Read the Reuters story linked to from the title of this posting. America now ranks dead last of 19 nations in the number of preventable deaths. That means more people die in America needlessly than in the rest of the developed nations of Earth. And still the politicians try to blow smoke up us with: “America has the best health care in the world.” but only if you have access.I’d have a ham and cheese sandwich… if I had any ham or cheese.“France did best — with 64.8 deaths deemed preventable by timely and effective health care per 100,000 people, in the study period of 2002 and 2003. Japan had 71.2 and Australia had 71.3 such deaths per 100,000 people. The United States had 109.7 such deaths per 100,000 people, the researchers said.After the top three, Spain was fourth best, followed in order by Italy, Canada, Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden, Greece, Austria, Germany, Finland, New Zealand, Denmark, Britain, Ireland and Portugal, with the United States last.PREVIOUS RANKINGSThe researchers compared these rankings with rankings for the same 19 countries covering the period of 1997 and 1998. France and Japan also were first and second in those rankings, while the United States was 15th, meaning it fell four places in the latest rankings.”Posted because of discussions from previous posting and because I fully support H.R. 676 Medicare For All bill introduced by John Conyers and promoted in the Michael Moore film, Sicko.Peter Nuhn
Actually I don’t have any problems with the poor or ill. If you could, for once, stop mentally masturbating and focus on the issues rather how you feel about what you think I’m all about, we’d get a lot more accomplished.
I do have a problem with the undereducated (you). I would like if you’d leave the country. There is no excuse to remain undereducated – even if one didn’t have access to public education (and I can’t see why they wouldn’t) they still have access to the public library. If you stuck your nose in a book instead of in others’ asses you might learn something.
I made it quite clear before that the government is causing the problems our health care system has. They set up the system that tied employment to healthcare, taking away consumer choice. Where there is no competition there are going to be high prices. Read all my previous posts. I’m entirely talking about making health care more accessible by removing the obstacles that are causing it to be expensive (and out of reach).
The government is in the business of creating monopolies. Telephone companies, the railroads, etc. were created through easements. Easements give a company rights to private property through force of law for “the greater good.” Short-sighted government officials generally award these to one company, creating the monopoly the company holds.
As far as companies like Microsoft that have been called monopolies are concerned, though technically true, the government hasn’t done a good job of proving that this has harmed anyone. Companies make an awful lot more money due to efficiency achieved by using Microsoft’s products. If the cost of Microsoft software was raised to a point where a company could no longer justify purchasing it to increase their own productivity and lower their costs, they wouldn’t buy it. They are getting the value they pay for – maybe more value than they’re paying for.
The rest of what you said isn’t even worth answering. You can converse with yourself if you would like to continue speculating about my opinions. That doesn’t matter to me.
Am I to infer that those scientists
posting here are not aware of survival of the fittest or natural selection as it plays out in the animal kingdom. Are we not animals?
This comes down to personal responsibility. Cause and effect.
I guarantee if you do not make intelligent life choices you will suffer. The only way for a human animal to survive is to build WEALTH. I would make the claim that a person can never be free if they are not wealthy.
-Don’t have children before you are financially secure
-If you marry, marry WISELY, and do not get divorced because it is supposed to be a LIFETIME commitment that builds character
-Educate yourself (this doesn’t necessarily require college) and work, work, work to achieve and build wealth
The idea that money (man’s survival) should be taken from one to give to another is wrong because it goes against the law of cause and effect. People need consequences for stupidity that’s how we as humans evolve.
I am in favor of universal healthcare, but ONLY because I do not like to witness suffering and death.
I am building wealth and making good choices to ensure my future survival. I NEED my money, and it is MINE and there is a line in which too much is asked from those that have worked hard and sacrificed to get where they are.
There are many countries in the world building soc-ialist utopias. The U.S. is saying NO we are doing it differently here, this is the land of kill or be killed. (financially)
dawnisis,
To a socialist all earnings are ill-gotten. No amount of philanthropy or altruism that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, for example, would sway such a person from the belief that capitalists are evil and that socialissm is the Truth and the light and the way to salvation for our economy.
One shouldn’t remind the socialisst that he shouldn’t get another toy (government-run social program) by pointing to the pile of broken toys he already has. That merely evokes a lot of crying and temper tantrums on his part. Asking him to grow up and earn his toys like the rest of us is also met with the same response.
atomictesting,
You pushed what into the disclosure of his credentials. Then you changed your argument to bash his statements. Not impressive at all.
What has revealed his credentials on occasion before. At the times he did, I felt it wasn’t to boast but to put his expressions in context, that is, to let us understand better where the points he was making were coming from.
atomictesting, I’ve been considering your comments about healthcare and I do have an economic background. Some of your arguments are indeed valid on the surface. The problem is and one of the problems with Ron Paul is that your solutions don’t stand up at the detail level.
Part of your solutions are to give companies more control. Companies are like christians, in that both lack a sense of ethics. That just doesn’t work very well, it creates some festering problems.
You sight competition as the solution often. Competition works best and perhaps only well, if it is not manipulated. In the United States manipulation is used very freely. I personally don’t like that but, in order for your solutions to work you would also need to bring integrity to the United States corporate and religious worlds. Do you have a plan to do that?
I’m sorry, but this isn’t true at all. He’s been pushing the idea that he knows better than I do what should go on with our health care system. He points to the fact that he is an MD to do so. I merely pointed out that Dr. Paul is also an MD and says the same thing I am. Clearly the credential isn’t doing much for his argument.
I’m not trying to push him into doing anything except back up his claims.
His claims so far have only been backed up with logical fallacies.
For example, argumentum ad populum, “The majority of Americans, a vast majority, have already decided that all americans deserve healthcare.”
No, I want to see consumers be given more control, NOT companies. I agree that corporate ethics can be questionable, but there is no justification for taxing individuals for purchasing coverage and simultaneously exempting corporate group plans from these taxes. This stifles competition.
This has been my entire point. I’m glad that I’m not the only one that sees this. I am very serious when I am saying that the manipulations our government has put in place are precisely what has put our health care system in economic turmoil. They then use the fact that the system is broken as a wedge strategy in order to force us into ceding all control of it to them.
We need to look no further than our Constitution and the restrictions it placed on government – restrictions that our government has been allowed to ignore far too long. The solution is one that currently makes a lot of people uncomfortable – vote Libertarian. The Libertarian tells us that he wants power to reduce the power of government overall. Do the Republican or Democratic parties espouse this idea? Power corrupts. Our Constitution set out to limit that power. Bush believes that it is “ust a piece of paper.” Is this the kind of thing we want our leadership to be believing and saying?
rna2dna,
I may not have been very clear with my last answer.
Not every corporation is set up by evil people to do evil things. We must dispense with the notion that all of these companies are corrupt from the outset. The manipulation (as you put it) of the market by the government drives the market to act accordingly. The liberal turns a blind eye to the damage his policies cause (of, if he’s particularly nefarious, inflicts this damage on purpose knowing the ramifications and using it to drive us to give him more power).
Our laws should be used to protect people from force and fraud. Corrupt companies are almost always corrupt because of fraud. If the government is empowered to fight this with our taxes instead of using our taxes to try and combat percieved social ills then many of those social ills will go away.
If we’re taxed less, we can afford more. Many people don’t have enough money to buy health care. Solve the problem by reducing their tax burden and repealing the laws that are creating the expensive system to begin with. I’m not talking about repealing laws that actually protect people from harm (there should be restrictions on the process of getting a new drug to market in the interests of protecting the consumer from fraudulent claims about the risk of such drugs, for example), just the ones that are damaging the market and enabling the system we now have.
As far as the religious side – the Libertarians are also very much in agreement with SOCAS. It’s part of the very first amendment to our Constitution – clearly the founders thought it was important.
I’ll make this argument a lot simpler. Why should our government, knowing their track record, create this problem?
Democrats should already know from past experience that Republicans are going to defund social programs in the years that they’re in power. They’ve done it with Social Security for years and look at the state it is in. Giving government this power also gives them power to play politics with the system. What makes you all so certain that this won’t happen yet again? I’ve seen no evidence presented that history will not repeat itself. Anyone care to take a stab at it?
That question should read:
“Why would our government, knowing their track record, be able to tackle this problem?”
Two different sentences, worded differently, came to mind and I somehow produced a weird mishmash of both.
Atomic
That url was not complete.
On this thread I did not bring up my credentials until you accused my of “playing that “I’m a doctor” card.”. Then I responded to your accusation that I was not a scientist.
There was no flaw in my logic and it was not a case of argumentum ad populum any more than saying “most people have feet” is a case of argumentum ad populum. It is a fact and I was stating it as a proposition to be considered in one’s logical analysis.
Do you think it is possible to design a “solution” to the health care problem without considering that the decision to provide care for all has already in practice been made?
What,
Let it rest.
Atomic shows time and time again in any discussion that he thinks he’s far more intelligent then anyone else. No matter that he can be bothered to present facts nor can he be bothered to discuss the facts present to him by others.
He is so intelligent and well educated that his most common defense is putting fingers in ears and going ‘I don’t hear you’. Is it not so afterall that time and time again he doesn’t adress the issues or just out of hand claim that they are non significant?
He also makes it clear that he has no understanding of how anything really works and his entire ‘intelligence’ is based on hearsay and presumptions.
EG.1
“I do have a problem with the undereducated (you). I would like if you’d leave the country. There is no excuse to remain undereducated”
Letting it slide that he calls me undereducated there’s the small fact that I’m not in or from the US.
That there’s no excuse to remain undereducated shows that he has no understanding of the fact that there are people out there that have to work that hard for that low of a wage to make ends meet that they can’t make time or earn enough to get ahead.
Let me explain something to Atomic and Dawnisis. Success doesn’t come to those that have the best brain, education and ideas. Success comes to those that are made success full by those that already have made it.
To put it differently: no matter how smart you are if you don’t get the opportunity then you aren’t going anywhere. There’s no such thing as a self-made man. If your banker/ investor/friends and family don’t help you out then you are not going to get anywhere fast. Look at anyone that went from rags to riches, look at any big success story and you’ll discover that if it wasn’t for some people at some crucial points to either help or at least not obstruct then it wouldn’t have happened.
Example 2.
“Companies make an awful lot more money due to efficiency achieved by using Microsoft’s products. If the cost of Microsoft software was raised to a point where a company could no longer justify purchasing it to increase their own productivity and lower their costs, they wouldn’t buy it. They are getting the value they pay for – maybe more value than they’re paying for.”
Anyone who has knowledge of IT matters has to burst out in laughter about this statement by Atomic. I would highly suggest Atomic to actually read up about the history of MS as well face the fact that since it is for all intent and purposes a monopoly it can pretty much ask what it wants. Claiming that if it wasn’t for MS products companies wouldn’t be efficient is
beyond ridiculous considering the fact that there are other products out there that would actually give the companies a far higher level of efficiency. The reason they aren’t used being that it would mean that management wouldn’t have to relearn some stuff and although employees should be flexible and know everything one can’t expect a manager to have to relearn how and what to start up so as to check how soon he can go play golf again.
E.g. 3
“To a social1st all earnings are ill-gotten. “
Atomic should really get a clue. If he claims to have had a decent education then he would do well to demonstrate it instead of regurgitating what someone has poured into his brain. I don’t care what he believes social1sm to be seeing as that it has no bearing on what it means in the rest of the world.
All in all you can sum up his points as follows:
-Universal health care is evil because it’s the slippery slope to communism
-the reason that the health care needs a bit of reform in the US is because the evil government prohibits the freedom loving corporations compete fairly for the clients
-US is the best country
-any involvement of the government , which is evil by the way, on any level is curtailing freedom of the people
-US is the best in everything
-poor people are poor because the choose not to be rich
-Only US can produce first class doctors
-uneducated and undereducated people are not better educated because they choose not to be
-USA, USA, USA
-the rich are rich because they are smart
-US is no.1
-success comes to those that work for it (never mind all the idiots that you can find in top jobs although they shouldn’t even be left to run a streeetcorner lemonade stand)
-USA is the best country in the world, the galaxy, the universe
-taxes, any and all, are just there to prevent companies and individuals to raise to their full potential.
-Atomic is far more intelligent and better educated then anyone else
-Did I mention that the US is the best? Although all statistics, studies, facts shows that the only things the US is no.1 in are believing in god, using natural resources for no good reason, bullying, and kneeling before the almighty corporation.
*shrug*
If one wonders why this diatribe then let me finish by stating that I for one am getting fed up by Atomic’s far right politics pushed in our faces each and everytime.
By now we all know that Atomic only cares for himself and to hell with the rest. He is free to do so that doesn’t mean that there for we shouldn’t be free to have higher standards and be free to express them without his BS.
You guys have probably forgotten this by now.
It’s possible that it has some effect, but it can’t be the main factor. France has a population higher than most of the countries listed, so they must be doing something that we are not.
Les gens am?ricains sont Idiots
come on, he has to know that you can’t slip into communism, you can slip into fascism.
Thats one reason why we tax the rich more than the poor
pkite,
How would a person with brains, education and ideas fail to make connections that will help them? This is just a false argument that implies life is chance and no person determines their own fate.
You imagine people as helpless victims who deserve to be given the money earned by “lucky” people.
My life is not luck. My life is working hard and making good choices. There are some born at extreme disadvantages true, but in the end their families are responsible not the government.
I am not some crazed right winger I support universal health care, because I don’t think people should die because they and by extension their families failed to provide for them.
I went without healthcare for many years and the hard cold truth is my parents should have prepared better to support me during and immediately after college but they didn’t so i was SOL. I would never make the same mistake when I have my own children.
This IS a discussion about personal responsibility.
I will give even more examples of personal responsbility:
- Everyone should have $10,000 minimum in an emergency fund. You should have this saved BEFORE having children and BEFORE making other major purchases like new cars, houses and junk, if you don’t have this you are gonna be begging the government for hand outs when disaster strikes.
- Don’t purchase a house until you have perfect credit and at least 10% if not 20% for a downpayment. It took me YEARS to do this, but if you don’t you’ll end up getting screwed by the banks. In fact, these people are gonna be responsible for a recession.
I could go on but, it hardly matters. Life is about choices and priorities and if you don’t take care of yourself no one else is going to. You will just be a slave with no control over your fate.
With the way our two-party system works it’s hard to tell which way we’re going but it’s evident that if one party or the other gains total power that we’ll end up with effectively the same thing as communism or fascism.
Look at how things are going. Each party polarizes more and more each year – one in response to the other. The more fascistic the Republicans look, the more communistic the response from the Democrats. The Republicans have already made two major jumps toward fascism in the last 40 years or so.
The first was getting in bed with faithers – in this country it was the Christians. In Italy is was Mussolini with Catholics. In Germany it was Hitler with Christians. The more entwined the Republicans get with religion the more they head toward fascism. Of course, they’ve seen that you can’t get freedom-loving Americans to accept fascism in one gulp, so they’ve gone about it in tiny steps.
The other big jump the Republicans have taken is more south of right – toward statism. Bigger government (just like the Democrats want) and more centralized authority are their new goals.
In response the Democrats feed off of the Republicans’ expansions of the government, using the larger budgets to push for more all-encompassing social programs. Eventually these programs will become so extensive that we’ll find that all of our money goes to taxes and to supporting the welfare state.
The Republicans, when they attain power again because the will of the people is to reduce the tax burden the Democrats place on us all, then are found to not reduce the size of government at all but rather break all of the programs the Democrats create by shifting funding around (because they can’t repeal them outright). The two sides become perpetually locked in a struggle to assert more control and grow the government. How are “We the People” best served by this?
I see three possible ends to this:
1) One side or the other starts getting abandoned in droves or enjoys a long stint in control and we end up with increasingly strong fascism or communism as a result.
2) The deepening divide between these two ideologies culminates in revolution – civil war. North vs. South all over again. This time it will be so bloody and so brutal and so many will die that either we’ll fall victim in our weakened state to some other ideology (Islamofascism, anyone?) or we’ll end up back at our revolutionary war roots – Libertarianism.
3) We’ll come to our senses and recognize the freedoms our country stands for are best protected by a small government. We’ll realize that people don’t want to be compelled into someone else’s morality (fascism) or into giving up everything they’ve worked for pursuing an impossible-to-sustain ideology (communism). We’ll realize the evil of statism (whether it’s left or right leaning) for what it really is and stop it before it gets any stronger and return our government to the size and power our Constitution requires.
atomic,
Although you applied this to fascism I want to apply it to the “humanism” we have witnessed on this thread.
No one should dictate morality through government. It’s a bad idea for many reasons, the most important being it runs counter to freedom.
The liberal/communist/humanist agenda is just as enslaving as the republican/fascist/religious agenda.
Morality is an abstract concept based on a personal philosophy. It is still a mere opinion, even when one thinks it is for “the best” or right reasons. You can’t go around dictating through law a moral concept that people should have their money taken away and given to others.
Money is the great decider, the great punisher and the great reward for one’s life choices. It should be the priority for each person because it is the equivalent of “hunting” in the animal kingdom. If you can’t hunt you perish.
People like to think we are “above” animal behavior and natural selection but we are not. If you want to help the poor then help them and if you don’t then you shouldn’t be forced to through laws.
The only question that remains is are we free or not?
The answer is obvious to me, to be free there can be no government based on ANYONE’S concept of morality. Laws and taxation should be used sparingly and there should be as few as possible.
Dawnisis
I was one of those born to disadvantage. As a child my family (mother and three brothers) lived on the edge of poverty often dipping deeply into it. By the time I was 20 half of my and my brothers’ childhood friends were dead or in prison. How I was allowed to graduate high school I will never know. The moment that changed my life was very personal and I will not talk about it here but there was little deliberate thought involved in that pivotal moment that changed everything for me.
Every now and then when I am feeling vulnerable I am tempted to think and say that it was my hard work (and there was plenty of it) that is responsible for the life I enjoy today but I now that this was not the major ingredient to the relative success that I have enjoyed. Yes hard work is usually necessary but it is not sufficient for everyone. IMHO opportunity is the most important ingredient for success and contrary to what some would like to think we are not born with equal portions of it.
what,
I agree and sympathize but by your own admission is was your family who failed to provide for you. As was the case when I lived without insurance. This is what happens when people make bad choices and those choices impact their families. But should money be stolen from others to give to the families who fail to make good choices?
This is where we differ. I would hope your experience has made you stronger and determined not to hurt your children the same way your family hurt you. That is what consequences do, they make you change and they make you better.
I am glad my parents were unable to provide everything for me because it made me think hard about the impact my own behavior on those I love.
You cannot dictate morality through law and if you could I would support a law that no one making less than “X” amount of money should have children. You would choose to take money away from those who earn it to support those people who CHOOSE to have children they cannot afford.
Each of those are EQUALLY wrong and run counter to individual freedom. Therefore there should be no laws dictating someone’s idea of morality.
Atomic,
what I meant was that communism doesn’t happen slowly, there is usually (or always) a bloody revolution. We don’t have to worry about waking up one day and our country is communist, You are right about a turning into a welfare state, although I don’t see why that is nearly as bad as fascism.
what about the children? should they suffer for their parent’s mistakes?
stupid kids, maybe they should have chosen to be born rich.
Dawnisis
Want to be rich? OK then, choose it. Are you rich yet? Nope? What do you know, there are more important forces at work than the choices we make? OPPORTUNITY makes choice look insignificant. Dumbass luck even shows-up choice more often than you are willing to admit.
What,
Actually, I am choosing to be rich and I am well on my way.
I will be rich because of my decisions. I have not had any children yet and I married a great guy and we are both hard at work being successful in our chosen fields.
It is that easy. I cannot fathom someone trying to take our money to pay for people who have not made good choices.
I should pay for someone who had kids before they could afford them? That is spitting in the face of my own sacrifice to wait to have children until I have saved enough money and built my own career.
Seriously, I just don’t agree.
stillhorn,
Since this is my quote, not alex’s I will answer for it:
The children of poor people are already given free health insurance by the government. So I don’t even see your point.
I mean, do you think we should make the parents rich? We give them a monthly check, food-stamps, and health insurance already so what more is it you think we should do?
What if anytime a couple becomes pregnant we run them through a data-base and check to see if they can support the child. If they can, yeah for them. If they can’t, put the kid up for adoption and make it easier for parent hopefuls with resources to adopt. Just seems that reasigning resources isn’t the best solution. Why not reasign the children? (Its controversial, but I’m serious; give some logical answers to the ‘why not?’)
knowledge,
I mentioned something similar earlier in this thread. Can we not all agree that having children before you can afford to feed and insure them is child abuse?
I would never favor laws about who could have children for the same reason I don’t support stealing money and giving it to these people, both of those options EQUALLY run counter to personal freedom.
Basically that leaves us with doing enough to support these children WITHOUT rewarding their parents for stupidity.
Family planning is really the cornerstone of the problem of poverty. Once you have children you are trapped. We have got to get everyone on birth control including men, because it sucks that men have so little control over whether children are born. I am sure they will invent effective male b/c pills in the next few years.