
close-by hospital is so jammed that my mother's doctor won't even send her
there. And he's on their staff!

I also believe the same for retirement. You should be
able to opt out of Social Security. Maybe there should be a way you
could prove that you providing for yourself and then pay a smaller
amount to a system to help pay for those less fortunate.

Maybe. But that's a different thing altogether.

As it is we have dead doctors collecting from Medicare. And Social
Security funds being used by Congress to fund other things. My kid is
likely to pay more into Social Security than he will ever collect. A
negative return on his " investment ".

That's greed and corruption, not the structure of the healthcare system.
If
you figure out how to keep people from being greedy and corrupt, let us
know. Their greed and corruption doesn't go away when everybody has to pay
their own way or die.

Maybe not, but greed and corruption can be worse when the gov is in
charge and the civil servant has little motive to check that
everything is on the up and up.

Then make sure you have good oversight and regulation -- something that
doctrinaire free-marketers tend to let go by the wayside these days.


I can not imagine Congress coming up with a good plan for universal
healthcare. Look at their plans for the mortgage industry.

Their plan for the mortgage industry was the LACK of a plan. It was the
libertarian plan -- pretend the problem isn't there, and maybe it will
just
go away. But it doesn't go away. It just rears around and bites us in the
ass. That was a case of giving free license for greed and corruption.

I am referring to what Congress is proposing for a fix.

It's too late for a fix. Now they're just trying to keep the whole thing
from unraveling. The time for a fix was 25 years ago.


I don't think those three are nutty. Countries that have universal
healthcare have their problems too.

Of course, but they have better healthcare and live longer.

A friend of my wife's husband
needed an operation in New Zealand and was scheduled to have it done
in two years ( in Austrailia yet ). Fortunately it was reported in
the papers and some other poor ******* got bumped.

Take your anecdotes and stack them up against the reality of the numbers.
If
you want, I'll point you to the epidemiological data sources I used in my
medical editing work. Then you'll realize how silly the anecdotes sound in
comparison.

This was the husband of someone that I personally know. Her daughter
lives near you. Not an anecdote.

Dan, that's the definition of an anecdote. Anecdotes are the bane of anyone
trying to evaluate policy alternatives. You never know how representative
they are of the big picture.

--
Ed Huntress

John R. Carroll wrote:
wrote:
On Jul 11, 12:17 pm, "Hawke" . In other words we
have to help them out even though they are too stupid to know they
need it.

Hawke
I do not consider myself as stupid. But
I am independent. I do not want your help.

And therein lies the problem Dan.
You think caring about an individual is the same thing as considering the
collective need.
It isn't.
This is just one more issue that ought to end up on the table with some sort
of considered effort to define what we all want, as a nation and not as
individuals, the minimum standard for an American to be juxtaposed with the
thought that we'd all like to have a prosperous future. As a nation, and not
individually.

After that, you can be all on your own, and listen, don't give me guff about
"socialist" leanings. We used to, and might once again be, a nation of laws
and not men under a constitution that recognizes the strengths of collective
action and the importance and primacy of individual rights. They aren't
mutually exclusive you know.



Thank you for that post.

--
Abrasha
http://www.abrasha.com

wrote in message
...
On Jul 11, 1:00 pm, "Ed Huntress"

Secondly, the UK's system is hardly a good example. When you look at most
healthcare systems around the world, you find that these stories about
delayed care are not typical of most of them.
Ed Huntress

But there is no way you can know that a US
universal healthcare system will be better than the
New Zealand or UK system.

That's true. But I also know there's no way Americans will tolerate the
present system as it continues to self-destruct. First we'll have some
movement toward a single-payer system. As it takes hold, costs will go up
and people will go ballistic. Next, we'll start working on the costs. That's
where it will get interesting. But single-payer healthcare is as inevitable
as a rash of new nuclear power plant startups within the next 20 years.

My guess is that being bigger it will probably be worse.

It will get more expensive. Then we'll have to make a lot of tough
decisions. That's the future of healthcare, no matter which way it goes. We
can't afford advancing healthcare technology if it keeps going in the
direction it's currently developing.

Maybe if Congress is forced to have the same
universal healthcare and not allowed to have
private insurance.

We should insist upon it.

You young kids are optimists.

The alternative to optimism is to sit back and wait to die.

--
Ed Huntress

wrote:
On Jul 11, 5:57 am, "Ed Huntress"

All three of you are as nutty as fruitcakes.
What happened to the three of you, did you all start taking the wrong drugs
and get confused? You've got it all backwards.

--
Ed Huntress

I don't think those three are nutty. Countries that have universal
healthcare have their problems too. A friend of my wife's husband
needed an operation in New Zealand and was scheduled to have it done
in two years ( in Austrailia yet ). Fortunately it was reported in
the papers and some other poor ******* got bumped.

Dan

Baloney.

Snip

--
Ed Huntress


They're all right wingers aren't they? That explains it. Forget about the
facts, they make up their own to fit their preconceived beliefs. They're
the
modern version, although I hate to use that term to describe them, of the
people who kept riding horses and said that those newfangled automobiles
would never catch on. We have a horrible heath care system that can only
go
---------------------------------------------^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
BUZZZZZZZZZZ

Nope- we have one of the best.
People from other countries covered under their national health care elect
to come here because their system won't help them.


broke at some point yet they can't accept that the national heath care
systems that every other industrial nation has is better. Oh well, in
about
ten years, if they are still alive, they will see for themselves that
national health care is far superior to our horse and buggy health care
system. They'll probably still be denying it though.

Hawke

Once again .......The crap coming from your keyboard is stunning in its
evidence of your narrow minded opinion.

Stand in line at sick call a few times, then tell us about how great that
works out.

Mark




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On Jul 11, 7:52*pm, "Ed Huntress" You young kids are optimists.

The alternative to optimism is to sit back and wait to die.

--
Ed Huntress

Or assume that things are likely to be different than planned. And
not accept grand plans to improve things with close review.

Dan

wrote in message
...
On Jul 11, 7:52 pm, "Ed Huntress" You young kids are optimists.

The alternative to optimism is to sit back and wait to die.

--
Ed Huntress

Or assume that things are likely to be different than planned. And
not accept grand plans to improve things with close review.

I'm going to assume you mean "without close review," which is an eminently
sensible thought -- but which is a little late. The time for close review
was around 20 years ago. Now it's time to start putting some ideas into
action, and correct course as we go. Don't allow economic interests in our
healthcare to become entrenched. And do all the discussion in public, in
public, in public...

--
Ed Huntress

On Fri, 11 Jul 2008 16:00:39 -0400, "Ed Huntress"
wrote:

If you're fortunate to have good insurance, count yourself lucky. I had to
pay my own way for myself and for my son last year, at a rate of $12,500/yr.
That's for a good, but not excellent level of insurance. A lot of people
can't afford it. That's part of the reason my rates were so high. And for
those who don't have insurance, their crisis care costs you and me a hell of
a lot more than it would if we had universal care.

That amount is about 60% of my gross income, there is no way I
could afford that.

When I was working I had full hospital cover but when I retired in
'95 the cost would have been about 33% of my pension so I had to
discontinue most of it. I did keep what is called in Oz "
ancillaries benefits " - dental, ambulance transport ( minimum
callout $150 or so ), optical and a few other things, currently about
5% of gross income. I have to pay for doctor visits and get a
portion of the fee back from Medicare, otherwise I am a "public
patient" for hospital treatment.
A few years ago I had internal bleeding, went to Doc - immediate
referral to hospital, operation next day. Private room for recovery
for several days, then about 5 days in a 4 bed public ward until I was
kicked out. A few appointments for checkups and I have been fine
since. No cost to me, but I had been paying tax all my life for it
( and still am, but not much because of my low income ).
I have also had the lenses in my eyes replaced with plastic as I
was unsuitable for laser treatment. Consultations with the surgeon
were very expensive but I received about 60% refund from my ancillary
cover. Operations cost was no charge to me as an age pensioner. I
had to wait about 2 months for a time slot and was about 6th on the
list for that day. Now have perfect distance vision but have to wear
different strength glasses for reading, welding, woodwork, computer
screen, depending on distance. Anything under 2 metres needs glasses
to see clearly, without them objects are slighly blurred.

There is, in Western Oz, a waiting list for elective surgery, ie
non urgent, of about 6 months for public patients whereas people with
full hospital cover have a minimal wait.

Alan

"Mark Dunning" wrote in message
...
Snip

--
Ed Huntress


They're all right wingers aren't they? That explains it. Forget about the
facts, they make up their own to fit their preconceived beliefs. They're
the
modern version, although I hate to use that term to describe them, of the
people who kept riding horses and said that those newfangled automobiles
would never catch on. We have a horrible heath care system that can only
go
---------------------------------------------^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
BUZZZZZZZZZZ

Nope- we have one of the best.
People from other countries covered under their national health care elect
to come here because their system won't help them.

People who have lots of money. And people who have plenty to spare after
paying their taxes to buy coverage that will pay their bills in the US.

I understand that's readily available in Canada and the UK, and that it's
fairly cheap compared to what we pay for full coverage. That's because they
already have full coverage at home, and the insurance only has to pay for
the really odd situations. It's an actuary's dream.

BTW, what do the people here do, who find *our* system won't help them? That
is, except for the part that will take you in the emergency room for a sore
throat, and then dun you until they get a lien on your car and your house?

--
Ed Huntress

On Jul 11, 7:33*pm, "Ed Huntress"

I *think it should be against the law for hospitals to charge
different rates depending on whether you have insurance. *This guy
with the $400,000 bill is getting ripped because he did not have
insurance.

Why? That would be price control, wouldn't it? That's the argument, and the
hospitals and insurers have won on that point in court. They offer a "volume
discount" to the insurance companies.

But it is not a volume business. They are not
ordering a thousand identical hernia operations at a time.







Of course, that works both ways. What they don't have to provide, they often
don't. Their customers are in no position to judge what should be covered
and what should not, unless they're experts in medicine -- particularly in
knowing the statistical probabilities tied to risk factors.

So what are the risk factors for acupuncture?

Massages? Back Alignments?






That is what they do in New Zealand. *Except they do not say they are
refusing to care for you. *But a two year wait for a operation on a
brain tumor is the same thing.

'Sounds like a great system. Maybe theirs is broken, too. Maybe the job of
their interested parties is to make it look like they have good universal
healthcare.




And if you were poor enough, you'd have to self-insure.

Jez your insurance company paid less than $0.40 on the dollar. *So
maybe it is your insurance company that broke their back.

The less than $0.40 on the dollar that insurers pay is on retail billing.
The $0.40 on the dollar that government pays on charity cases is based on
the insurers' rate -- in other words, just slightly more than 40% of costs.

Then make sure you have good oversight and regulation -- something that
doctrinaire free-marketers tend to let go by the wayside these days.



Or that you have competition. Universal healthcare is a monopoly.




It's too late for a fix. Now they're just trying to keep the whole thing
from unraveling. The time for a fix was 25 years ago.



More like three or four years ago.



I don't think those three are nutty. Countries that have universal
healthcare have their problems too.

Of course, but they have better healthcare and live longer.

A friend of my wife's husband
needed an operation in New Zealand and was scheduled to have it done
in two years ( in Austrailia yet ). Fortunately it was reported in
the papers and some other poor ******* got bumped.

Take your anecdotes and stack them up against the reality of the numbers.
Then you'll realize how silly the anecdotes sound in
comparison.


This was the husband of someone that I personally know. *Her daughter
lives near you. *Not an anecdote.

Dan, that's the definition of an anecdote. Anecdotes are the bane of anyone
trying to evaluate policy alternatives. You never know how representative
they are of the big picture.

You call them anecdotes. I call them facts.


--
Ed Huntress