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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Father Terrence who wrote (22123)	5/24/1998 10:01:00 PM
From: Grainne	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 108807

Oh, no, Terrence. Are you one of these New World Order conspiracy people? Do you believe in black helicopters and the whole bit?

To: Father Terrence who wrote (22123)	5/25/1998 8:35:00 PM
From: Lady Lurksalot	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

FT, Good to see you roving the halls again! Another reason for rapid and tremendous increases in cost in health care is what became the near-universal third-party payer system (read health insurance). For far too long, this served to insulate the user from the cost. Because the user was not paying directly, there was no particular incentive for the user to protest or attempt to contain the rapidly escalating cost. Over the past several years, the third-party payers have been balking at these costs, as costs eat into profits, and have succeeded in pushing us into the more efficient and profitable HMO setup. There are other factors and subsets of the above factors, but that is the short and simplistic version. I can't say I agree with you re Bill Gates and Microsoft. From what I have observed of BG's ethics and business practices over the years, he defines the concept of the evil robber baron. Aside from that, it is an act of charity on my part to say that Microsoft's products are merely mediocre. My question about your take on the global marketplace or global economy was not as clear as it should have been, but I do agree with what you have stated. When I asked that question, I was thinking more along the lines of companies located in the US of A exporting labor or jobs to areas on our globe where wages and costs are a fraction of what they are here. Technology makes this possible and feasible and downright attractive to industry. Some of the affected professions and the ramifications may surprise you. Holly

To: Father Terrence who wrote (22123)	5/27/1998 1:18:00 PM
From: Grainne	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 108807

Terrence, what exactly would you do about Medicare? Abolish it? I know that my own grandmother died in her early sixties about two years before it was enacted, of a very treatable condition that resulted in kidney failure and death, because she did not have any money to see a doctor, and was too proud to ask her children for help. Since all of her sisters and brothers were still mentally sharp and physically spry and working into their mid-eighties, it would seem that probably took at least twenty relatively healthy years off of her life. It is easy to look at places the government spends a lot of money, and in which there is a lot of fraud, and say we should just abolish them. Certainly, most people would agree that some reform of Medicare might be helpful; do you have any concrete ideas? At the same time, programs like this were enacted because there was a general belief that in a "civilized" society, old people deserved a safety net. Certainly, that is the standard now in other western societies.