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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: i-node who wrote (196059)	7/28/2004 1:25:41 AM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1575427

Why not? It's not "willy-nilly." Two people who love each other would like to say that they're married, so why can't they? Your argument is clearly reactionary. Two people can say whatever they want. They can proclaim themselves to be rhinos for all I care. The question has to do with the LEGAL MEANING of the term. Laws are amended all the time. The term "marriage" or "married" appears tens of thousands of times the USC and various state codes. There is no reason to disrupt the meanings of these documents. And there won't be any disruption. Amending the definition will not change the code in any significant way. Are you telling me that the HMO system is a good one? It's awful! I can't imagine a state-run system being much worse. First of all, HMOs do not predominate American healthcare. And HMOs generally provide first rate healthcare. But people who don't want to use HMOs need not do it. It is a choice you make. Nearly ten years ago, 60% of Americans were in some form of managed health care. That may not meet the definition of "predominate" but that's still a lot of people. And I bet that percentage is higher today. "In 1996, about 60 percent of Americans were enrolled in some sort of managed care health plan (the most common of which are health maintenance organizations, or HMOs, and preferred provider organizations, or PPOs). That's up from 36 percent in 1992. The increase is due in large part to employers shifting their workers away from the traditional – and considerably more expensive – "fee-for-service" health insurance plans. (About 16 percent of Americans have no health insurance at all.)" washingtonpost.com You can't have the best conceivable healthcare for everyone. It simply cannot be done. You end up with something like the nightmare in Canada. I just put systems in a medical oncology center in which the physicians, out of their own pockets, spent over a million bucks to have a CT scanner installed. In Canada, they will tell you it is redundant because patients could be sent across the street to the hospital to get CT scans. But for patients who are undergoing chemo treatment, scheduling a separate appointment at a different location on another day to get a CT scan, THEN to have to return to the physician's office on YET ANOTHER DAY to get it interpreted is a scenario that has made more than one patient (my mother included) give up fighting cancer. It is just too damned much trouble. How is that any different than a poor family going from one clinic to the next to get health care for the entire family? For many people, that running around is better than the nothing they currently have or can afford. Independent health plans ENCOURAGE this treatment. Your government run health plan will do no such thing. People bitch about the high cost of drugs. But that high cost is what causes those drugs to be developed. If the drug company cannot expect to make A LOT of money, they're not going to RISK A LOT of money to develop a drug that may or may not produce profits. WHY DO YOU THINK THE UNITED STATES IS WHERE MOST OF THE MAJOR DRUG ADVANCES ORIGINATE? WHY DOESN'T CANADA DEVELOP ITS OWN DRUGS? Really? I think that statement can be readily disputed. Out of 16 major pharmaceutical countries, 7 are outside the US, all in countries with national health care. And before you ask, they are SHR, ACI, AVE, BAY, GSK, AZN, and NVD. Those companies are developing many important drugs for worldwide markets including the US. While US companies produce a lot of new drugs, they by no means have a monopoly. I'll be glad to discuss this subject at length with you, but if you are closed minded about it I don't want to waste the effort. This is stuff you have to give some serious thought to if you're going to take a position on it. Because you can take the best healthcare system in the world, ANYWHERE, and fu*k it up so badly it cannot be repaired. When you look at the disasters government programs such as SS, Medicare, Medicaid, and others have become, if you don't have second thoughts about what you're proposing there is something wrong with you. What is the basis for your evaluation that we have the best health care system in the world?

To: i-node who wrote (196059)	7/28/2004 7:12:01 AM
From: Road Walker	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1575427

re: Only 14% of our population is uninsured. And that 14% receives FREE healthcare from thousands of state and county run hospitals and other facilities. That 14% still gets better healthcare than they would get in any other country on earth. Where are these free hospitals? John

To: i-node who wrote (196059)	7/28/2004 9:19:16 PM
From: SilentZ	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1575427

>When you talk about people not getting healthcare, you simply don't know what you're talking about. Well, I just had a conversation with six or seven twenty-somethings who are not given health insurance by their employers, and they end up paying 1/3 or more of their take-home pay every month towards their own insurance. I've definitely known people who have gone without dental or doctor visits because they're without insurance. It seems that more and more employers are denying their employees benefits these days; I see it every day. That shouldn't be. > WHY DO YOU THINK THE UNITED STATES IS WHERE MOST OF THE MAJOR DRUG ADVANCES ORIGINATE? WHY DOESN'T CANADA DEVELOP ITS OWN DRUGS? The United States also has much more innovation than Canada does in semiconductors... does Canada socialize its semiconductor industry? We do a lot of things well. >The aforementioned cancer clinic -- yes, it makes millions of dollars a year. BUT THEY HAVE NEVER, EVER TURNED A PATIENT AWAY WHO WAS UNABLE TO PAY. NOT ONCE. But is that the rule, or is that the exception? We have to trust that private clinics will always do that. I'm always surprised by the fact that the Right, which clearly believes more in the existence of the concept of evil and says that people like Islamic militants can't be rehabilitated because they're evil, are the same ones that trust companies, which are run by people, to do the right thing. -- especially when it's often in their interest not to do so. -Z