Post #109,141
7/10/03 11:53:25 PM
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What we really need are reasonable health costs
A trip to the hospital can cost thousands of dollars, why? Why so inflated? Why does anyone who works in the hospital have a right to bill you, even people you've never seen or that never even touched your charts? Why pay $250 for two Asprin and other outragous fees? The hospital is supposed to be non-profit, yet they claim to be losing money despite the price gouging.
Next operation or hospital stay that I need, I think I'll take a trip to a Thailand hospital, they are faster and cheaper than the hospitals in the United States. Within 15 minutes I saw a doctor and got treated and only paid $15USD, I would have paid $50USD or more as an insurance co-pay and would have had to wait hours to see a doctor in a US Hospital. What do the people in Thailand know that US hospital's don't know?
"I wonder how much of this BS Corporations will continue to shallow before they start looking into alternatives to Microsoft software?" -[link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=106839|Orion]
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Post #109,180
7/11/03 7:05:03 AM
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ObLeftyComment
This kind of thing is why I *love* the NHS over here.
Peter
[link|http://www.debian.org|Shill For Hire]
[link|http://www.kuro5hin.org|There is no K5 Cabal]
[link|http://guildenstern.dyndns.org|Blog]
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Post #109,410
7/12/03 6:06:02 PM
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ObCommentFromEvenLeftierPlace: Amen, Brother!
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Post #110,128
7/17/03 11:25:20 AM
7/17/03 11:26:42 AM
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A few reasons.
1) The average mark-up for insurance paper-pushers who ultimately pay your bills is between 16 & 18% (depending on where you live).
2) Indigent care means they get the treatment w/out the providers getting paid. So your bill goes up. Don't kid yourself, medical practice has nothing to do with that old, obsolete, oath thingy. This is Murica, the land of "make as many bucks as possible on everything you do or don't do it at all."
3) For all their whining and bitching, average physician salaries are still about 10 (or more) times the average salary of an employed Murican. (Not bad for 2 years of grad school, no thesis and 4-6 years OJT).
4) Muricans want to live forever and insist they drive their cars everywhere, stay on the couch to turn on the TeeVee - can't afford to walk that far, etc. You eat at Wendy's, McDonald's, KFC, Burger King, etc. drive throughs and you're surprised your arteries look like hell and require expensive surgery?
5) We spend far too much in the last 2 months of anyone's life on their healthcare. "Yeah, keep momma in ICU on a vent for a month or two. I know she's gone, but I can't unplug her."
Want to know why Europeans don't spend as much on healthcare? They're healthier. They get enough time off to actually go out and do healthy things, like exercise fer instance. But not to worry, with good ol' Murican corporate expansion, pretty soon it won't matter if you're in Chicago, Sydney, Montreal, Paris or Moscow, every damned street will look the same - a Pizza Hut, McD's, BK and KFC on every corner. Then they'll be as sick as us.
bcnu,
Mikem
The soul and substance of what customarily ranks as patriotism is moral cowardice and always has been...We have thrown away the most valuable asset we had-- the individual's right to oppose both flag and country when he (just he, by himself) believed them to be in the wrong. We have thrown it away; and with it all that was really respectable about that grotesque and laughable word, Patriotism.
- Mark Twain, "Monarchical and Republican Patriotism"
Edited by mmoffitt
July 17, 2003, 11:26:42 AM EDT
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Post #110,223
7/17/03 7:41:49 PM
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And the scary thing is..
That's not even a cynical encapsulation. Merely factual.
(And yes, I expect you'd agree.. there are wheels-within wheels here, too - each one perpetuating the lock-in To This Particular barely functioning giant interlocked nexus of greed, euphemism, false expectations, lying-'oaths' and puerile dreams of transistorized immortality)
ie Vote for Nobody because -
Nobody! IS smart enough to deconstruct the web of deception, multi-thread a new and sane replacement.. and not get offed by a Corp hitman, as it starts to come together.
Nobody! can replace the Massive Fear That Someday I Might Die.. with some sane comprehension of metaphysical matters of the form, Don't Worry. Be Happy. {Meher Baba, for just one}. Nobody Can Do This!!
The only question remaining is: the week/month/year -?- of the highest dd/dt
(max rate of self-destruction evident and measurable) - meaning, high enough to actually attract the attention of even such a dysfunctional dishonest (other) mass scumocracy as - the US Meeja And Presidential-Anointing Corp.
Ashton
Don't Get Sick {HERE!}
Entropy Always Wins
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Post #110,237
7/17/03 8:45:00 PM
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However,
let an insurance company refuse to pay for those last 2 months of life on ICU and ventilators -- who will be at the forehead of the protest? Why, our friend mikem. That would be another capitalist crime.
--
Less Is More. In my book, About Face, I introduce over 50 powerful design axioms. This is one of them.
--Alan Cooper. The Inmates Are Running the Asylum
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Post #110,349
7/18/03 11:59:13 AM
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Not likely.
IMO, we have a peculiarly unattractive tendency here to sacrifice our future for the sake of our past. (I've written about that here extensively).
Take a look: seniors are getting a drug plan while about 1 in 4 kids have no healthcare plan at all.
That said, isn't it remarkable that all the anti-national healthcare lunies fail to see what's right in front of their faces? The most successful healthcare plan in the US is Medicare, a federal program. The most ironic thing I saw during my roughly 6 year hitch in HMO's was that the Medicare fee schedules were used by private HMO's as a benchmark for them to measure how successful they were in "holding down healthcare costs." Remember? That's what HMO's were supposed to do. "Private Enterprise is best(tm) at that." Run it like a bizness and all will be well, and vastly more efficient.
Trouble is, the best ANY HMO in the US could do was run at about 118% of the Medicare schedule (they faired far worse here in the Midwest where the best they could must was around 140%). So, I guess bizness wasn't as good as the government at containing costs, was it?
bcnu,
Mikem
The soul and substance of what customarily ranks as patriotism is moral cowardice and always has been...We have thrown away the most valuable asset we had-- the individual's right to oppose both flag and country when he (just he, by himself) believed them to be in the wrong. We have thrown it away; and with it all that was really respectable about that grotesque and laughable word, Patriotism.
- Mark Twain, "Monarchical and Republican Patriotism"
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Post #110,252
7/17/03 10:22:57 PM
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not fer nuttin but
Want to know why Europeans don't spend as much on healthcare? They're healthier. They get enough time off to actually go out and do healthy things, like exercise fer instance. you have seen CRC's picture and it DOES resemble the other IWETHEY'rs at beeps party right? It might have to do with a local government health unit that puts lower paid home visit types into the field to catch the little stuff berfore a big emergency room charge is needed. Prevention is cheaper than heroic intervention. We even had a similar system until the early 1930's. During the Influenza outbreak of 1918 we had dedicated public health nurses going door to door in the cities caring for the ill at home. Public health has dystrphyed since. thanx, bill questions, help? [link|mailto:pappas@catholic.org|email pappas at catholic.org]
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Post #110,279
7/18/03 2:12:52 AM
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Ah, but that's not a valid comparison.
The BOx writes: [Quoting Mike M:]Want to know why Europeans don't spend as much on healthcare? They're healthier. They get enough time off to actually go out and do healthy things, like exercise fer instance. you have seen CRC's picture and it DOES resemble the other IWETHEY'rs at beeps party right? Yeah, but then I'm much less typical-looking as a North European than I'd be as a North American. My main hobby since about kindergarten-age has been reading (still is, only I do much of it on-line for the last few years). And I never much liked sports to begin with; it's just not very fun to excercise. So that's why I look more like a sphere than any other simple geometrical shape. Most people here, though, are much more cylinder-shaped than I; or more like a cone, sometimes even an inverted cone. That's because they all are, at least compared to me, sports freaks. OTOH, they don't know shit about anything, because they hardly ever read anything. (I guess that means in that respect, they are more like North Americans.)
[link|mailto:MyUserId@MyISP.CountryCode|Christian R. Conrad]
(I live in Finland, and my e-mail in-box is at the Saunalahti company.)
Your lies are of Microsoftian Scale and boring to boot. Your 'depression' may be the closest you ever come to recognizing truth: you have no 'inferiority complex', you are inferior - and something inside you recognizes this. - [link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=71575|Ashton Brown]
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Post #110,346
7/18/03 11:52:20 AM
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Absolutely and ROFL.
OTOH, they don't know shit about anything, because they hardly ever read anything. (I guess that means in that respect, they are more like North Americans.)
Although I think you it may be that you're being a little harsh on the Canucks.
bcnu,
Mikem
The soul and substance of what customarily ranks as patriotism is moral cowardice and always has been...We have thrown away the most valuable asset we had-- the individual's right to oppose both flag and country when he (just he, by himself) believed them to be in the wrong. We have thrown it away; and with it all that was really respectable about that grotesque and laughable word, Patriotism.
- Mark Twain, "Monarchical and Republican Patriotism"
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Post #110,348
7/18/03 11:57:40 AM
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Watch your qualifiers.
"Like MANY North Americans" rather than "Like North Americans".
Regards,
-scott anderson
"Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
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Post #110,358
7/18/03 12:59:27 PM
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I dunno, Mexicans are well read and not round as a rule.
questions, help? [link|mailto:pappas@catholic.org|email pappas at catholic.org]
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