The Glade 4.0

Montegue:

You should easily be able to substantiate your claim that John Stossel is an idiot; so, why don't you do so? You're making an ad hominem attack, and admittedly so, instead of addressing the content of his opinion/editorial piece. Why is that?

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Yes, I am just making an ad hominem attack against John Stossel. I see no need to address his piece.

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It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

Awesome, so when you have nothing that can be argued against the points he makes you call him an idiot and refuse to acknowledge what he says...

Let's all remember this boys and girls.

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Darksiege
Traveller, Calé, Whisperer
Lead me not into temptation; for I know a shortcut

Stossel's article is just more evidence of the total lack of honesty about health care that exists when you get close to the political center.

Most liberals are aware that government health care will increase costs. The far-left liberals are perfectly fine with this, and say, "well, let the rich pay for it." However the center-left liberals are uncomfortable with blatantly dumping the cost on the wealthy so they run in circles trying to find bullshit justifications.

At the same time, the far-right has no problem with the fact that private healthcare will let the poor and lower middle classes die if they get health problems. The center-right is again not comfortable with admitting this, so they come up with their own load of bullshit like statements that private health care is actually better for those with no or next to no money.

I just don't get why people want government to stop people who can't afford to keep living from dying?

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

wow

I think you haven't thought this through enough Elmo.

Everyone will always eventually die of some health problem, but most health problems will not result in deaht, and most that will won't do so directly or immidiately. The far right isn't in favor of letting people die of health problems because most of them won't, at least not right away.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Because unless ACORN counts them- the dead can't vote?

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A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. ~ John Stuart Mill

I'd just like to point out that the US is currently leading on chronical life style diseases. It is also proven that those least likely to change their life style are those on the lower spectrum of income (losing weight is expensive, except when you stop eating). So it's a catch 22 really, but there's always a choice.

Ok, if they have a serious health problem. You cannot get around the fact that private insurance let people who can't pay, die. Yes hospitals are required to treat life-threatening conditions but that doesn't go as far as you think, they only have to stabilize you and then they can boot you out the door. If you have heart disease, cancer, or basically any potentially fatal chronic condition you're pretty **** because they're not required to actually treat that, once these become immediately life threatening it's generally over for you anyway.

This is because public health care systems can spend money on prevention and health awareness, which as we all know is several times more effective than waiting for a problem and then paying to treat it.

Private health care can't do prevention, it's a classic prisoner's dilemma. If I run ads telling people not to smoke and to exercise, I benefit because my costs go down. But the thing is, my competitors' customers also see the same ads, and his costs also go down. Since I spent the money and he didn't, it's a relative loss for me. The result is everyone eschews prevention campaigns, which is a huge inefficiency.

Interestingly you mentioned this. I only attended a conference yesterday where someone from the FDA was invited to talk in regards to prevention vs post care cost. As it currently stands in the US, 2% of costs for every dollar in health care is spent on prevention and health awareness, where as 70% of costs for every health dollar is spent on treatment? (just a little statistical fun)



I am not well versed in the private health insurance in the US, however we have plenty of media covering the prevention for private health insurance. e.g. We have deductions off the premiums for our private health insurance if you join a gym or one of the many sports teams, all preventative care are mostly fully subsidised by the insurer, you get a deduction in premium if you’re not a smoker or drinker (I believe most set this as less then 3 drinks a week) and you even get a deduction with some insurers if you have not been in an at fault car accident in the last 5-10 years (depending).

Sir, I submit to you that it is NOT the place of a public or private health system to have campagins to raise awareness. While it's a nice thing to do, in the end, it's the consumers responsibility to become educated. Companies should have the information available, but a campagin to feed it to people is a needless expense and in my opinon, wasted money. Ignorant is as ignorant does.

I eat a balanced diet. I exercise daily. I do not, and have never smoked. I do not drink to excess. When I've been overwhelmed with stress I've sought out counciling. All of these things I do because I feel they enhance my life, and I recieve tangible benefits for them. Most people don't want to start facing lifestyle changes until after they lose a few appendages to diabetes, or lose the cartilidge in their knees from carrying too much fat. The difference between myself and "them" is that I am making an effort to promote and maintain my own health. They are not. And no amount of slap happy feel good campagins are going to make a person change until that person has a NEED to change. Most of these people do not have that need yet.

Those of us who are healthy by our own doing are going to be lumped in with the people who are unhealthy by their own doing. We have to be, because we lower their risk group. If people were insured based on their lifestyle choices, rightfully so those people would be in a higher risk. And they would pay more for those choices. I pay less because I get my *** up and run in the morning. Why should I now pay more for them?

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A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. ~ John Stuart Mill

Everybody dies. Everybody. ALL of you will eventually die, if the Lord tarries.

One thing I am sure of, health care has never saved a life. At most health care can (seemingly) prolong life. That's it.

I say seemingly because when it's your time to go, you go, and if it's not your time, you stay.

So the best example you can come up with is a shotty, inefficient product enhancement ad campaign that wouldn't actually go into effect because it is shotty and inefficient?

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"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

Lydiaa,

The US also leads the world in the numbers of people on terminal life support.....

I am convinced... God is going to have me live forever... where else can he find someone to pick on so easily?

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Darksiege
Traveller, Calé, Whisperer
Lead me not into temptation; for I know a shortcut

That depends. You'll need to clarify that statement.



False. EMTALA goes well beyond stabilization.



Both clauses of this sentence are false as far as the spirit of "access to care" goes, though the former is true insofar as proper treatment goes.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

The model hasn't been implemented or created yet because forces against preventive medicine as a model are too strong in this country, not because it's impossible.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

It's not the "best example I can come up with," it's just one avenue that a public health care system can get back some of the efficiency that it will inevitably lose by being government run.

I don't think public health care is a magic cure-all, I just think that if your goal is to get the best health care possible for the average person, then public is the best way to go. Public health care is absolutely about making the "rich" pay twice as much or more so the "poor" can have health insurance. The point is since the poor outnumber the rich significantly, even an inefficient system will come up with a better average. Remember, there are fifty million people without medical insurance. And as we all know, it doesn't take a lot of zeroes to destroy an average.

You guys also need to understand the liberal mindset on this issue. When you say things like, "why the **** should I have to pay for other people's problems?" in regards to health care, they immediately dismiss you as an evil bastard or an outright murderer, depending on how far left they are. When you say this, to them it means you are either evil or ignorant, and that means they have every right to take your money for whatever purpose they deem necessary.

No, there really aren't.



I don't have to understand their mindset to know that their logic is inherently flawed AND based upon false or flawed premises.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

Yes and? We all die. Every single person does not need to live to a ripe old age.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Walk me through why you believe that government should, if you do.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

You've made this statement in the past, and it got shot down then. As nothing has changed to make the statement valid now, its still wrong. There are plenty of private insurance companies that do prevention, and one branch of the medical field that makes the majority of its cases out of nothing by prevention.