ExiledInIllinois Posted December 9, 2004 Posted December 9, 2004 Who's fear mongering now? 153999[/snapback] Not I! That's a fact Jack... Look back at mortality rates. What are they now? And what were they in the past? Just the facts please.
ExiledInIllinois Posted December 9, 2004 Posted December 9, 2004 I know it does. Government involvement hasn't eliminated the problems with the school system, it's simply created more of them at tremendous cost. 154002[/snapback] I agree to an extent. It (government involvement) has made it better. Consider public health, I think that is a major inprovement. I know you want to glorify the past, there really isn't nothing to glorify... The facts are pretty gory. We live and learn the best ever...
Alaska Darin Posted December 9, 2004 Posted December 9, 2004 I agree to an extent. It (government involvement) has made it better. Consider public health, I think that is a major inprovement. I know you want to glorify the past, there really isn't nothing to glorify... The facts are pretty gory. We live and learn the best ever... 154012[/snapback] Evolution tells us that things will constantly improve or die off. Initially I think virtually every government program does some good. It's what they morph into that is to be feared. Sorry, I'm not willing to give any single entitiy that kind of control. Especially one with the track record of government.
DC Tom Posted December 9, 2004 Posted December 9, 2004 Sorry, your argument has been debated before. To deny the that our heath care system leaves millions of Americans on the outside looking in is to simply ignore reality. We're talking about people to have meanial jobs, or work for small companies that can't afford health care. We are not simply talking about "homeless" or welfare families. Heck, the welfare families are covered. 153696[/snapback] Let's say that's stipulated. So what? Your entire argument seems to be "If people don't have something, the government should provide it." Why? Where is it written that anyone's entitled to an affordable visit to a doctor's office?
Alaska Darin Posted December 9, 2004 Posted December 9, 2004 Let's say that's stipulated. So what? Your entire argument seems to be "If people don't have something, the government should provide it." Why? Where is it written that anyone's entitled to an affordable visit to a doctor's office? 154022[/snapback] What about my inalienable right to a $250K home theater system plus an evening scoring chics with Fabio?
ExiledInIllinois Posted December 9, 2004 Posted December 9, 2004 Evolution tells us that things will constantly improve or die off. Initially I think virtually every government program does some good. It's what they morph into that is to be feared. Sorry, I'm not willing to give any single entitiy that kind of control. Especially one with the track record of government. 154019[/snapback] I think private entities have an even more dubious track record. I agree. Yet, I am not fearful of giving up that control... Just as long it doesn't TOTALLY control guns.
Alaska Darin Posted December 9, 2004 Posted December 9, 2004 I think private entities have an even more dubious track record. I agree. Yet, I am not fearful of giving up that control... Just as long it doesn't TOTALLY control guns. 154032[/snapback] No private entity has ever killed 20,000,000 people or attempted to exterminate a group of people because of their religion. It's amazing the conclusions you come to.
ExiledInIllinois Posted December 9, 2004 Posted December 9, 2004 Let's say that's stipulated. So what? Your entire argument seems to be "If people don't have something, the government should provide it." Why? Where is it written that anyone's entitled to an affordable visit to a doctor's office? 154022[/snapback] Affordability directly equates to one's health. The more affordable, the more preventive measures one seeks, the more healthier that persons becomes, the more general welfare of the public is assured. Following me? I know it is bad English, who cares, I am in a hurry.
DC Tom Posted December 9, 2004 Posted December 9, 2004 What about my inalienable right to a $250K home theater system plus an evening scoring chics with Fabio? 154026[/snapback] No one's taking away that right. If you know Fabio, and can buy the system, go for it. No one's stopping you.
Alaska Darin Posted December 9, 2004 Posted December 9, 2004 Affordability directly equates to one's health. The more affordable, the more preventive measures one seeks, the more healthier that persons becomes, the more general welfare of the public is assured.Following me? I know it is bad English, who cares, I am in a hurry. 154039[/snapback] Yeah, the government is known for making things more affordable.
ExiledInIllinois Posted December 9, 2004 Posted December 9, 2004 No private entity has ever killed 20,000,000 people or attempted to exterminate a group of people because of their religion. It's amazing the conclusions you come to. 154036[/snapback] I am still willing to trust it in this day and age.
Alaska Darin Posted December 9, 2004 Posted December 9, 2004 I am still willing to trust it in this day and age. 154048[/snapback] Which is what makes you an idiot.
DC Tom Posted December 9, 2004 Posted December 9, 2004 Affordability directly equates to one's health. The more affordable, the more preventive measures one seeks, the more healthier that persons becomes, the more general welfare of the public is assured.Following me? I know it is bad English, who cares, I am in a hurry. 154039[/snapback] Uhhh...no. You're confusing public health with individual health. Making sure everyone can visit the doctor doesn't improve public health. In fact, the result's usually the opposite: public health becomes progressively underfunded, resulting in increased health care costs, resulting in less health care and a progressively less healthy population. Paradoxical, isn't it? That's the way it works, though...look at history. For decades, Minnesota had both the most skilled and well funded public health departments in the country, and the healthiest and longest lived population. When the idiots in state government dismantled the public health system and tried to fund individually-oriented health care, the overall standards of health and health care dropped in the state, simply because the population became LESS healthy in the absence of proper public health measures, no matter how affordable doctor's visits became. Universal health care is a blisteringly stupid idea...simply because it doesn't work. It's just a way for people who know nothing about the subject to feel good about themselves for "helping people". It doesn't help people, it helps persons. The people get progressively less healthy.
Alaska Darin Posted December 9, 2004 Posted December 9, 2004 Uhhh...no. You're confusing public health with individual health. Making sure everyone can visit the doctor doesn't improve public health. In fact, the result's usually the opposite: public health becomes progressively underfunded, resulting in increased health care costs, resulting in less health care and a progressively less healthy population. Paradoxical, isn't it? That's the way it works, though...look at history. For decades, Minnesota had both the most skilled and well funded public health departments in the country, and the healthiest and longest lived population. When the idiots in state government dismantled the public health system and tried to fund individually-oriented health care, the overall standards of health and health care dropped in the state, simply because the population became LESS healthy in the absence of proper public health measures, no matter how affordable doctor's visits became. Universal health care is a blisteringly stupid idea...simply because it doesn't work. It's just a way for people who know nothing about the subject to feel good about themselves for "helping people". It doesn't help people, it helps persons. The people get progressively less healthy. 154054[/snapback] That's an excellent way to portray it. Thanks.
ExiledInIllinois Posted December 9, 2004 Posted December 9, 2004 Uhhh...no. You're confusing public health with individual health. Making sure everyone can visit the doctor doesn't improve public health. In fact, the result's usually the opposite: public health becomes progressively underfunded, resulting in increased health care costs, resulting in less health care and a progressively less healthy population. Paradoxical, isn't it? That's the way it works, though...look at history. For decades, Minnesota had both the most skilled and well funded public health departments in the country, and the healthiest and longest lived population. When the idiots in state government dismantled the public health system and tried to fund individually-oriented health care, the overall standards of health and health care dropped in the state, simply because the population became LESS healthy in the absence of proper public health measures, no matter how affordable doctor's visits became. Universal health care is a blisteringly stupid idea...simply because it doesn't work. It's just a way for people who know nothing about the subject to feel good about themselves for "helping people". It doesn't help people, it helps persons. The people get progressively less healthy. 154054[/snapback] You make a good point. Did privacy play a part in the above situation?
DC Tom Posted December 9, 2004 Posted December 9, 2004 That's an excellent way to portray it. Thanks. 154058[/snapback] One of the myriad of topics I spend way too much time thinking about. Most health professionals don't even understand the distinction between public health and individual health care...let alone legislators. The result is that I, in DC, effectively have a Third World water supply (the tap water will kill AIDS patients in DC...too many creepy-crawlies in the system. If the lead levels don't get 'em first). And so many people think the "solution" is to insure that when people get cryptosporidia from the water, they can go see a doctor about it easily...not to fix the damned water supply to begin with! That's the difference between public health and individual health care. Frankly...I'm convinced at this point that the yahoos that advocate universal individual health care just want to do something about the issue (being: overall health care in America sucks) that makes them feel good regardless of how effective it is, not something that actually solves the problem.
DC Tom Posted December 9, 2004 Posted December 9, 2004 You make a good point. Did privacy play a part in the above situation? 154069[/snapback] Privacy as in the care and security of patient information? Or privatization, as in "Let the HMOs deal with it"?
ExiledInIllinois Posted December 9, 2004 Posted December 9, 2004 Privacy as in the care and security of patient information? Or privatization, as in "Let the HMOs deal with it"? 154077[/snapback] No as in privacy in terms of administering health care. Public santitoriums etc...
DC Tom Posted December 9, 2004 Posted December 9, 2004 No as in privacy in terms of administering health care. Public santitoriums etc... 154083[/snapback] Interesting question. The short answer is no (my justification for that is: sanitoriums and such went out of style quite some time ago. The need to quarantine tubercular patients, for example, pretty much dispappeared with the advent of antibiotics - though the public health aspects of tuberculosis care didn't change much beyond that: there was still the need to track patients and trace and, if possible, interrupt courses of infection. It's just that quarantine became a less useful public health tool.) The long answer, I'll have to think about some...the interrelation between public health and modern privacy regs is an interesting one... Really, the justification was the state budget: cutting public health expenditures is always very easy, since the benefits are often not visible. How do you explain to someone that an epidemiology lab reduces their health care costs? How do you distinguish to them their not being sick as a result of public health as opposed to not being sick as a result of the random chance of not catching anything? Hell, $5M spent on AIDS-related public health programs in 1982 would have cut the infection rate and death toll in half and saved us billions in health care costs over the next 30 years...but Reagan slashed federal public health services' budgets by 50% in '80-81, and the best individual health care in the world (the San Francisco gay community was wealthy, educated, and very health conscious, averaging something like four doctor's visits a year) didn't do a damned thing to stop that disaster. Public health is ALWAYS a tough sell and a primary source of budget cuts...primarily because very few people really understand it. Read Laurie Garrett's "Betrayal of Trust" for an excellent treatment on the topic of public health; in addition to interesting chapters on Ebola in Kikwit, plague in India (how does a modern country have a plague epidemic??? Ridiculous...), and damn near everything in the USSR, she devotes several hundred pages to the cockeyed system in the US. Even if you don't agree with her proposed solutions (you will, I don't...as I recall, she supports universal health care), she does an excellent job outlining the problems. I also recommend Randy Shilts' "And The Band Played On" for a history of the early years of the AIDS epidemic, and an example of how horrible public health policy created a monster that no individual health care system would ever address...
grabowr30045 Posted December 9, 2004 Posted December 9, 2004 Once again, capitalism works, communism does not.
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