War on sickness

POSTED BY: SergeantX
UPDATED: Thursday, April 27, 2006 20:46
VIEWED: 5120
PAGE 1 of 1

SERGEANTX

Friday, April 7, 2006 12:35 PM

What do you all think of the new law in Massachusetts requiring everyone to buy health insurance? Fines of up to a $1000 dollars will be levied against those who fail to play ball. The carrot is lower rates for the poor. I'd like to think this kind of idiocy wouldn't make it past the first court challenge, but history doesn't support such optimism. The model is expected to have a 'ripple effect' across the country. They pulled off the same crap with mandatory auto liability insurance. Damn, them insurance boys know how to lobby!

SergeantX

"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock

FLETCH2

Friday, April 7, 2006 1:35 PM

Well let's see. Manidory auto insurance is so that if you know, you kill some folks there will be some money to compensate the family. Doesn't seem like a hardship to me.

Right now hospitals have to treat emergency cases. If the person receiving the care cant pay then you and I pick up that cost either in taxes or higher premiums. Since we don't want to let these people die isn't it better if at the very least they have some basic insurance so that you and I don't pick up the bill?

I figure if this doesnt appeal to your humanity then appealing to blind self interest should work.

SERGEANTX

Friday, April 7, 2006 4:29 PM

Taking away my right to decide how best to spend my money doesn't appeal to my self interest. Passing laws requiring me to do business with an industry I consider corrupt doesn't appeal to my self interest. Seeing countless millions of American voters duped by appealing to their infantile desire to be 'taken care of' is disgusting. Sheep lining up for the fleecing.

Unfortunately, this pattern is accelerating. Whenever some 'interest group' figures out a way they can use legislation to make themselves a boatload of cash, they sick their lobbyists on D.C. and we get stuck with the bill. Couldn't we wake up to this crap. At least a little?

SergeantX

"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock

HERO

Friday, April 7, 2006 4:48 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SergeantX:
What do you all think of the new law in Massachusetts requiring everyone to buy health insurance?

I'm waiting for more details and to observe the pratical effect, but all in all, I think its a novel idea and a great new approach.

For the record, my only known liberal sentiment is health care. I oppose the liberal national health care idea, I also oppose the conservative 'lets take a couple ideas that address a couple narrow problems and call it a solution".

My leaning has always been universal access to affordable health insurance. I think it should not be mandatory. If an adult chooses to go without, then let them go without, but limit their access to free care and support, in other words make them live or die with the decision they've made. But the costs to those who choose MUST be affordable or its all for naught.

H

GINOBIFFARONI

Friday, April 7, 2006 6:08 PM

Why not just have a public system then and be done with it.....

Or are the private insurers going to huke rates and make a killing here ?

RUE

Friday, April 7, 2006 6:45 PM

Common sense once again fails.

Health insurance companies admit that 25% of premiums goes to paperwork. Another (unaccounted) percentage goes to profit. And then there is the (unaccounted) cut for execs' inflated salaries and perks. What do you guess it adds up to? 50% of insurance premiums wasted?

No wonder government-provided universal health care costs so much less and does so much more.

Meanwhile, the NEJM published studies showing that just making standard health care available to everyone will save an order of magnitude more lives than all the whoppee-do high-tech medical advances and modern drugs combined.

People must really enjoy being r*ped by the system.

Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.

SERGEANTX

Friday, April 7, 2006 7:01 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by GinoBiffaroni:
Why not just have a public system then and be done with it...

I'd honestly prefer it to the subterfuge going on in Massachusetts. Why are we letting an industry lobby to pass laws telling their customers they'll be punished if they don't buy their products??? That's just screwed up.

Socialized medicine would be just as evil and corrupt, but at least it would be out in the open. But tell me, are those are the only choices? - to be slaves to the insurance companies or slaves to government health bureaucrats? How about we just quit trying to tell each other what to do?

SergeantX

"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock

RUE

Friday, April 7, 2006 7:10 PM

Let's hear it for free market medicine.

Quoted from NEJM

August 25, 2005
Patents versus Patients? Antiretroviral Therapy in India

In December 2004, to comply with the requirement of the World Trade Organization that its member countries adhere to trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights, the president of India issued a patent-amendment ordinance requiring 20-year patents on all new medications. Objections were voiced around the world by advocacy groups for patients with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), who characterized the proposed law as pitting patents against patients.

Because only slight modifications in manufacturing could qualify a product for a new patent, Indian companies were able to offer HIV drugs at prices as low as 4 percent of those of brand-name drugs.

The new Indian patent legislation may well slow, if not threaten very substantially, the development of new products with these benefits.

Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.

RUE

Friday, April 7, 2006 7:20 PM

SergeantX

"How about we just quit trying to tell each other what to do?"

I suggest this - up and up socialized medicine. A certain percentage of your tax will go for your cut of 'free' care. If you opt out, you don't get to enjoy the benefits. It's pay as you go for everything from the trivial to the financially devastating. And you don't get government aid like food stamps if medical costs make you poor.

Would that satisfy you?

Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.

SERGEANTX

Friday, April 7, 2006 7:42 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
SergeantX

"How about we just quit trying to tell each other what to do?"

I suggest this - up and up socialized medicine. A certain percentage of your tax will go for your cut of 'free' care. If you opt out, you don't get to enjoy the benefits. It's pay as you go for everything from the trivial to the financially devastating. And you don't get government aid like food stamps if medical costs make you poor.

Would that satisfy you?

heh... optional taxes? Absolutely. I'm not sure how you're imagining a government making such an offer, but it sounds fair to me. Wouldn't that just be more or less like regular insurance though?

SergeantX

"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock

CITIZEN

Friday, April 7, 2006 7:53 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
SergeantX

"How about we just quit trying to tell each other what to do?"

I suggest this - up and up socialized medicine. A certain percentage of your tax will go for your cut of 'free' care. If you opt out, you don't get to enjoy the benefits. It's pay as you go for everything from the trivial to the financially devastating. And you don't get government aid like food stamps if medical costs make you poor.

How would that work? You'll end up with people who can afford to do so opting out and those that can't not able to be taxed to an extent to cover their own health costs.

More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity. But I know none, and therefore am no beast.

FLETCH2

Friday, April 7, 2006 9:30 PM

Any system of healthcare is an agrigated system. It essentially relies on healthy folks paying towards the care of sick ones in the expectation that other healthy folks will pay when they themselves get sick.

If you never get sick then it's a waste of money, just the same as any form of insurance that you never make a claim on. You only ever see the benefit when something bad happens. Unfortunately for the agrigated systems to work the healthy people have to pay even when a 2 second analysis shows that they wouldnt see much benefit. Likewise every carefull driver on the road pays premiums towards insurance that help to pay for accidents caused by the less carefull.

The reason that everyone pays for car insurance is that if people could opt out -- either to save money or because they dont think they needed it -- then the aggrigation system unfairly punishes the people that choose to take insurance and the victims of accidents. There are a lot of undocumented workers here in Texas. Undocumented means no drivers licence which in turn means no insurance. Since the towns here sprawl you need a car to work. Friend of mine was hit by an undocumented driver who then ran off rather than give insurance details. Result, the cost of the accident was borne exclusively by my friend and his insurance. The next year his premium sky rocketed even though the police report made it clear that the accident was not his fault.

Likewise your taxes and medical insurance premiums are already higher than they should be to pay for those folks that for various reasons don't have insurance. If you dont think you need insurance (being a healthy guy) and some drunk driver puts you in an emergency room do you want to die or would you rather be saved on someone else's dime. I suspect that for all your "screw people telling me to buy insurance" retoric you would still expect to be saved. Personally I would prefer that saving your hide didnt involve dipping into my pocket.

I also find it interesting that folks that cry foul over forced motor insurance and socialised healthcare dont think twice about dropping a few trillion on defence spending. Defence is the ultimate form of "insurance" if things go well you would never use it and it would be an appauling waste of money. The point is that when you do need it is when you are glad you paid the "premium." In any case we all pay for it. We are not given the option to opt out and not pay it. The day that I see folks the same folks who argue against healthcare campaigning to opt out of paying for the Pentagon is the day I take tehm seriously. Until then it's "I dont want the government telling me how to spend my money --- unless it's something I want, at which point I'm ok with it."

SERGEANTX

Friday, April 7, 2006 10:18 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Fletch2:
I also find it interesting that folks that cry foul over forced motor insurance and socialised healthcare dont think twice about dropping a few trillion on defence spending. Defence is the ultimate form of "insurance" if things go well you would never use it and it would be an appauling waste of money. The point is that when you do need it is when you are glad you paid the "premium." In any case we all pay for it. We are not given the option to opt out and not pay it. The day that I see folks the same folks who argue against healthcare campaigning to opt out of paying for the Pentagon is the day I take tehm seriously. Until then it's "I dont want the government telling me how to spend my money --- unless it's something I want, at which point I'm ok with it."

Well, ok then. You've found one. In fact, I'd take socialized medicine in a heartbeat if it meant defunding our military empire. I've campaigned against our insane foreign policy longer, and more loudly than I have against any healthcare intiatives. There are actually a lot more of us out here than you might realize. We're the ones still holding on to that whacky idea that freedom is a good thing. Go figure.

SergeantX

"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock

RUE

Saturday, April 8, 2006 12:51 AM

"How would that work? You'll end up with people who can afford to do so opting out and those that can't not able to be taxed to an extent to cover their own health costs."

It'd be a crap shoot for sure.

The VERY wealthy of course would fund their own health care.

The very poor would have no choice - if they wanted healthcare at all they'd have to opt in. (I was thinking that it would be a percentage of your income tax, so that those who have less money would pay less in absolute dollars, while those who have more money would pay more.)

The middle would have a choice to make. How lucky would they feel?

I also specified that if you don't pay in, you just don't get that government care. That way the cost would not devolve from the non-participants onto the participants.

Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.

SASSALICIOUS

Saturday, April 8, 2006 2:01 AM

Quote:
The carrot is lower rates for the poor

I realize there are some people who don't want insurance and choose instead to pay full price only when they get ill, but I was also under the impression that a lot of people don't have health insurance because their jobs don't offer it and it's expensive.

How low is low? For some, low is arbitrary when they can barely afford to put food on the table and keep a roof over their head.

I do think it will be interesting to see how this plays out though.

PIRATEJENNY

Saturday, April 8, 2006 4:46 AM

Quote:
Personally I would prefer that saving your hide didnt involve dipping into my pocket.

lol!! your pocket personally has nothing to do with it, ..do you really think your personal pocket book is being affected when someone who isn't insured gets treatment?

FLETCH2

Saturday, April 8, 2006 5:06 AM

As someone that tried (unsuccessfully) to help someone chronically ill but without insurance I have to say no.

Unless you can pay out of pocket for things (very unlikely) then any system you set up is an agrigation system which means that the costs of the sick are paid for by the healthy. SargX seems to think that any compulsary system that forces him to pay for healthcare in some way curtails his freedom to spend his money as he sees fit. I actually have no problem with that so long as if he opts out and subsequently something happens he doesnt expect the system I pay into to pay for his care.

The uninsured do cost money when they get sick. The terrible irony of my poor friend was that she got sick, was unable to work lost her job and with it her insurance. She had incidents that put her into a coma twice, and on both occasions got fairly expensive emergency care, but not having insurance once she was no longer in immediate risk she was left to fend for herself. This resulted in more expensive emergency hospitalisation and finally cost her life.

Had the medical folks kept treating her after the very first incident there is a chance that the later ones couyld have been avoided and she would still be alive. As it is tax payers ended up picking up a bill for not saving her....

Tell me how that makes sense?

SERGEANTX

Saturday, April 8, 2006 5:47 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Fletch2:
...The terrible irony of my poor friend was that she got sick, was unable to work lost her job and with it her insurance. She had incidents that put her into a coma twice, and on both occasions got fairly expensive emergency care, but not having insurance once she was no longer in immediate risk she was left to fend for herself. This resulted in more expensive emergency hospitalisation and finally cost her life.

Had the medical folks kept treating her after the very first incident there is a chance that the later ones couyld have been avoided and she would still be alive. As it is tax payers ended up picking up a bill for not saving her....

Tell me how that makes sense?

It makes no sense at all. This is what we need to be fighting against.

Routine health care is insanely expensive and there's no good reason for it. We're wealthy enough in this country that the majority of the poor would be able to afford everyday drugs and healthcare if the prices weren't artificially inflated. The major factor keeping prices high is the virtual monopoly on healthcare sustained by regulation. In my home town an Indian doctor, not allowed to practice medicine legally, provides low cost health care to those unable to afford cartel prices. He'll go to jail if he's ever caught, but it's good to know that brave people are exploring alternatives to a corrupt system.

Further enriching the current establishment by forcing us to buy their overpriced services will not help.

SergeantX

"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock

HEB

Saturday, April 8, 2006 9:44 AM

Hi,

I'm just wondering how it works for children in the US. If parents haven't paid for insurance for their children then what happens if they need an operation?

Heb

...................
Well, my sister's a ship... we had a
complicated childhood
.................
I wear the cheese. It does not wear me.

HEB

Saturday, April 8, 2006 9:44 AM

Hi,

I'm just wondering how it works for children in the US. If parents haven't paid for insurance for their children then what happens if they need an operation?

Heb

...................
Well, my sister's a ship... we had a
complicated childhood
.................
I wear the cheese. It does not wear me.

RUE

Sunday, April 9, 2006 3:47 AM

It's twisted. There are those poor enough to get medicaid who will get whatever care is government approved. Some may may get private charity care (St Jude's hospital for example). Others will show up at the local county hospital where they may get discounted care (depending). Some parents will get the surgery for their child anyway and be in complete financial ruin. And others do without.

Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.

RUE

Sunday, April 9, 2006 3:52 AM

SergeantX,

I'm in complete agreement that routine health care is bitterly expensive. The next most costly system (per capita) costs HALF of what it does in the US and everyone is cared-for. For free (w/ no out of pocket expense.)

But that kind of savings isn't found is free-market medicine, it's found in socialized medicine.

If you are looking for answers, look to what is already proven to work.

Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.

SERGEANTX

Sunday, April 9, 2006 5:02 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
But that kind of savings isn't found is free-market medicine, it's found in socialized medicine.

Hmmm. I think it would be found in abundance in free-market medicine, if that was ever allowed to exist. But the pressure to regulate and control the healthcare market is not a small thing. Industry lobbyists have worked long and hard to set the system up the way it is and they won't give it up without a fight.

Socialized medicine might, in fact, be better than what we have now (it'd certainly be better than this mandatory insurance bs), but that's not saying much. Just about anything would be better than the institutionalized blackmail we're currently burdened with. In my brightest moments of optimism I imagine us legalizing health care and actually allowing the free choices of patients to drive necessary solutions. But my optimism doesn't last long. I look around and that kind of solution isn't even on the radar. In fact the general consensus is that the patient needs more of the medicine that's killing her.

So I might say, "yeah, let's go ahead and socialize medicine", but only from a place of deeply cynical resignation. I'd like to think we can do better.

SergeantX

"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock

RUE

Sunday, April 9, 2006 6:23 AM

You seem to think that bad medicine only came about after govt regulation and industry monopolization.

There were plenty of blacksmiths cum doctors cum butchers who killed their patients. There were also snake-oil peddlers who sold alcohol, mercury, arsenic and/or opium for whatever ailed you. The problem with that free-market 'medical practice' was that it was worse than ineffective, it was dangerous for the patient. As for the patient, your first medical purchase could be your last.

So in this day and age, how do you see unregulated medicine? What will keep the vacuum-cleaner lipo-suction surgeons from operating in patients garages? How will you know the medicine you're getting is uncontaminated, let alone effective?

As much as you want to believe that buying medical care is just like buying a stove, it isn't.

Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.

SERGEANTX

Sunday, April 9, 2006 3:01 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
You seem to think that bad medicine only came about after govt regulation and industry monopolization.

No, but that is where the insanely overpriced medicine came from. There are countless ways patients could assure quality service from doctors without resorting to anti-competitive regulation. The problem with the alternatives (I'm assuming you'd consider it a problem) is that people would be free to make their own judgements on the nature of the quality vs. risk calculation. That's the essential ingredient of a free market.

Without that freedom, success in the industry is no longer a matter of quality service, it's a matter of politics. The winners are those who can control the regulatory environment. That's why the AMA, the insurance companies, the pharmas, etc.., flush million and millions of dollars down the DC toilet each year lobbying. That's money that could be spent making health care more efficient and more widely available.

SergeantX

"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock

FLETCH2

Sunday, April 9, 2006 5:29 PM

I'm sorry I don't see that. How on earth could someone make an informed decision in those circumstances? Even now we have things that go drasticly wrong even with regulated medicine. Don't know if you saw the story about the guys in london who got very sick during the testing of a anti inflamatory drug? Or if you heard about the folks that setup medical tourism trips to Brazil for cosmetic surgery during which the patient got septicemia.

Look at one unregulated industry, vitamins, know how many of those natural stop smoking, get your hair back, loose weight commercials late at night are essentially herbal extracts and vitamin pills? They don't work but because they don't claim to be medicine they dont get sued. Yes the snake oil sales are still going. I'm sure they would just love to go bigtime.

RUE

Sunday, April 9, 2006 6:22 PM

Quote:
No, but that is where the insanely overpriced medicine came from.

And lower-cost medicine comes about in several ways. One is through the power of bulk purchase as a bargaining tool, which is what other governments successfully do. (see Canadien drug prices.) Another is through varied formulation and cheap mfg as India used to do, selling at 4cents on the dollar (saving 96% on your drug bill). But the market forces you propose don't always work, especially in the face of large international corporations. Individual purchases for low cost aggregated in the market-place are not bringing down the cost of gasoline.

Quote:
There are countless ways patients could assure quality service from doctors without resorting to anti-competitive regulation.

What are they? Without comparative studies done by neutral third parties, all you have is advertising and word of mouth. That may work for common ailments (tho 80% get better on their own), but what about appendicitis? Are you going to schlep from neighbor to neighbor doubled over in pain trying to find someone who had a successful appendectomy? Or what about a near-fatal car accident? What about rare conditions like non-Hodgkins lymphoma? If you are fighting for your or your child's, parent's, or spouses life, do you want to depend on TV commercials for your decisions?

Quote:
The problem with the alternatives (I'm assuming you'd consider it a problem) is that people would be free to make their own judgements on the nature of the quality vs. risk calculation.

There are some things the free market just can't do b/c it depends on individual perceptions (which are relatively uninformed AND subject to manipulation in an unregulated environment). Here is one example: a major study was conducted by a large HMO on the merits of urine culture and sensitivity (the 'gold standard') v dipstick screening. The upside of C&S is that you know for sure (4 missed cases/20,000) if you have a bacterial infection, and which antibiotic to use. The downside is you have to wait 4 days and go back to the doctor, and it's expensive and consumes a lot of resources to test a lot of negative cases (98% negative). What about dipstick screening first? Parallel tesing the same samples and using normal statistics you find that dipstick screening misses 5 cases/20,000 (false negatives), and finds 43 'extra' cases/20,000 (false positves). The benefit is both cost-saving to the medical system, since you don't do C&S on 19,600 negative urines, and those with actual UTIs get bridge treatment in one visit while C&S is being run.

There are many, many similar examples: needle biopsy v surgery/stained specimen (gold standard) to dx breast cancer, added protease inhibitors v anti-retrovirals alone (gold standard) for HIV; etc.

AS A CONSUMER, you will simply not know enough to determine how good the doctor/ protocol/ hospital is b/c you don't know the right questions to ask.

Where socialized medicine shines is its ability to discover the fastest, cheapest way to get the largest number of people healthy. (See previous post that getting care to all people would save more lives than all the high tech combined). It shines at creating efficient protocols. It benefits from aggregate data over a large number of people when it comes to rare/ poorly understood conditions like autism or chronic pain. Finally, it makes sense as a public health/ security function. (Public health which is the front-line of detection has been gutted.)

I realize I'm arguing against a powerful ideology that you hold, but as a consumer of medicine, isn't that product you want?

Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.

RUE

Sunday, April 9, 2006 7:23 PM

BTW, I abhor big-money medicine. But that IS what the current kleptocracy wants - billions in tax money as private profit.

But to fix it I don't start with the axiom 'government = always wrong, free-market = always right'. Nor do I sart with the opposite. You say free-market medicine could work if given the chance. Historically, free-market medicine gave rise to the phrase 'snake-oil'. It HAS been tried and it failed. Another way to break big-money medicine is government-run medicine. Looking around the world, it has been tried and it DOES work. It is a superior product.

Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.

PIRATENEWS

Sunday, April 9, 2006 8:29 PM

Will this new law require 40-million to 100-million ILLEGAL aliens to purchase this insurance contract? If not, this law is void under Constitutional Equal Protection doctrine.

No "driver" can be rquired to purchase car insurance, unless they are employed as a commercial driver "for hire". Period. Read the fine print of your state's statute on car insurance. In Tennessee, insurance is only "required" AFTER you CAUSE a crash AND ONLY if you FAIL to pay damages to an injured party, and you OWE NO MONEY AT ALL if your assets fall under the Homestead Exemptions in your state. Yet Gangsta Govt and insurance scams bribe TV with adverts that fraudulently allege "mandatory insurance".

Insurance ocmpanies are criminal extortion rackets, run by career criminals who routinely refuse to pay claims. They originated in Europe with the Italian Mafia. Insurance CEOs routinely pay themselves individual annual salaries of $100-million/year to billions/year - PER PERSON.

Obviously this Mass law is a genocide program for the sheeple. The US Govt and those that preceeded it have already genocided over 200-million Americans. US and world dictators like the King of England publish books confessing their plan to genocide 90% of world poulation via manmade diseases - and these are the same psychopaths to fund and manage military bioweapons labs in every major city.

Quote:
"Humans have overpopulated the Earth and in the process have created an ideal nutritional substrate on which bacteria and viruses (microbes) will grow and prosper. We are behaving like bacteria growing on an agar plate, flourishing until natural limits are reached or until another microbe colonizes and takes over. I am convinced that the world WOULD clearly be much better off without so many of us. The ancient Chinese curse 'may you live in interesting times' comes to mind -- we are living in one of the most interesting times humans have ever experienced."
-Prof Eric R. Pianka
http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/%7Evaranus/Everybody.html

"He's a radical thinker, that one! I mean, he's basically advocating for the death of all but 10% of the current population! And at the risk of sounding just as radical, I think he's right. It's the harsh reality that many people alive right now should be dead. And even harsher to think that the world would be better off with them dead too."
-Serenity, associate cult member of Dr Pianka, "Dr. Death Gets FBI Visit - Media, colleagues continue to portray him as the innocent victim," April 6, 2006
www.prisonplanet.com/articles/april2006/060406fbivisit.htm

Serenity Blog
http://brenmccnnll.blogspot.com/2006/03/dr.html

VIDEO DOWNLOAD: NBC News - UT Genocide Scientist Backpedals on News Report
http://infowars.com/video/clips/news/science/040406_ut_genocide_scient
ist.htm
www.kxan.com/Global/story.asp?S=4720390

US professor wants genocide of 5.5-billion humans by bioterrorism - Fellow professors and scientists applause and roar approval at elite's twisted and genocidal population control agenda
www.infowars.com/articles/commentary/emails_pianka_response_biologist.
htm

US Supreme Court legalized genocide in 1973 with Roe v Wade, with over 45-million Americans genocided as a result of this court order. For every child murdered, an adult must also be murdered, to balance Social Security Ponzi pension schemes, Medicaid/Medicare Ponzi schemes, private insurance Ponzi schemes, govt CAFR pension Ponzi schemes, Wall Street pension Ponzi schemes, etc.

No Gangsta Govt can illegally order any person to enter into a civil contract with a private company, nor with Gangsta Govt. By legal definition, all contracts must be voluntary, without coercion or duress, or they are void. Will Gangsta Govt order all citizens to sign a contract to purchase monthly items from YOUR store or business? NOT!

Mandatory insurance cons the sheeple into volunteering for lethal injection with:

1. live cancer virus
2. live bioweaponized flu virus
3. live bioweaponized polio virus
4. live bioweaponized diseases of all kinds
5. mercury (Thimeriso

CITIZEN

Sunday, April 9, 2006 9:02 PM

I have to profess I don't understand the argument for private healthcare.

Off on a tangent couldn't we privatise the military and police force? Hell even the fire service? Why don't we, why doesn’t a free market supporter say we should?

At the moment when your house is burning down you have no choice, surely it would be better to chose with fire company you want to put your fire out, look them up in the yellow pages (or American equivalent) or directory enquires, then ring them up, be put on hold (but it's okay your call is VERY important too them) then negotiate the payment contract before they put the fire out.

Or if you have fire insurance you pay twice the amount you used to for the public system to get the same service (run for a profit) but you do get a mug.

What I’m trying to say is that there are certain things that work with a *somewhat* free market system (but anyone who thinks regulation is the problem needs to crack open a history book) and some things that don’t. A clue would be anything that has service in the title, the police service, the fire service, the HEALTH service.

I sometimes think that people have got it into their heads (and this mainly *seems* to be an American thing, not really comes across it in Britain, maybe because communism/socialism was your big bad, ours was the French?) that under ALL circumstances socialist/public == wrong, private/free market == right.

More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity. But I know none, and therefore am no beast.

PIRATENEWS

Sunday, April 9, 2006 10:40 PM

Wow, lucky SgtX - a new $2,500/year "tax" - that's given away to a private monopoly.

Quote:
The Massachusetts legislature approved a bill Tuesday that would require all residents to purchase health insurance or face legal penalties. Gov. Mitt Romney (R) supports the proposal, which would require all uninsured adults in the state to purchase some kind of insurance policy by July 1, 2007, or face a fine. All residents will have to provide details about their health insurance policy on their state income tax returns in 2008. Those who do not have insurance would first lose their personal state tax exemption, perhaps worth $150, and later face penalties equal to half the cost of the cheapest policy they should have bought. That might work out to $1,200 per year, officials said. Those who cannot find an affordable plan could obtain a WAIVER.
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/04/AR20060404019
37.html

Note the word WAIVER... That's legaleze for NOT mandatory. Funny how the Media Mafia buried that fact in the fine print instead of the headline.

So what happens to sick people who are already classified by private insurance companies as "uninsurable". Translated: "unprofitable". It's only profitable for insurance companies to take money from healthy people, then cancel their insurance when they get sick and file a claim. Car insurance and home insurance companies already play this scam.

So "uninsurable" folks are granted immunity to this Mass law? That would render the entire law void under Constitutional Equal Protection doctrine.

For example, I'm injured with Gulf War Syndrome and its related diseases of FMS/rheumatism, chronic fatigue (paralysis), etc, all documented by my private doctors when I could still work and buy insurance. Then I was in too extreme pain to work, so I got the socialized medicine called TennCare. Some doctors and hospitals REFUSED to treat me with that "insurance", since it only paid 10-cents on the dollar. To quote one doctor (Jewish), "If I perform this colonoscopy on you, I will lose money". So he doped me out and faked the operation, then never billed TennCare, so he saved money and kept his profitable TennCare contract (apparently such scams are routine). Then TennCare cancelled my insurance along with almost everyone elses, but certainly kept billing the taxpayers hundreds of millions of taxdollars.

Tennessee's CanniBill Frist MD was criminally convicted and paid an $840-MILLION fine for Medicare/Medicade fraud at his family's Hospital Corporation of America (the world's largest Death Camp monopoly), so he was promoted to Speaker of US Senate in his freshman year. Frist is on record as bragging that "it only costs $100,000 to genocide 1-million people." Frist celebrated his first election victory with all the top RepubliCONs like loser Bob Dole, at Cotton Eyed Hos country music nightclub, in Knoxville TN, owned by an Arab under indictment for terrorism, money laundering and concealing stolen property (who pled guilty after the election). Frist made his fortune cutting beating hearts out of living people, and adopting animals from shelters to torture them to death. And he wants to be YOUR president in 2008.
www.geocities.com/idiotboxwars

Select to view spoiler:

Fed woman: It's the PAX. The G-PAXilon HydroClorate that we added to the air processors. It was supposed to calm the population, weed out aggression. Well, it works. The people here stopped fighting. And then they stopped everything else. They stopped going to work... they stopped breeding, talking, eating. There's 30-million people here, and they all just let themselves die.
(smashing down door)
(whine, wimper)
I have to be quick. About a tenth of a percent of... the population had the opposite reaction to the PAX. Their aggressor response increased beyond madness. They have become...
(smashing down door)
Well, they've killed most of us. And not just killed... they've done things.
Wash: Reavers. They made them.
Fed woman: I won't live to report this, but people have to know. We meant it f

CHRISISALL

Sunday, April 9, 2006 11:09 PM

Learning to sew up a torn jacket: $40.
Learning to sew up a torn arm: $750,000.
The look on the insurance company's face when they pass that Massachusetts Compulsory Insurance law nationwide: priceless.

Chrisisall, a Massachusetts cog

RUE

Sunday, April 9, 2006 11:09 PM

PirateNews
Just to be clear, I would not trust the current administration with public health care under ANY circumstances.

Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.

RUE

Sunday, April 9, 2006 11:21 PM

ChrisIsAll

Quote:
Learning to sew up a torn jacket: $40.
Learning to sew up a torn arm: $750,000.
The look on the insurance company's face when they pass that Massachusetts Compulsory Insurance law nationwide: priceless.

Sad, but true. Big-business medicine, BLEAHHH !!!

Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.

PIRATENEWS

Sunday, April 9, 2006 11:51 PM

Quote:
Health insurance MAY be mandatory in Mass

Plan would offer free or subsidized coverage to those who cannot afford it

April 4, 2006

The measure does not call for new taxes but would require businesses that do not offer insurance to pay a $295 annual fee per employee.

The cost was put at $316 million in the first year, and more than $1 billion by the third year.

The House approved the bill on a 154-2 vote. The Senate endorsed it 37-0.

www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12156882/

That's a healthy tax increase for people who can barely pay bills as it is. I'm sure most of the profits go to overpaid drug dealers, who kickback those profits for bribes to politicians, to pass laws to prohibit import of cheap drugs.

But of course, this law will not be applied to employers of illegal aliens, giving them an unfair advantage, and putting legit businesses out of business.

I especially like the lie that this is not a "new tax" of $2,500/year.

The scariest part is the percentage of idiot politicians who voted for it.

poly ticks: many blood-sucking creatures.

FLETCH2

Sunday, April 9, 2006 11:57 PM

PN, if you are a business employing 10 or more people you are expected to provide some kind of health cover. If you dont you get fined $295 per uninsured worker. The worker doesnt pay $295 in additional taxes.

PIRATENEWS

Monday, April 10, 2006 12:06 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Fletch2:

PN, if you are a business employing 10 or more people you are expected to provide some kind of health cover. If you dont you get fined $295 per uninsured worker. The worker doesnt pay $295 in additional taxes.

That's $250/month per employee, and yes it does come out of the employee's paycheck. That why the "withholdings" are so high. Many people already pay $1,000/month or $2,000/month for "company health insurance". Suckers.

$295 annual fine will also be deducted from the employee's paycheck. That's what bookkeepers are for, to cook the books (book-cookers?). Most companies already illegally force hourly employees to work "off the clock", for free. At the very least, cancel or delay a pay raise, cancel a bonus, fire an employee. Note that the $295 fine is $2,200 less than paying for insurance, so millions of employees will still be denied insurance under this SCHEME.

Socialism/Communism pretends money materializes out of thin air, which is does if you include the private intl Fed Reserve Bankster counterfeiting scam for all "US dollars". Except the Fed then gets the mortgage on your slave carcass, and forcloses ("privatizes") all Govt property (YOUR property), leaving YOU with $200,000 debt (the current Federal Debt per US citizen).

The problem with Govt employees is they never PRODUCE anything. That's why 100-million slaves starved to death in Commie Russia and Commie China. But that's The Plan...

I predict that in a couple of years, Mass will be a disaster, with 30% kicked out of this insurance scam as "uninsurable" because they got sick and made a small claim, just like they did in Tennessee's oxymoronic govt insurance scam, TennCare. During that same time, Tennessee Gangsta Govt pays its college football coaches $2-million/year, its college presidents $750,000/year (plus their own private UT jet), (but college professors are paid $3,000 to $6,000/year max), its lottery private contractors $750,00/year, and MASSIVE contract fraud on virtually EVERY govt no-bid cost-plus blank-check multimillion-dollar contract.

RUE

Monday, April 10, 2006 12:06 AM

Fletch2 -

Mandatory private health insurance - that follows the current p/c insistence on spending tax money on privatized services, just like the wildly effective and efficient Medicare drug policy - ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ....

It would be unthinkable to just set up the damned clinics and be done with it.

Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.

FLETCH2

Monday, April 10, 2006 12:11 AM

PN "Annual fees" mean once a year..... and it's a fine, if you pass on a labor fine to an employee you go to jail, it's called false accounting.

FLETCH2

Monday, April 10, 2006 12:16 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
Fletch2 -

Mandatory private health insurance - that follows the current p/c insistence on spending tax money on privatized services, just like the wildly effective and efficient Medicare drug policy - ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ....

It would be unthinkable to just set up the damned clinics and be done with it.

Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.

You're right it would be. Fact is Rue that if you decide to hold your breath until someone established universal care in the US you will turn very blue. So what do you do? Hold out for the best option, which you never get and watch people die for your principles or do you go with the imperfect solution that stands some chance of saving lives?

This falls far short of universal care funded by taxation and already Sarge is afraid that it's restricting his rights. What chance do you think you stand of getting anything better?

It's a question. How many uninsured are you willing to kill for ideological purity?

PIRATENEWS

Monday, April 10, 2006 12:25 AM

The solution is clear - boycott all MDs and Death Camps, grow your own organic food, stock up on medicinal plants, hire a midwife, stop poisoning yourself, learn how to fix broken bodyparts yourself, like they already do in most parts of the world. Purchase your own first aid kits for "first responders", which cost less than one month premium of insurance.

Beware the term "health insurance", rather than "sickness insurance". You are only allowed insurance when you are healthy. It's cancelled when you get sick. And 9 times out of 10, it was the doc who made you sick in the first place. You don't really think "vaccinations" are to PREVENT disease, do you?

My wife had 4 heart attacks at age 32, thanks to "free socialized healthcare" from Gangsta Govt. That "free healthcare insurance" has cost us over $1-million in lost wages. ALL US doctors are BANNED from writing prescriptions for our antibiotics, which we have to find from overseas pharmacies, and run the "Homeland Security" blockade to keep from dying. THAT'S how much Gangsta Govt loves millions of soldiers and prisoners, and their "healthcare" providers, who catch their contagious bioweaponized diseases, injected by loving "vaccination".

RUE

Monday, April 10, 2006 12:33 AM

Quote:
It's a question. How many uninsured are you willing to kill for ideological purity?

Fletch2

Well, somebody's gotta be first even if it's not Mass.

It doesn't prevent me from standing on the sidelines, pointing my finger and laughing at Mass for being too chicken-sh*t to do what's necessary.

Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.

RUE

Monday, April 10, 2006 12:51 AM

PN,

I agree with about half of what you say - which generally excludes your conclusions. I have no problem with the science of medicine, I do have issues with the business of medicine. The business of medicine drives medical policy, to the detriment of patients.

For example - within months of the discovery of penicillin, resistant bacteria were found. Within a few years Fleming was warning of resistant bacteria being common. But stockyard people found animals grew fatter with antibiotics. Doctors were only too happy to prescribe the wonder drugs to demanding patients. And pharm companies were happy to make and sell as much as they could. These were all business decisions.

No where in this system was there a place for sound regulatory rules. In fact, decades later with a runaway resistance problem there still are no rules. While the CDC and other agencies recommend withholding antibiotics for all but proven use, you will still find doctors able to routinely write prescriptions 'just in case'. And animals are still being fed antibiotics, tons each year - half of all antibiotics made.

And there you have it - business trumps science.

Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.

PIRATENEWS

Monday, April 10, 2006 12:55 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Fletch2:
PN "Annual fees" mean once a year..... and it's a fine, if you pass on a labor fine to an employee you go to jail, it's called false accounting.

That's $250/month per employee, and yes it does come out of the employee's paycheck. That why the "withholdings" are so high. Many people already pay $1,000/month or $2,000/month for "company health insurance". Suckers.

$295 annual fine will also be deducted from the employee's paycheck. That's what bookkeepers are for, to cook the books (book-cookers?). Most companies already illegally force hourly employees to work "off the clock", for free. At the very least, cancel or delay a pay raise, cancel a bonus, reduce a pension, fire an employee. Note that the $295 fine is $2,200 less than paying for insurance, so millions of employees will still be denied insurance under this SCHEME.

THIS WHOLE THING LOOKS LIKE A GIANT MONEY-SUCKING SCAM.

FLETCH2

Monday, April 10, 2006 1:05 AM

PN, where didn you find the $250 a month? I looked all over and I didn't see a typical pricetag. Show me boy, dazzle us with your investigational genious and actually post an acredited news source for that figure...

PIRATENEWS

Monday, April 10, 2006 1:12 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:

PN,

For example - within months of the discovery of penicillin, resistant bacteria were found. Within a few years Fleming was warning of resistant bacteria being common. But stockyard people found animals grew fatter with antibiotics. Doctors were only too happy to prescribe the wonder drugs to demanding patients. And pharm companies were happy to make and sell as much as they could. No where in this system was there a place for sound regulatory rules. In fact, decades later with a runaway resistance problem there still are no rules. While the CDC and other agencies recommend withholding antibiotics for all but proven use, you will still find doctors able to routinely write prescriptions 'just in case'.

CDC = Centers for Disease CREATION

This is where the REAL science is taking place, at taxpayer expense. Bioweapon factories are being constructed in every major city, even in hurricane zones like Galveston TX and New Orleans, in addition to bioweapons labs in every govt university. "Vaccines" use "technology" from 3,000 years ago in ancient Egypt, so it's hardly hi-tech to rub pus in an open wound. Nor is it a wise thing to do. That's how you SPREAD infection - it's not a "homeopathic-type" cure.

Medevil (sp) royalty used bioweapons in warfare by launching diseased carcasses with catapults, and poisoning water supplies of cities under seige. British Empire used bioweapons against Native Americans, by giving them fleas infected with smallpox in blankets, at the reservation Death Camps. Fleas, ticks, and mosquitos (living needles and syringes with wings and legs and natural intelligence) are raised in US bioweapons labs by US, Canadian and British Gangsta Govts, and are routinely released in USA in order to spread bioweaponized diseases TO KILL LARGE NUMBERS OF AMERICANS.

The best cure for infectious diseases is clean water and clean hands and flushing toilets. THAT'S what lowered death rates in the past 100 years, NOT "vaccines".

Medical doctors STILL rarely wash their hands from patient to patient, or toilet to patient, just like restaurant employees (even the most expensive dining destinations). When was the last time you saw a doc wear rubber gloves? Docs are dropping dead from allergies to talc powder in latex gloves, so they just quit using them.

Eat a diet high in silver and garlic if you REALLY want "innoculation" from infectious disease, like the elite have done for 1,000s of years. And lots of fresh fruits with Vitamin-C. That's why British sailors were called Limeys, because they ate limes to prevent Scurvy. Scurvy is still epidemic in USA, and kills at least 30,000 Americans/year just by "flu", since hemoraggic infections kill by Scurvy.

When you check in to a hospital Death Camp, their "nutricianists" serve you Aspartame in DIEt COCAine-cola (phosphoric ACID), not fresh-squeezed orange juice from 5 organic oranges (minerals = ALKALINE = pain control).

FLETCH2

Monday, April 10, 2006 1:14 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
Quote:
It's a question. How many uninsured are you willing to kill for ideological purity?
Fletch2

Well, somebody's gotta be first even if it's not Mass.

It doesn't prevent me from standing on the sidelines, pointing my finger and laughing at Mass for being too chicken-sh*t to do what's necessary.

Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.

Reality of politics is that you work with what you have not what you'd wish for. Mass, may have tried the "none chicken sh*t" option but if it doesnt pass then it doesnt help anyone. Socialised medicine in Europe didn't happen because one ort other political party had an idea and somehow magic happened. It came about because there was a huge groundswell of public support for the idea of a kind I'm just not seeing here. It also comes with a price tag -- that is that government literally decides who lives and who dies --- do you think that folks like PN who doesnt even believe that the government has a right to deny him a drivers licence is going to want that kind of intrusion?

If something really terrible happened here, like a pandemic or an asteroid taking out New Jersey (though that isnt so terrible) THEN maybe. Otherwise not enough of your countrymen would go for the idea.,..... sorry.

RUE

Monday, April 10, 2006 1:28 AM

PN,

Again, I agree with some of what you say. The biggest advances in human health came from sewage treatment and clean drinking water. The biggest advances to most of the world today would come from clean water if people could get it. So various private groups go about teaching African and Indian women how to filter drinking water through layers of cloth. And other groups try to reduce stream pollution w/ human sewage and reduce parasitism.

And it is certainly true that disease was historically often used as a weapon. (It is also true that environmental degradation was used - for example, the Spanish released pigs and goats to denude the Aztec environment. It used to be a fertile jungle - now it is the Mexico city plateau.)

It is not true that vaccines are more deadly than the diseases they prevent. Is IS true that vaccines could be made safer than they are now - acellular, w/out thimersol. I also believe vaccines could be administered in a graded series for better effectiveness and safety - acellular components, killed organisms, attenuated organisms.

"Bioweapon factories are being constructed in every major city." To what are you referring?

Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.

RUE

Monday, April 10, 2006 1:43 AM

Fletch2

Quote:
or an asteroid taking out New Jersey (though that isn't so terrible)

HA HA HA HA - I enjoyed that. Poor NJ though - they don't get no respect.

Well, there is a groundswell of unfocused grumbling. The people near either border are the first. Those going to Canada for meds and those going to Mexico for medical care know at least there is an alternative.

You won't hear anything about it under this administration. It'll be buried and never make the news. It doesn't mean it isn't happening.

Personally, I want to see the admin get everything it wants. Cutbacks in Medicare/ Medicaid, cutbacks in VA care, a nice boondoggle prescription plan, fewer and fewer people insured, the inability to get out from under medically-driven financial ruin with bankruptcy, the politicisation of science at the CDC, FDA and NIH, and before you know it the elimination of malpractice lawsuits. YEAH! Right on!

Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.

SERGEANTX

Monday, April 10, 2006 1:50 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
I realize I'm arguing against a powerful ideology...

Agreed. But you must also admit that you're arguing from a powerful ideology. That fact that it's the unstated ideology of our times, that its commonly accepted as 'the way things are', doesn't make it right. If the way things are was going well, we wouldn't be having this discussion. Utlimately it doesn't matter because, as I've said, my ideas aren't even on the radar. Maybe that's because that's they are without merit. But maybe it's because those running the show have nothing to gain from consumers having real choice.

SergeantX

"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock

RUE

Monday, April 10, 2006 1:58 AM

As I tried to point out, I looked at historical experience. Historically, unregulated medicine failed a long time ago. Socialized medicine has worked well to date.

But you never did respond to my proposal. What about optional government health insurance? (with care directly provided, not as reimbursements to third parties)

Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.

SERGEANTX

Monday, April 10, 2006 2:17 AM

You're starting from the assumption that unregulated healthcare has been proven a failure. We haven't had anything like unregulated healthcare for over a hundred years. The entire profession was so radically different that long ago that I'm not sure how you can draw any useful conclusions from the 'snake oil' stories. Especially given the fact that the snake oil business is alive and well, if my friends who still watch television ads are telling the truth.

(BTW, I did respond to your previous suggestion. To reiterate, it sounds fine but I just don't see it happening. If it's optional, meaning that it's optional to pay for, than how would that be any different than regular health insurance? Or are you just suggesting that private health insurance companies be replaced by the government?)

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
Quote:

There are countless ways patients could assure quality service from doctors without resorting to anti-competitive regulation.

What are they? Without comparative studies done by neutral third parties, all you have is advertising and word of mouth.

I don't mean to be dismissive on this, but the fact that you're assuming there aren't any options besides gov't control perplexes me. It also tells me you're missing my point entirely. What I'm suggesting is people ought to be able to decide for themselves how much risk they find acceptable.

People who can afford doctors with decades of training at the best medical schools can go that route if they choose. But those who can't afford that, the very same people who are now shut out of the system altogether, could search for more cost effective solutions. Right now they aren't allowed to do that. Why not?

SergeantX

"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock

PIRATENEWS

Monday, April 10, 2006 2:54 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:

"Bioweapon factories are being constructed in every major city." To what are you referring?

So you didn't see this on your local TeeVee news? I guess they were too busy selling paid adverts as fake "news" broadcasts.

Quote:
Bioweapon labs will bring threat of lethal viruses to urban America

London Independent
June 29, 2003

In the tiny town of Hamilton, Montana, campaigners worry that they will become a terrorist target if the proposed laboratory goes ahead. In New York State, congressmen have already blocked a proposal to house a laboratory on Plum Island, off Long Island. In Davis, California, home to a major branch of the state university system, activists have sued the university for failing to abide by state environmental regulations in making its application to house nasties ranging from Ebola to hanta virus and tick-borne encephalitis.

This is not just a matter of nimbyism. The protesters cannot understand why they should risk exposure to the tiny clutch of diseases requiring the construction of maximum-security "level 4" biosafety facilities - there are just five of them - when none has any known practical utility as a guerrilla weapon. The diseases the national security people are most worried about - anthrax, smallpox and plague - are either level 2 or level 3, and plenty of laboratories at those levels exist already.

"There is no benefit to our community. Not a single one," said Samantha McCarthy, who is leading efforts against the Davis biolab.

In Davis, in particular, there are serious security concerns. This is a university that managed to spread major contamination in a 1950s experiment to irradiate beavers. The clean-up is still going on. In February, a rhesus monkey used in disease experiments mysteriously disappeared from campus and has never been found. Now, the university is proposing to contract out security for the new biolab to Los Alamos, the nuclear laboratory in New Mexico embroiled in numerous security lapses - most recently when it lost what it called a "small" amount of low-grade plutonium.

According to Ms McCarthy, the biolab plan would entail the transport of highly dangerous materials in and out of town in ordinary lorries - a system that recently brought a Hazmat team out on to a road in Ohio after an explosion involving a lower-grade biological agent.

Most experts agree that the level 4 facilities would probably be pretty safe, since they are made of numerous isolation chambers that researchers would enter in moon-style protective gear. Whether they are suitable for urban areas such as Davis is a matter of debate, however. One biolab designer, Jim Orzechowski of the Canadian firm of Smith Carter Architects and Engineers, told the Los Angeles Times less than reassuringly last week: "We're getting as close to fail safe as possible. As fail safe as the space shuttle." The space shuttle has had two catastrophic failures in 17 years.

The broader question, however, is why these laboratories are being built at all. According to Richard Ebright, professor of chemistry at Rutgers University, it is a matter of crazy bureaucratic logic. Congress flooded the National Institutes of Health with so much money that the NIH simply could not work out how to spend it all on biodefence. Even if the NIH accepted every single research proposal without vetting - something it would never do - and built as many level 2 and level 3 labs as it possibly could, it still would not get through the $6bn. Only super-expensive level 4 labs can do the trick - even though they are of negligible scientific or medical value and do not cover bioweapon agents.

"Not only is this a monumental waste of money," Professor Ebright said, "but the new labs raise their own security issues. And it can't be a good idea to increase the number of people trained in handling these agents given the damage that a rogue scientist could do."

www.infowars.com/print/planned_terror/urban_labs.htm

Dr Len Horowitz and Dr Garth Nicholson write and lecture ex

RUE

Tuesday, April 11, 2006 3:18 PM

SergeantX

"We haven't had anything like unregulated healthcare for over a hundred years." I don't want to point fingers at any particular country, but unregulated medicine is 'alive and well' all around the world. And it works about as well in the modern age as it did back then.

"If it's optional ... than how would that be any different than regular health insurance?" If I'm right, it will be significantly cheaper. And it will be contra-monopoly, which means it will use diagnostic software, computerized record keeping, large-scale efficient protocols, and the power of negotiating for good prices for example. It would also be available to people who are now currently uninsured either b/c they can't afford it or b/c they have pre-existing conditions. (But as I said before, I would not trust this administration w/ govt healthcare under ANY circumstances.)

"gov't control" There are things that belong under government control (assuming the government is not in the pocket of big money). I'll give you a metaphor, and then cite a real world example. Nuclear weapons* are powerful things. You wouldn't want just anybody to have access to them b/c the risk isn't just to that person. Modern medicine is a powerful thing. Antibiotics which are OTC in many countries are fueling the explosion of resistant bacteria. There are many other examples which I can cite; I just don't want to be tedious.

"What I'm suggesting is people ought to be able to decide for themselves how much risk they find acceptable." That's why I suggested making government healthcare optional.

* I wonder if that reference has got me on the list of the minders.

Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.

CHRISISALL

Tuesday, April 11, 2006 3:25 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
Nuclear weapons* are powerful things. You wouldn't want just anybody to have access to them b/c the risk isn't just to that person.

I always knew you were a government lackey, Rue.

(Plus: you cheat in virtual fighting!)

Chrisisall, keeping his nukes under the right to bear arms...
*wonders why his cat's hair is all falling out...*

CITIZEN

Tuesday, April 11, 2006 5:39 PM

Problem with the right to bare arms is what happens in the winter?

More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity. But I know none, and therefore am no beast.

RUE

Tuesday, April 11, 2006 7:44 PM

ChrisIsAll

I do NOT cheat - I play SMART - stay up late till everyone is gone .....

Still tricksy after all these years

RUE

Tuesday, April 11, 2006 7:45 PM

"Problem with the right to bare arms is what happens in the winter?" OUCH, groooooaaaaaan

Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.

CITIZEN

Tuesday, April 11, 2006 7:57 PM

You just wish you thought of it first...

Stays up late and posts bad jokes...
CitizenIsAll Tommy Cooper Style Kung Fu

More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity. But I know none, and therefore am no beast.

CHRISISALL

Wednesday, April 12, 2006 1:11 PM

*Just found out that it is illegal to record events in Massachusetts without written consent of all participants, i.e. no Rodney King-style tapes here.
I moved to a neo-socialist/facist regime (that allows gay marrage- go figure).

Heil Healthcare!

Ack! Chrisisall

RUE

Thursday, April 27, 2006 4:32 AM

Percentage of Uninsured Americans Rising By THERESA AGOVINO, AP Business Writer
Wed Apr 26, 12:21 PM ET

The percentage of working-age Americans with moderate to middle incomes who lacked health insurance for at least part of the year rose to 41 percent in 2005, a dramatic increase from the 28 percent in 2001 without coverage, a study released on Wednesday found.

Moreover, more than half of the uninsured adults said they were having problems paying their medical bills or had incurred debt to cover their expenses, according to a report by the Commonwealth Fund, a New York-based private, health care policy foundation. The study of 4,350 adults also found that people without insurance were more likely to forgo recommended health screenings such as mammograms than those with coverage, and were less likely to have a regular doctor than their insured counterparts.

The report paints a bleak health care picture for the uninsured. "It represents an explosion of the insurance crisis into those with moderate incomes," said Sara Collins, a senior program officer at the Commonwealth Fund.

Collins said the study also illustrates how more employers are dropping coverage or are offering plans that are just too expensive for many people.

About 45.8 million Americans did not have health insurance in 2004, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

The percentage of individuals earning less than $20,000 a year without insurance rose to 53 percent, up from 49 percent in 2001. Overall, the percentage of people without insurance rose to 28 percent in 2005 from 24 percent in 2001.

The study also found that 59 percent of uninsured with chronic conditions such as asthma or diabetes either skipped a dose of their medicine or went without it because it was too expensive. One-third of them

One-third of those in that group visited an emergency room or stayed in a hospital overnight or did both, compared to 15 percent of their insured counterparts.

Collins said those statistics are significant because giving up medicines typically leads to more expensive health problems later. Treating people in expensive settings such emergency rooms places a financial burden on the health care system, she added.

"People not being able to take care of themselves should send out a big red flag," said Collins.

HCA Inc. hoisted a red flag on Tuesday, when the the nation's largest for-profit hospital operator said its earnings fell 8.5 percent in the first quarter after an increase in the uninsured admissions cut into revenue gains. Uninsured admissions rose 13 percent during the quarter, and the company said its provision for "doubtful accounts" rose to $852 million from $683 million a year earlier.

The Commonwealth Fund's study was bolstered by analysis of government data funded and released by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a private organization that provides health care grants.

That study found that cost prevented 41.1 percent of uninsured adults from seeing a doctor, compared to 9.2 percent of individuals with coverage.

Meanwhile, 51 percent of women without health insurance haven't had a mammogram in two years, compared to 22.8 percent of women with insurance.

And 76.3 percent of uninsured men between the ages of 40 to 64 haven't had the PSA test, which detects prostate cancer, in two years. That compares to 52.2 percent of their insured counterparts.

Researchers at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health used data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to reach the study's conclusion.

Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.

RUE

Thursday, April 27, 2006 4:47 AM

Many Americans have medical debts, or can't afford insurance: study 1 hour, 55 minutes ago

One in five American adults are working to pay off medical debts while an "alarmingly high" number of Americans with chronic illnesses skipped their medications because they could not afford them, according to a new study.

The study, by The Commonwealth Fund, also found that 41 percent of working-age Americans with annual incomes between 20,000 and 40,000 dollars were uninsured for at least part of the past year, up sharply from 28 percent in 2001.

"The jump in uninsured among those with modest incomes is alarming, particularly at a time when our economy has been improving," Commonwealth Fund President and study co-author Karen Davis said in a statement.

One in five, insured and uninsured, American adults are vying with unpaid medical bills, and one third of those surveyed had had medical bill problems in the past year or were paying off accrued medical debts, the study said.

Over 44 percent of all working-age adults with medical bills said their debts were 2,000 dollars or higher.

Researchers found that an "alarmingly high" proportion, 59 percent, of adults who were uninsured in the past year and have chronic illnesses, including diabetes and asthma, went without or skipped medications because they could not afford them.

Americans without health insurance were also more likely to go without recommended cancer, cholesterol and blood pressure screenings.

However, one-third of uninsured adults with chronic conditions visited a hospital emergency room, or stayed in a hospital overnight, or did both, compared to 16 percent of insured adults with such conditions.

A total of 4,350 adults, aged 19 and older, participated in the study which was conducted between August of last year and January 2006.

Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.

CHRISISALL

Thursday, April 27, 2006 7:14 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:

Over 44 percent of all working-age adults with medical bills said their debts were 2,000 dollars or higher.

But...but, many here on RWED say that our economy is strong, and that we all never had it so good...

We was lied to.

Ramboisall, who sews his own wounds

KHYRON

Thursday, April 27, 2006 8:12 PM

What are y'all talking about? The oil companies never made more profits, so the economy MUST be going well!

Other people can occasionally be useful, especially as minions. I want lots of minions.

CHRISISALL

Thursday, April 27, 2006 8:46 PM

The well being of the top 2% has always been foremost on my mind. It does my heart good to know they won't starve.

Chrisisall