War on sickness
POSTED BY: SergeantX
UPDATED: Thursday, April 27, 2006 20:46
VIEWED: 5120
PAGE 6 of 7
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.
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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
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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
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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.
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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...*
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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.
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ChrisIsAll
I do NOT cheat - I play SMART - stay up late till everyone is gone .....
Still tricksy after all these years
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"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.
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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.
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*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
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