Canada Health care killed Richardson

[RuMR]

scott is not the sharpest spoon in the drawer...

[miladugga]

Sorry if this has been said, I started skimming posts after a while, and I realize that the thread has sorta moved on to a different topic BUT as far as the dead lady goes El Jefe is spot on. As a paramedic you worry about epidural bleeds because the person gets their bell rung, then feels fine, and will usually refuse treatment during the so-called "lucid interval." It's their right to do that. Then when they start having trouble it's usually too late. Nothing to do with the type of medical system, although I would guess the medics/MDs that evaluated her were probably employed by the ski resort, just like here.

[el jefe]

from this thread it looks like one could quibble endlessly with the studies comparing the quality of health care delivered in the u.s. relative to that delivered in other first world countries, but the thing i find interesting is that the neither the citizens nor the politicians of these other countries are talking about scrapping their systems in favor of one organized like ours. if the u.s. system was delivering the results its proponents claim, then it seems likely that someone somewhere in the developed world would be interested in adopting it, and that just isn't the case.

[billcoe]

That's a very good point.

 

 

Is it time to start posting climbing pictures yet?

[mattp]

That is a very good point. Last I heard, most Americans favor single payor or some kind of universal coverage and even the AMA was coming around. It is the vested business interests that want to keep our totally excellent system as it is and they will stoop at nothing, even exploiting the death of an American movie star, to spread their propaganda.

[el jefe]

climbing pictures are always a good idea, bill. let's see more of them.

[billcoe]

climbing pictures are always a good idea, bill. let's see more of them.

 

 

 

 

[tvashtarkatena]

That is a very good point. Last I heard, most Americans favor single payor or some kind of universal coverage and even the AMA was coming around. It is the vested business interests that want to keep our totally excellent system as it is and they will stoop at nothing, even exploiting the death of an American movie star, to spread their propaganda.

 

I'm still devastated from Sonny Bono's tragic death, and now this.

[tvashtarkatena]

We're all headed for the same destination, but some of us encounter a tree along the way.

[RuMR]

hopefully, you will get there sooner than later to make my time here better...

 

see ya on da otherside!

[tvashtarkatena]

hopefully, you will get there sooner than later to make my time here better...

 

see ya on da otherside!

 

Judging by the amount you whine, you'll probably be dispatched soon enough.

[Bug]

AM I GOING TO HAVE TO LIVE IN FEAR OF YOU SHITTING ON ME?

 

PAR FOR THE COURSE IN SPRAY

 

DONT MAKE ME CALL THE POOPER SCOOPER! IM SERIOUS

 

I should have caped your ass on interglacier and fed you to the marmots you stupid twat

 

Are you threatening me? Get a fucking grip loser.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

AM I GOING TO HAVE TO LIVE IN FEAR OF YOU SHITTING ON ME?

 

PAR FOR THE COURSE IN SPRAY

 

DONT MAKE ME CALL THE POOPER SCOOPER! IM SERIOUS

 

I should have caped your ass on interglacier and fed you to the marmots you stupid twat

 

Are you threatening me? Get a fucking grip loser.

 

Note to self: do NOT piss off Bug.

[trainwreck]

I recently broke my leg and needed surgery to put plate/pins in it. All in all, I spent three days in hospital, had surgery to repair torn ligaments and put in a plate, and took a three and half hour ambulance ride to get to the surgeon.

 

I paid nothing. In fact, I owed Alberta Healthcare $180 because I hadn't paid my premiums all winter (they stopped charging in January), but they don't give a shit, they fixed me right up. I recently had to go to emergency to get my cast off as there was a lot of bleeding underneath. It took less than three hours and, again, cost me nothing.

 

 

Edited April 2, 2009 by trainwreck

[rob]

If only Palin/McCain had been elected, she would still be alive.

[prole]

I recently broke my leg and needed surgery to put plate/pins in it. All in all, I spent three days in hospital, had surgery to repair torn ligaments and put in a plate, and took a three and half hour ambulance ride to get to the surgeon.

 

I paid nothing. In fact, I owed Alberta Healthcare $180 because I hadn't paid my premiums all winter (they stopped charging in January), but they don't give a shit, they fixed me right up. I recently had to go to emergency to get my cast off as there was a lot of bleeding underneath. It took less than three hours and, again, cost me nothing.

 

 

Yes, yes but as you know your health care system in Canada has been a terrific drain on the economy, stifled creativity and freedom, and contributed to the horrible financial mess you are in up there. Oh, wait....FUCK!

[JosephH]

Simply put, we can go to the moon, deliver amazing fire-power anywhere in the world almost overnight, invent endless technology goodness, but somehow, somehow we can't manage to provide basic healthcare for all American's in an affordable manner.

 

The notion that we can't provide the best healthcare in the world and do it faster and cheaper than anyone else on the planet is a lie. The only reason we don't is due to the mafia-like stranglehold insurance and pharmaceutical companies have over the system and their use of classic Rovian techniques to maintain that choke hold on the country. Until recently most corporations played along, but even they now realize they're at risk under the current system - that private insurance is a failure and burden U.S. businesses cannot and never will be able to afford.

 

All of the obstacles are tied directly to what amounts to theft on a massive scale not unlike the what's gone on in the financial sector. Or at least that's half of the problem; the other half is the cummulative affects of diet, TV, obesity, and lack of exercise in our increasingly sedentary culture.

 

U.S. Healthcare = FAIL - by any measure - and forget Canada, we are failing horribly compared to what we are capable of and our potential. So long as our healthcare systems is weighed down by a crushing administrative overhead, a parasitic insurance industry which delivers negative value, and is managed (gamed) to skim 'profits' out of the system, then we'll continue to decline as a nation both in quality of life and competitiveness.

 

Let's put it another way, regardless of what you think of it, these clowns make the folks running our education system look like a crew of honest, hardworking, highly-efficient Einsteins by comparison.

[mattp]

But but but... you're advocating [gasp] socialism!!!!!

 

For god sakes man: get a grip.

[JosephH]

Well, we drive on socialst interstates and most of these guys are all for spending federal dollars to keep socialist wilderness roads open.

 

And socialism? True class-cutting socialism comes in the form of a pandemic that quickly spirals out of control due to a lack of basic healthcare and the fact that we've all but disassembled our public health apparatus and infrastructure.

[Off_White]

I just spent a lot of time I shouldn't reading much of this thread, and I gotta say this is a damn fine debate, thanks all y'all. It does my heart good to see the yin and yang homonym twins researching away and knocking that ball back and forth across the net for a good volley. I mean it, thoughtful analysis on lot of people's parts, thanks.

 

Silly me, when this topic showed up several days ago I thought Mr. Coe was just reiterating his vendetta against Bill Richardson.

[prole]

Unlicensed use of the term "yin yang twins", "ying yang twins" or iterations thereof is strictly prohibited. Please cease and desist any related spoken or written activities immediately.

--The Ying Yang Twins

 

[Off_White]

Is that a pre-existing term? Those fools like more like the yo yo twins.

[pink]

Unlicensed use of the term "yin yang twins", "ying yang twins" or iterations thereof is strictly prohibited. Please cease and desist any related spoken or written activities immediately.

--The Ying Yang Twins

 

 

dos niggas nutz?

[prole]

 

CRUNK: America's Greatest Musical Treasure

 

 

[j_b]

Something is Rotten at PBS

by Russell Mokhiber

 

Last year, former Washington Post reporter T.R. Reid made a great documentary for the PBS show Frontline titled Sick Around the World.

 

Reid traveled to five countries that deliver health care for all - UK, Japan, Switzerland, Germany, Taiwan - to learn about how they do it.

 

Reid found that the one thing these five countries had in common - none allowed for-profit health insurance companies to sell basic medical coverage.

 

Frontline then said to Reid - okay, we want you to go around the United States and make a companion documentary titled Sick Around America.

 

So, Reid traveled around America, interviewing patients, doctors, and health insurance executives.

 

The documentary that resulted - Sick Around America - aired Monday night on PBS.

 

But even though Reid did the reporting for the film, he was cut out of the film when it aired this week.

 

And the film didn't present Reid's bottom line for health care reform - don't let health insurance companies profit from selling basic health insurance.

 

They can sell for-profit insurance for extras - breast enlargements, botox, hair transplants.

 

But not for the basic health needs of the American people.

 

Instead, the film that aired Monday pushed the view that Americans be required to purchase health insurance from for-profit companies.

 

And the film had a deceptive segment that totally got wrong the lesson of Reid's previous documentary - Sick Around the World.

 

During that segment, about halfway through Sick Around America, the moderator introduces Karen Ignagni, president of America's Health Insurance Plans, the lead health insurance lobby in the United States.

 

Moderator: Other developed countries guarantee coverage for everyone. We asked Karen Ignagni why it can't work here. Karen Ignagni: Well, it would work if we did what other countries do, which is have a mandate that everybody participate. And if everybody is in, it's quite reasonable to ask our industry to do guarantee issue, to get everybody in. So, the answer to your question is we can, and the public here will have to agree to do what the public in other countries have done, which is a consensus that everybody should be in. Moderator: That's what other developed countries do. They make insurers cover everyone, and they make all citizens buy insurance. And the poor are subsidized.

 

But the hard reality, as presented by Reid in Sick Around the World, is quite different than Ignagni and the moderator claim.

 

Other countries do not require citizens buy health insurance from for-profit health insurance companies - the kind that Karen Ignagni represents.

 

In some countries like Germany and Japan, citizens are required to buy health insurance, but from non-profit, heavily regulated insurance companies.

 

And other countries, like the UK and Canada, don't require citizens to buy insurance. Instead, citizens are covered as a birthright - by a single government payer in Canada, or by a national health system in the UK.

 

The producers of the Frontline piece had a point of view - they wanted to keep the for-profit health insurance companies in the game.

 

TR Reid wants them out.

 

"We spent months shooting that film," Reid explains. "I was the correspondent. We did our last interview on January 6. The producers went to Boston and made the documentary. About late February I saw it for the first time. And I told them I disagreed with it. They listened to me, but they didn't want to change it."

 

Reid has a book coming out this summer titled The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper and Fairer Health Care (Penguin Press, August 2009.)

 

"I said to them - mandating for-profit insurance is not the lesson from other countries in the world," Reid said. "I said I'm not going to be in a film that contradicts my previous film and my book. They said - I had to be in the film because I was under contract. I insisted that I couldn't be. And we parted ways."

 

"Doctors, hospitals, nurses, labs can all be for-profit," Reid said. "But the payment system has to be non-profit. All the other countries have agreed on that. We are the only one that allows health insurance companies to make a profit. You can't allow a profit to be made on the basic package of health insurance."

 

"I don't think they deliberately got it wrong, but they got it wrong," Reid said.

 

Reid said that he now wants to make other documentaries, but not for Frontline.

 

"Frontline will never touch me a again - they are done with me," Reid said.

 

Reid says that "it's perfectly reasonable for people to disagree about health policy."

 

"We disagreed, and we parted ways," Reid says.

 

It might be perfectly reasonable for people to disagree about health policy.

 

But it's not perfectly reasonable to mislead the American people on national television in the middle of a health care crises when Congress is shaping legislation that will mean life or death for the for-profit health insurance industry.

 

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/04/03-7