Yeah, false advertising!!

:()

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"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." - Dr. Seuss

Moore sure isn't pushing the insurance company's agenda. I saw Sicko. I came away from it hating insurance companies more than ever. Until we get for-profit insurance out of the picture our system will always be lacking. When doctors worry more about filling out forms to get paid than about how to best care for a patient you have a bad system.

I loved watching Moore give it to Blitzer on CNN (the YouTube version). The American media is failing us. They never questioned the Iraq invasion and they say anything but private insurance based health care is socialist. We the people need to say that socialist or not, it is time for National health care in this country.

I nominate Michael Moore for president. Enough with the Bush & Clinton monopoly.

Have a look at this, peanut,

Possible solution:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3729066942861497595&q=en

LAW & ORDER'S SAM WATERSTON: Unity08 Spokesperson

22 min

See: http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=40911

By Astro

:)

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"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." - Dr. Seuss

Pawly, you left off a third possibility.

C) The program currently meets the needs of the poorest citizens, but has disastrous consequences.

Government 'social programs' for health care help to fuel the massive upward spiral in health care costs. The more money that the government spends on health care, the more upward pressure is put on costs, which requires even more money to be spent by the government in the next year.

This money is not 'free'. It has to come from somewhere. Either higher deficit spending, or more tax revenue, or both. The combined (Federal/State/Local) tax burden on the average US citizen is already somewhere around 50%. The poor pay far less in taxes, for they are exempt from many of them, such as the Federal Income Tax. The super-rich pay more than average, but they can afford it. This leaves the middle class. The middle class will suffer great pain paying any additional tax burden, and it will invariably push more and more of the middle class down into poverty.

You are correct when you say that reform is needed. However, Socialization of Health Care is 100% the wrong way to go about it. We need market forces to drive costs downwards, not government subsidies to drive costs ever higher.

I see it a little differently , Kong. (Big surprise! lol) The costs are already artificially inflated by insurers and Big Pharma, so if the Gov't steps in and creates legislation setting standardizing costs to a more realistic level then existing budgets would pack more punch. If the BIG Companies don't like the government telling them what to charge ..... TOUGH THERMOMETERS! This is America we're talking about! There will be 500 BRAND NEW companies willing to step up to the plate and make a smaller buck within the new rules/laws. It would take a long time and require massive changes but if planned and phased in correctly ..........

You mention the percent of population in Texas that is at or below the poverty level. Well, contrary to most people's perceptions, not everyone in Texas is an Oil Bajillionaire. In fact, very very few of us are.

We have a lot of poverty scattered around statewide, but the problem is much worse down in south Texas near the Mexican border. Yes, it is regrettable that our poverty rate (16.7%) is way above the national average of 12.4%, there are states with much worse figures, such as Mississippi (19.9%).

Source: data from a Washington Post article.

However, just like health care, there are no easy answers on how to fix this problem.

Wow. Mississippi is in real trouble! ............. I'm really bummed now. Those stats are revealing and a little scary. As for Texas, I know they aren't all cowboys on horseback off to check on the oil well out on the back forty. Just like us Canucks don't all live in igloos and eat moose meat for breakfast before taking the dogsled too work at the maple syrup factories. Only about 65% of us are like that.

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DONATE TO SETI

Moore rebutted, “I actually love our government ... [snip] ... the problem is who we've put in power who holds office.”

;)

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It may not be 1984 but George Orwell sure did see the future . . .

Moore sure isn't pushing the insurance company's agenda. I saw Sicko. I came away from it hating insurance companies more than ever. Until we get for-profit insurance out of the picture our system will always be lacking. When doctors worry more about filling out forms to get paid than about how to best care for a patient you have a bad system.

I loved watching Moore give it to Blitzer on CNN (the YouTube version). The American media is failing us. They never questioned the Iraq invasion and they say anything but private insurance based health care is socialist. We the people need to say that socialist or not, it is time for National health care in this country.

I nominate Michael Moore for president. Enough with the Bush & Clinton monopoly.

Yay! May be then the USA become a country where I can immigrate & feel home the very moment I arrive :D
(Not that it's been bad when I've been there in the 90's - but I saw a lot of poverty at the places I've been, and I'd like to see less poverty)
One person for example whom I met in a Rescue Shelter Mission lost his job due to an accident - and due to the hospital costs after it, he also lost his home - as he told me he came out of the hospital and knew he had become homeless.
Hey, is this a manner to treat the own people? Just think. In my opinion, only those ppl should have to pay for medical treatment who can afford it. People with more than $ 5K of monthly income after taxes.

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I see it a little differently , Kong. (Big surprise! lol) The costs are already artificially inflated by insurers and Big Pharma, so if the Gov't steps in and creates legislation setting standardizing costs to a more realistic level then existing budgets would pack more punch.

Standardizing costs has already been done by the Medicare/Medicaid system, years and years ago. Those systems will only pay a certain amount for any given medical procedure, and any doctor or hospital that provides these services under Medicare/Medicaid *must* agree to 'accept assignment' for that service. The private insurance companies soon followed suit, though their restrictions were somewhat less draconian. The results were, to put it mildly, a total fuster-cluck.

Just as wage and price controls under President Ford did not work to snap the US economy out of a miserable mess -- extremely high unemployeement, extremely high interest rates, and extremely high inflation rates (which President Carter inherited soon thereafter, giving rise to the infamous 'Misery Index' which President Reagan was able to successfully parley into a White House victory in 1980), direct governmental price controls will not work on the health care industry in the USA.

The direct price controls that Medicare/Medicaid implemented had several bad effects. First, many many doctors and hospitals, faced with inability to make a profit at the low fees Medicare/Medicaid allowed, simply stopped treating patients with Medicare/Medicaid. Effectively, those patients were forced to go to the local 'county' hospital which had to take them. Similarly, many doctors and hospitals stopped accepting private insurance companies that provided substandard payments for services. Many doctors limited the insurance plans that they would accept to just one or two, and this relationship later became contractual with the rise of the HMO and other similar plans. Thus patients were, in many cases, forced to abandon their long-time family doctors that they trusted and go to unfamiliar ones that might not be familiar with their medical problems, all because of government and private payment caps.

Furthermore, in an effort to actually make a profit, many doctors and hospitals that were less than scrupulous started billing for unnecessary, unperformed procedures that had at least some profit potential. Insurance Fraud ran rampant in the health care industry, and still does to this day even in the face of massive efforts to wipe it out.

And I haven't even mentioned the huge bureaucracy that these caps have engendered in both government and in private insurance companies. Bureaucracy to both keep the caps up to date and to combat the ever-present fraud that the caps generate. Yet even more money that has been wasted over the years.

Nope, governmental price controls for medical services in the USA have been an extremely bad idea in the limited fashion that they have been thus far implemented. And you propose to make things WORSE by expanding these controls?

If the BIG Companies don't like the government telling them what to charge ..... TOUGH THERMOMETERS! This is America we're talking about! There will be 500 BRAND NEW companies willing to step up to the plate and make a smaller buck within the new rules/laws. It would take a long time and require massive changes but if planned and phased in correctly ..........

Almost every medical device, supply, and drug has at least one patent (and likely many indeed) on it. These '500 BRAND NEW companies' won't be able to do squat without a great many patents being invalidated. And since Article I Section 8 of the US Constitution enshrines the Patent system in the USA, these companies that stand to have their patents invalidated will tie this up in the courts for DECADES. If you think that the Entertainment Content industries (Music, Movies, etc.) in this country are putting up a squak about their Copyrights (also enshrined in the same clause of Article I Section 8 of the US Constitution), if you start to threaten 'Big Pharma' and their ilk in the health care industry, well then... Buddy, you ain't seen anything yet!

The relevant clauses of Article I Section 8 of the US Constitution

The Congress shall have Power... <snip>

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

I nominate Michael Moore for president. Enough with the Bush & Clinton monopoly.

Hmm... Your idea of replacing a Dumba** and a Lying Lecher with a Comic Buffoon might have some merit. I don't know if I would support it, but at the very least the idea deserves some serious discussion.

I nominate Michael Moore for president. Enough with the Bush & Clinton monopoly.

Hmm... Your idea of replacing a Dumba** and a Lying Lecher with a Comic Buffoon might have some merit. I don't know if I would support it, but at the very least the idea deserves some serious discussion.

Well, when a 3rd-class Western movie actor could become President, then why not a first class documentary film maker?

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By posting this thread I may have diverted you all from the real issue of our generation, and our Fathers, and Grandfathers. For this I apologize. I did not mean to be part of the separation scheme.

Please. Please see:

http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=40927

Please.

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"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." - Dr. Seuss

All of my posts here are in the form of questions. I have never been political and am prone to make mistakes similar to those of younger persons. I have used catch phrases and promises of payment for proof against because I don't know for sure. I will debate with you but there are always two sides to every story. I may very well be wrong in much, if not all of what I post but can only learn by having people respond to my posts. I am not anti American. I am not a Communist sympathizer. I'm just looking for answers to my questions.

I don't want to fight with anyone for any reason, though I can be grumpy when attacked. I realize many people can't help me in this quest for knowledge and can't put down in writing what I'm looking for, but you must realize I am not an enemy. I love my country. Otherwise I wouldn't question things.

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"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." - Dr. Seuss

I few of points that I would like to throw out there..

firstly, I don't believe any healthcare system should be run for profit. For a start people don't chose to need healthcare. They get sick.

secondly, I think Rush was complaining about the idea of forcing people to pay taxes to fund it....I don't see why everyone should not contribute towards it. It is a rare person that can get through their life without being in some way grateful for the services of the healthcare profession. Every single person uses it..therefore we should all pay. If we opt out then others end up paying for us.

thirdly...because something like the NHS does have to budget it is more concerned with preventative healthcare measures and early (less costly/less profitable) procedures..which means less suffering on the patients behalf.

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I few of points that I would like to throw out there..

firstly, I don't believe any healthcare system should be run for profit. For a start people don't chose to need healthcare. They get sick.

What you believe is of no consequence when free people can choose to do as they wish. Anyone who wishes may choose to offer health care for profit, health care for loss (those don't last long), or health care for not-for-profit.

Besides, whatever profit that private companies make, is dwarfed by the amount of bureaucracy and waste that gov't run systems are saddled with, especially given that they have true, 100% monopoly power, as granted by law. That drives costs up and removes any incentive whatsoever to improve.

secondly, I think Rush was complaining about the idea of forcing people to pay taxes to fund it....I don't see why everyone should not contribute towards it.

Here's why; it's very simple: Because you don't have the right to force them to? Because they would prefer to spend their money elsewhere? Because they would like to pick and choose among their providers, as they do with mobile phone carriers, or dry cleaners, or rental agents? Because they would like to see Pfizer crush GlaxoSmithKline crush Aventis crush Novartis crush Bayer and therefore driving the costs down? Because they want to spend their money on education, or their own family or their own children? Because they don't want rationed health care? Because they don't want to wait in a queue? Because they don't want to hope to Jeebus they don't die before they make it onto the dialysis queue? Because they don't want to have to fly to the U.S. to get the care they cannot get from NHS? This list is endless.

It is a rare person that can get through their life without being in some way grateful for the services of the healthcare profession.

That by no means suggests that it should be forced upon them. People that pay directly for health care are grateful too. So what?

Every single person uses it..therefore we should all pay. If we opt out then others end up paying for us.

No, if you opt out, you opt out. No "others would end up paying for us," anymore than others would end up paying for your mobile phone bill or your dry cleaning bill.

thirdly...because something like the NHS does have to budget it is more concerned with preventative healthcare measures and early (less costly/less profitable) procedures..which means less suffering on the patients behalf.

Yeah, and we all know how well "preventative health care measures" have worked. They don't because people generally don't bother. That doesn't keep any costs down.

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Cordially,
Rush

elrushbo2@theobviousgmail.com
Remove the obvious...

Sicko is still in my head. So I'll toss a few more questions.

1) Why can parents be tossed in jail for child endangerment if they neglect their kids but HMO Executives deny care to people and cause their deaths and get millions in bonuses??? Anyone see something wrong with that picture?


2) Mr. Moore made a good point that people in this country are very individualistic and are far more concerned with the ME than with the WE. Big companies exploit this very well and pit the have's against the have nots to the Big Co's advantage. Until the have nots learn to vote and vote for people other than millionaires, the have nots will stay have nots. Of course, when all the candidates are millionaires the have nots are pretty much screwed anyway. Which is another point Moore makes, that our system likes it when the voters feel helpless and so they don't vote.

Sicko is still in my head. So I'll toss a few more questions.

1) Why can parents be tossed in jail for child endangerment if they neglect their kids but HMO Executives deny care to people and cause their deaths and get millions in bonuses??? Anyone see something wrong with that picture?

Because it's entirely a different duty of care? Because parents are directly endangering the life of a child? Because execs work within budgets and the law requires that they act in good faith toward their fiduciary duty?

2) Mr. Moore made a good point that people in this country are very individualistic and are far more concerned with the ME than with the WE. Big companies exploit this very well and pit the have's against the have nots to the Big Co's advantage. Until the have nots learn to vote and vote for people other than millionaires, the have nots will stay have nots. Of course, when all the candidates are millionaires the have nots are pretty much screwed anyway. Which is another point Moore makes, that our system likes it when the voters feel helpless and so they don't vote.

Ah, the spastic, frustrated cry of futility. If it's any consolation, this sort of failed class envy/egalitarianism crap has been spewed since the beginning of time. "The universe isn't the way I want it to be!!!" >stamps foot< They spew in in communist countries, they spew it in capitalist countries, they spew it whether they have free health care or not.

The point is that it is generally meaningless. Reality sorts people, by it's very nature. Economics (a part of reality) does the same thing, no matter how hard people wish to believe in something else.

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Cordially,
Rush

elrushbo2@theobviousgmail.com
Remove the obvious...

CNN Throws in Towel, Admits to Two Errors, and States That All 'Sicko' Facts Are True to Their Source (or something like that)... Moore Realizes All This is Huge Distraction and Then Spends More Precious Time Thanking Paris Hilton for Seeing 'Sicko'... Meanwhile, More than 300 Americans Die Because They Had No Health Insurance During the 8-Day Gupta-Moore War...

http://www.michaelmoore.com/

TDC

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"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." - Dr. Seuss

Okie dokie Mr. Rush!
"When you say that individuals still pay for health care in the U.K. because they pay it indirectly, you're wrong because..."
You are absolutely right! I can't disagree with you.

Ah, so your comments about proof were just empty rhetoric?

People will always have to pay for health care one way or another. That isn't the issue.

Yes, it is the issue as demonstrated by other posters in this thread and Moore's movie. The health care IS NOT FREE, no matter how many people want to wish that it is. MK and I have presented the argument that since the health care is not free, and since people will have to pay for it regardless, they are better off if Pfizer crushes GlaxoSmithKline crushes Aventis crushes Novartis crushes Bayer and therefore drives the costs down. Moore, et al should be thrilled because they get to see their hated multi-national corporations struggle mightily simply to survive.

It's the fact that the American Health System offers almost ZERO help or hope to it's own people when they could easily do so.

Which, of course is not true on it's face. If we are being stupidly simplistic: if there are 50 million people uninsured, that means there are 250 million that are insured. Given that every hospital in the U.S. is required by law to provide emergency care and keep people alive, the system provides both help and hope.

Your Government found money in a time of crisis, September 11th.
1999 Defense Budget
2004 Defense Dudget
Well now your fellow Americans are in another crisis. They are not receiving the care they need when all other G8 country's citizens do.

A) There is no argument that says X country does something so Y country must as well. B) I've addressed this. This is the system that people endorse. They want to be heard, therefore by extension, others get to be heard. Group D seems to think that it's OK to advocate that the gov't use force to make people who wouldn't otherwise do so freely, pay into their pyramid health care scheme. Guess what? Group R thinks that it's OK to advocate the gov't to use force to make Group D pay for a massive DoD budget. See how that works? IT'S JUST FORCE. Group R doesn't want to pay for some BS system of "health care," Group D doesn't want to pay for Group R's BS wars and weapons. Group D doesn't care what Group R thinks, Group R doesn't care what Group D thinks. All that matters is that either group can get the gov't to use force against the other.

That you personally happen to disagree, well, so what? You're paying for Canada's involvement in U.S. wars too. Happy with that?

No one is turned away in these other countries. Even visiting Americans.

Unless people are kept alive regardless of the costs, health care is rationed. If health care is rationed, then yes, people are turned away, because individuals aren't worth bankrupting the system over.

Do you ever wonder why visiting Americans often receive bills for the services rendered?

"When you say that NHS makes decisions based on cost just like U.S. insurers do, you're wrong because..."

That actual statement is true but very broad. Of course money is the issue but the difference is that the insurers base their decisions on how much PROFIT they can create where as Universal HealthCare Boards,Committees or Ministries base their decisions on how they will PAY for Equipment and Services etc.

Big deal. Sure U.S. companies make some profit on the system, but gov'ts waste an equivalent (if not more) on bureaucracy and inefficiency because the system cannot respond to the market. It doesn't matter if it's a five-year-plan with the best intentions, or a old Soviet five-year-plan to dictate the production of shoes. The gov't system cannot respond quickly to changes in the overall character and needs of the people it serves and that makes for inefficiencies and higher costs that more than make up for any profit.

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Cordially,
Rush

elrushbo2@theobviousgmail.com
Remove the obvious...

CNN Throws in Towel, Admits to Two Errors, and States That All 'Sicko' Facts Are True to Their Source (or something like that)... Moore Realizes All This is Huge Distraction and Then Spends More Precious Time Thanking Paris Hilton for Seeing 'Sicko'... Meanwhile, More than 300 Americans Die Because They Had No Health Insurance During the 8-Day Gupta-Moore War...

Assuming that's an actual quote from Moore, eh, maybe. Or, kinda.

Here's what CNN actually said.

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Cordially,
Rush

elrushbo2@theobviousgmail.com
Remove the obvious...

You're right, I had no idea that so much tax money was being used for Social healthcare programmes in the States. Social Healthcare?? GASP!!! lol

Nice. You had no idea, but couldn't fathom that you might be incorrect.

But then either:

A) If Medicaid/Medicare is a successful system then you have proved that social healthcare can work in the US and it should be broadened to help all Americans.

The system "works," it just works really poorly because the gov't meddles. Broadening it would just serve to amplify the problems, once again, taking the right of patients to leave.

B) If is not successful you have shown that the gov't isn't doing enough for it's weakest citizens. More money is probably not the answer, reform probably is.

Right. Exactly. More money is not the answer, getting the gov't the hell outta the way, is the answer.

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Cordially,
Rush

elrushbo2@theobviousgmail.com
Remove the obvious...

Ah, the spastic, frustrated cry of futility. If it's any consolation, this sort of failed class envy/egalitarianism crap has been spewed since the beginning of time. "The universe isn't the way I want it to be!!!" >stamps foot< They spew in in communist countries, they spew it in capitalist countries, they spew it whether they have free health care or not.

The point is that it is generally meaningless. Reality sorts people, by it's very nature. Economics (a part of reality) does the same thing, no matter how hard people wish to believe in something else.

So you do you actually accept that parents have a duty of care towards their children? Would you for example use the law to intervene in cases of neglect? Or would you allow parents the 'freedom' to abuse their children?
What about parents who exercise their right to opt out of health insurance either by choice or because they simply can't afford it? Would you force parents to get medical care for their children against their will? I just want to know where you draw the line.

You say that those who will not give healthcare to those that do not pay. Which on the surface seems logical..however diseases don't tend to recognise the boundaries of individual rights. So we will end up with a situation where people are not vaccinated or not treated for diseases..so they spread them to others. Causing suffering, disability and death which could actually be preventable. Which in fact is a situation you have in some parts of the US where access to vaccines is not universal and you have some 3rd world diseases still in your poorer populations.

Please also back up your assertion that preventative medicine does not work...because again...you find a lot of patients in the US only seek medical intervention once the illness is progressed enough that the patient has no alternative than to seek help and by then the illness will have become harder and more expensive to treat...and as a consequence actually cost the health service more, and increase suffering for patients.

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