January 13, 2008
A Primer on Universal Health Care by Two Dogs
Wanna know a little bit more about what "universal health care" would mean to you and your family? Two Dogs has a pretty good idea, so if you have a few minutes to spare, head on over to read his explanation of how it would work. It's not a pretty sight.
On a related note, the NHS (Britain's oh-so-fabulous government healthcare) is now looking to make the presumption that everyone wants to donate their organs upon death, and to up the ante propose that doctors identify potential donors among patients even before they are dead.
It brings to mind the "Bring Out yer Dead" scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail...
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Heard the "organ donor" story on the Mike Gallagher show this morning. He made an interesting case for the opt-out organ donor idea, based upon the sheer number of people who die while waiting for a donated organ vs. the number of people who simply don't bother to fill out the form on their drivers' license.
Posted by: Reverse_Vampyr at January 14, 2008 01:36 PMTD, I totally agree that the system is broken, so how do you propose to fix the system? You say "reduce demand or increase supply". Ok, I'll go along with that. What are your ideas on how to do that?
Posted by: Ro at January 14, 2008 08:12 PMYou really don't know? You remove the federal element entirely. Ro, it's very simple to look at medical care in this country and see where we went wrong. Think condom distribution in schools for instance, teenage pregnancy and STD's have exploded since that distribution began. What part of this is hard to understand for someone that has greater than a 60 IQ?
Hey, why don't you throw out that morality thing, too? It makes for such wonderful stuff like drive-bys and the like. Oh, Heaven forbid, someone might know the difference between right and wrong.
Posted by: Two Dogs at January 14, 2008 10:37 PMNot sure where you're going with that, TD. So the federal government requires schools to give out condoms? Wish I had been around for that...high school may have been a lot more fun. It's a pretty well documented fact that the first increase in teen pregnancy in many years happened last year. I'm also not getting how morality = no federal government, or how lack of government is going to reduce drive-bys. IQ 60 or not, I wasn't really looking for the special cases of teenagers or people who live in hard urban areas, more looking for something pertaining to us normal people, you know, getting sick or injured. I'm definitely not saying I think universal health care is the answer (I don't), but I'm not seeing your vision for how eliminating the federal government increases supply or reduces demand for medical services. So back to the question above: what are your ideas on how to do that?
Posted by: Ro at January 15, 2008 02:38 PMRo, there has not been one federal program regarding anything that was successful, I challenge anyone to find one. Our military doesn't count because it is set forth in our Consittution.
And no, it is not a well documented fact that teen pregnancy was lower and then went up just last year, Ro. It is a fact that the Left will try anything to manipulate statistics and so will the Right, that includes blatantly lying. You know that, but you want to believe that teen pregnancy exploded during Bush's reign, because he is the Anti-Christ or whatever terminology that you choose. It ain't true or abortion rates would have plummeted in the ago, following the pregnancy trend and they have not. So, in your mind, more married women are getting abortions to make up the difference? Hmmmm, I don't think so, but it wouldn't surprise me, I guess.
If you will notice in my post, there were THREE items there for reducing the cost of medical care. I would suggest that you focus on the third, unless you are willing to kill people to reduce the demand or send a bunch of homeless people to school to become doctors. Because most students do not want to contend with the oppressive weight of potential lawsuits in the medical field, they are leaning more toward finance and banking to make that high dollar. Check those reductions of enrollment in med school, they are falling fast. "It's well documented."
There exists a system of economics called "Capitalism." It is a very good system that weeds out the corruption and incompetence in corporations and industry because it focuses upon the method and profit margin, instead of trying to manipulate the end result, which is what government mandates do. Remove the restrictions and lawsuit elements, you reduce costs and increase efficiency and the cycle continues. Plus you also receive stuff like V**gra. Do you think that a cure for cancer exists in a federal program? No, it will come from the very same folks that made V**gra because they need new customers to keep rigid. (The spam commenting thingy wouldn't let me publish the drug name. Awesome.)
Do understand, I am not advocating that we abolish the federal government, but I am saying that our Fed has grossly overstepped its very distinct boundaries set by our Constitution. Our Supreme Court found "abortion" in the Constitution, need I say more?
Posted by: Two Dogs at January 15, 2008 04:27 PM"And no, it is not a well documented fact that teen pregnancy was lower and then went up just last year".
Errr...yes it is. Unless you want to call all stats on the subject crazy leftist propaganda, which I guess is what you're doing. Love to see other stats on this if you can find any. You are very interested in "real meanings" of things, and there are real numbers involving teen pregnancy, measured in pregnancies per thousand teenage girls. That number went down for 15 years, and then went up in 2006. Even the Crisis Pregnancy Centers take that to mean that teenage pregnancy went down, and then went up. Saying I think our president is the antichrist (which I, of course, never said), doesn't change that. Neither does it change the fact that the abortion rate has gone down as well. Every year since between 1980 - 2000. It looks like it did go up in 2000 for women under the poverty level (as it is currently calculated, which I know you disagree with). Nor does it change the fact that roughly 60% of women who get abortions already have children and yes, even married women get abortions.
"If you will notice in my post, there were THREE items there for reducing the cost of medical care"
While I do think that there's some validity to reducing demand (early detection, better education on how to keep from getting sick in the first place, etc) and increasing supply (yay med school scholarships or decreasing price of med school), but simply not paying for the "bloated federal program" that current dems are proposing isn't going to make it "easier to provide service" from where we are now. Unfortunately, I think if the fed govt were totally out of the medical field, we'd still have people dying of heart valve failure from fen-phen (phen-fen?), which in your happy idealistic capitalism, was flying off the shelves, even after it was shown to cause major damage to a third of those who used it. Just one example where I think the government should step in.
"Our Supreme Court found "abortion" in the Constitution"
I thought the supreme court found keep-your-nose-outta-women's-chachas (er...right to privacy) in the Constitution.
Posted by: Ro at January 15, 2008 07:10 PMRo, hair dryers cause cancer. Every single time that the government gets involved in something to supposedly protect health, thousands die.
I think that my statement regarding statistics was very plain. Leftists and Rightists lie, cheat, and steal to make those of you that are crazy enough to believe it, believe it.
Trusting a politician when he/she/it says something is silly. And trusting an agency or conglomeration that cites stats that bolsters their own argument is somewhat silly as well. I would suggest that you contact the Klan to find out if racism is on the rise.
Ro, from your own words, I think that you and I have very different opinions on who we trust with our own well-being. I truat me, you trust someone other than you. That's your own choice, but I choose to trust my own judgment.
Posted by: Two Dogs at January 17, 2008 12:07 AMAnd Ro, about statistics regarding teen pregnancy and abortion, there is a really easy way to explain the reduction of both. The entire state of California has refused to release those stats in their state since 1998. Oddly enough, California has the highest rate of both and the stats are linked on my blog. If truth is even remotely important to you, probably not.
Also, I am being exremely rude by commenting to you in Pam's comment section on topics posted on my blog. Sorry, Pam.
Posted by: Two Dogs at January 17, 2008 11:21 AMHey, comment away...I did link to your post, after all!
Posted by: Pam at January 17, 2008 11:33 AM
