Health Care 10.06.07 And The Pandora Prescription

[Epinephrine]

So basically, you're trying to prove that history is wrong and that you are right. Unless you want to argue empirics and real-world data, you're basically trying to convince me that reality isn't real. And I believe everyone is free to their own opinions, but if it were up to the Government, in the "public interest of safety", you'd probably be in a State-run mental ward, getting electro-shock therapy because that's what the Regulations forced every State Doctor (who aren't getting paid because of their ability, but because they are obligated to satisfy the right to healthcare) to use, and they don't have any incentive (or brains) to develop new technology, so happy frying!

The crux of your argument is that Capitalism is always right. Unfortunately there is no such thing as a perfect capitalist system. All that we've ever had are regulated capitalist systems. What you are talking about is as theoretical as a true communist system (which also never existed, as no country has ever been able to implement TRUE communism as espoused by Marx).

Alright. Let's save the planet. From now on, all car manufacturers must meet X miles to the gallon.

Businesses say fuck that, because to sell hybrid cars right now would be unprofitable and innefficient on a mass scale.

But mileage does get better, because car companies, unable to invest money in wise investments that will make hybrids profitable, instead start using lighter metals, smaller frames.

Actually mileage in American cars hasn't changed in decades. Overall it's been getting better because people are buying Japanese, and in Japan they have more regulations.

Statistically, this has led to an extra 2,000 Americans a year dying. That sounds very unequal.

But I guess we planned, right? The future is saved?

Joe Capitalist sees cars with better mileage and buys one... and now, he can do MORE things on less gas, which means that he still uses 40 gallons a week. Statistically, the regulation has had no effect on cutting gas consumption, there is no real, definite bend in the curve.

I wonder what the heck you're talking about here. Looks like you're just making up stuff.

But you're right about one thing: politics is a double edged sword. Which is why I have been arguing, for quite some time now with apparently no effect whatsoever, that we should get rid of political institutions. Because I, like you, am against violence.

Yes, we should live in complete anarchy. Surely THAT must be the best way. I mean look at all those successful anarchist societies out there!

Dude, you know when I talk about the benefits of healthcare and what Capitalism has done for healthcare... I'm talking about history, right? And real data? Like, I look at the general welfare of people during a period when the healthcare sector was more free-market, and see a period where prices were low, new technology was always being pioneered, perfected, and packaged for the masses at affordable prices. I see that people died, yes, but such is life. A million laws won't stop a heart attack, and "Accidents" are called "accidents" because things didn't MEAN to happen. I then compare the data with today, and see people paying more money, waiting longer for even routine checkups, and more people dying specifically because of a law, regulation or other such intervention.

This is completely conjecture. Medical research would most likely happen regardless of the monetary benefits. Most researchers make far less money than people out there working. People do research for other reasons than money. The market has helped with some things I agree, but to just say that life is better thanks simply due to the market is completely ridiculous. If anything, the advent of safe water systems and public sewer systems, and public health departments (tracking disease) and public immunization programs (which target everyone for free) have done far more for life expectancy than any gadget that we have out there.

[Epinephrine]

I believe in a moral set of values. I've made that clear. I have spent quite a bit of my time showing the flaws and contradictions in your moral code.

Yes values that state: "who cares if lots of people die so that in the future we have better ipods?"

And that's why people are dying. Because you believe so ignorantly that you're right, that you won't pause to see what's killing them.

People die all the time, what's your point? People die under private health care too LOL.

Pavement has broken a leg and an arm. He's still in school and had same-day, immediate treatment. Like I said, we don't deal with insurance and third-party bullshit. It's cheap as hell.

We don't even know what third-party stuff is in Canada. In Canada using healthcare means you... show your health card, which is like a driver's license that everyone carries in their wallet. That's... ALL. We also get same-day treatment for breaking legs and arms. In fact, I have casted many people who have broken their legs and arms same day! I really don't see your point.

I'm middle class. I have had surgery, multiple surgeries, for the cancer growths on my back. Pavement plays soccer, he has broken many bones. My father has a heart condition. My mother is on god knows what medications.

We afford it all. So stop generalizing all people into some "social" class. Because we're not.

It's a fact that there are huge amounts of people in your country(oh I dunno like 50 million people) who wouldn't be able to get ANY of the care at all. I don't see why that's a good thing.

Prove to me that not a single person has died because of your healthcare and I will believe you. Now, you're just lying.

Prove to me that no one has ever died in your system and I'll believe you! LOL this is probably the stupidest argument I have ever seen used in health care. Are you actually thinking when you write this?

Wow. You contradict yourself. First you say "real facts" don't matter when I use them, then you say I'm an "idealist". And I know I've made it clear (please, read above), that I am summing up the facts and evaluating socialism/capitalism on the basis of how many lives will be saved. I have repeatedly stated that end-all be-all, capitalism saves more lives. I have shown where capitalism is saving lives that couldn't be saved under your flawed system.

You actually haven't shown how capitalism can save more lives at all. You just spewed some rhetoric, and posted some anecdotes. Oh yes, maybe you'll yet again mention how 'private healthcare' is 'saving' canada. Well, those clinics only work because they are built on top of a very solid public system. When we turn to a much more private system like say in America... you have much higher mortality rates from absolutely everything which ultimately translates into the fact that life expectancy in America is lower than practically every other developed nation on the planet.

If you truly did not want an idealogical debate, then you would have just let me post in this thread without arguing. Because that's all you have, Kolar. Ideal, "moral" justifications. I have the power of research on my side. Capitalism works.

But people are dying in your system! Just today, I read that one person died in America... oh my god!

[Cops]

And that's why people are dying. Because you believe so ignorantly that you're right, that you won't pause to see what's killing them.

Because we believe in Universal Health Care we in fact kill people? Holy crap, I thought the day would not arise when I would hear someone say something so ridiculous. Because you know here in Canada if I needed surgery I don't avoid it cause I can't afford it, pull your head out of your ass. Where's centurion when you need him, maybe some stories about middle class people getting buried in debt because of medical bills might sway your opinion, but I think you've heard their opinions and still disagree that making health care readily available to those who cannot afford is a bad idea.

[Epinephrine]

Because we believe in Universal Health Care we in fact kill people? Holy crap, I thought the day would not arise when I would hear someone say something so ridiculous. Because you know here in Canada if I needed surgery I don't avoid it cause I can't afford it, pull your head out of your ass. Where's centurion when you need him, maybe some stories about middle class people getting buried in debt because of medical bills might sway your opinion, but I think you've heard their opinions and still disagree that making health care readily available to those who cannot afford is a bad idea.

Cops, apperently capitalism has found a way to beat the problem of 'old age'. It's something that we can only dream about in our communist country

[Jerome Scuggs]

1) look for group consensus: failed
2) publically attack someone: Kolar
3) state credentials: you use to debate?
4) point stronger arguments and hope they are debated?: done

Realizing Epinephrine knows about health care than all of us, Priceless.

Ad hominem argumentation to boost one's self-esteem in leiu of any real shred of intellect to share: ironically hilarious

[Jerome Scuggs]

This was just a complete random rant.. it isn't a point at all, it's more like a bunch of random thoughts squished together.

I do not attack your method of argumentation. Please, engage me as an intellectual, not a child.

For some reason you think drug regulation is a bad idea... yes perhaps we should just release drugs with no idea about their side effects into the public. Did you know that Vioxx was one of those 'fast tracked' drugs out there where the FDA was pressured to approve it quickly?

You make the assumption that in a social vacuum, companies would not engage in "product testing". Which they do. Alot.

Vioxx has its balls deep in the pockets of social beauracrats.

Secondly, you have some weird rant about robots... I have no idea what you're getting to here. Public or universal healthcare is about providing healthcare to everyone, leaving the prioritizing to doctors instead of to whomever has more money.

And because of it, people are waiting years to get treatment to save their lives. A quick check-in to a private clinic saved a Canuck his life, because they found a brain tumor requiring immediate surgery, which was arranged in America.

I addressed this point already. It's nice that LASIK is cheap (it's private in Canada too), although it's not really cheap.. it's like $5000 if your eyes aren't merely very mildly not 20/20. Not to mention that the best laser eye centers are in Canada. Not to mention that no one ever died from not having LASIK, which is like how no one ever died from not getting a boob job. This stuff isn't health care, it's just cosmetic surgery that people CHOOSE to have, and thus rightly isn't part of Canada's public health care program.

All medical care is a choice. Every human chooses whether or not to have health care. Before doctors, there was no "right" to health care. Who's to say Canada won't socialize Lasik, as well? By your moral standards, it, too, should be socialized.

I have no idea what you were trying to say here. I don't know why you think that universal healthcare somehow tries to have a magic formula to give some equivalent amount of healthcare to everyone according to income levels or something strange. It's just a means to have a big pool of money so that everyone can get the healthcare they need (as determined by... doctors imagine that!) for FREE. Yes, even people who don't pay taxes but live in the country can use our system.

Check your premises. Economics is not about creating pools of wealth. Economics is about distribution, exchange, choice and benefit. You can have all the money in the world, but if you don't have a means to convert that wealth into a product or service, it is useless. And that's why your pools of money are still causing agonozingly long waiting periods.

Actually the free market is an 'experiment' too. Remember all those products and companies that failed because they didn't find the correct formula or best way of presenting a product? Well, medicine shouldn't be like this. You shouldn't be experimenting with people's lives outside controlled and safe medical research experiments. When you have companies just randomly throwing out treatments out there to the highest bidder, yes eventually the best drug gets found out, but not until thousands die prematurely (case in point, the thousands who likely got premature heart attacks thanks to Vioxx). Try telling the relatives of all those people who died that their loved one died so capitalism could march forward.

Medical expirements should not be allowed, yet social expirements like Stalinist Russia and Maoist China are? Social healthcare is a medical expirement, too: the hypothesis, "if we throw money into a pool, people will receive equal treatment". You completely disregard the economic means of achieving that end, and that's why it fails.

Healthcare isn't like any other aspect. A lot of the time it's life or death. Or living well or living in very poor health. It's a very important part of human rights. Unless you absolutely don't believe in human rights, and the rights to live a healthy life (which is part of it), you should support public healthcare.

You sound like George Bush. If you don;t support the war in Iraq, you hate freedom.

Nice.

Seriously, so what if they have to cut off your leg cause you can't afford the antibiotic to stop the infection and cutting off the leg is easier? Who cares? In the far future we'll all have robot legs thanks to capitalism!

We have the antibiotics thanks to capitalism. And the medical procedure to safely remove my leg and not cause gangrene.

Had your Canada enacted this policy a hundred years earlier, people would have the right to have their leg amputated. You would be denouncing people who die from gangrene.

Trudeau. And completely straw man argument. Trudeau didn't invent universal healthcare (Tommy Douglas did). This was just a very pointless argument.

I did not imply that Trudeau created universal healthcare.

Again I have no idea what you're talking about here. We're not talking about toilets here... we're talking about health care. Medical boards will make sure that the gold standard of care is always used. That's where the funding goes, to the best treatment as shown by scientific evidence. If you REALLY don't want the best treatment but pay whatever you want for something else, all the power to you... but don't deny everyone else treatment because you believe in homeopathy.

Toilets, healthcare, food, education... all can be socialized, and all will have the same moral implications.

You accuse me of denying people treatment? What do you think socialized healthcare is? People who choose to have private treatment are denied it. People who want to pay money for the best doctor are denied it. People who want to choose immediate service over "priority lists" are denied it. Check your premises.

[Jerome Scuggs]

The crux of your argument is that Capitalism is always right. Unfortunately there is no such thing as a perfect capitalist system. All that we've ever had are regulated capitalist systems. What you are talking about is as theoretical as a true communist system (which also never existed, as no country has ever been able to implement TRUE communism as espoused by Marx).

The crux of my argument is that there is no perfect pragmatic system, but capitalism is the most efficient way to satisfy the most people's desires by voluntary, mutual cooperation.

Actually mileage in American cars hasn't changed in decades. Overall it's been getting better because people are buying Japanese, and in Japan they have more regulations.

I wonder what the heck you're talking about here. Looks like you're just making up stuff.

My Economics teacher is a fraud. Better tell him to return his Ph.D

Yes, we should live in complete anarchy. Surely THAT must be the best way. I mean look at all those successful anarchist societies out there!

We looked at Somaliland, the most peaceful country in Africa.

This is completely conjecture. Medical research would most likely happen regardless of the monetary benefits. Most researchers make far less money than people out there working. People do research for other reasons than money. The market has helped with some things I agree, but to just say that life is better thanks simply due to the market is completely ridiculous. If anything, the advent of safe water systems and public sewer systems, and public health departments (tracking disease) and public immunization programs (which target everyone for free) have done far more for life expectancy than any gadget that we have out there.

Show me one instance where a non-profit orginization crerated something better than its market equivalent and I will give you the argument. (You cannot use "murder", though.)

[Cops]

Cops, apperently capitalism has found a way to beat the problem of 'old age'. It's something that we can only dream about in our communist country

LOL

[genocidal]

Wow Epi are you actually trying to make the argument that socialized health care system would reap the same benefits in innovation as a privatized one? Fucking how? People aren't these complete benevolent motherfuckers like you want them to be. People invent drugs because it makes them money. My uncle works for a very large private firm that develops treatments for Hepatitis and he makes at least a few million a year. If he didn't make that kind of money he would have chosen another career path, and he's said that.

I'm a pretty nice guy with a divine spark of humanity but I'm going to get a law degree and work for a private law firm rather than a non-profit. Why? I need money and power, and hopefully I can achieve more once I have those than working my ass off for $60,000 a year defending fruit workers' rights or something.

You're damn lucky the best and the brightest not only are in America but are coming to America to be trained to make money or else your socialized system would be giving out Advil for AIDS.

[Cops]

Ad hominem argumentation to boost one's self-esteem in leiu of any real shred of intellect to share: ironically hilarious

Not exactly, you lashed out at people which made your argument go from moderate to worthless. You seek public approval, good luck finding someone who completely believes your cold and calculate theories on health care. No person, I'd like to think will tell you that a person's life should be determined on how much money they make, I'd like to think that people actually care about each other and in which case they create programs that reflect that view.

This is not an pinion, this is fact. Epinephrine is in the industry, he has more credentials than you do and he knows a fuck lot more about the health care system in and outside Canada.

[Jerome Scuggs]

Yes values that state: "who cares if lots of people die so that in the future we have better ipods?"

No. The value that states, "I swear by my life, and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine."

People die all the time, what's your point? People die under private health care too LOL.

But they willingly chose to have that treatment. It was not forced upon them. And I do not claim perfection, as you do. So this argument doesn't really apply. At the point where I can prove I kill less people, it is the lesser of two evils, and that's what matters.

We don't even know what third-party stuff is in Canada. In Canada using healthcare means you... show your health card, which is like a driver's license that everyone carries in their wallet. That's... ALL. We also get same-day treatment for breaking legs and arms. In fact, I have casted many people who have broken their legs and arms same day! I really don't see your point.

You're using your own subjective experience as the standard by which to judge the entire medical sector of Canada. Nice.

One's own independent judgment is the means by which one must choose one's actions, but it is not a moral criterion nor a moral validation; only reference to a demonstrable principle can validate one's choices.

It's a fact that there are huge amounts of people in your country(oh I dunno like 50 million people) who wouldn't be able to get ANY of the care at all. I don't see why that's a good thing.

If the government didn't suck 20-40% of our income away, they'd have money for treatment.

Prove to me that no one has ever died in your system and I'll believe you! LOL this is probably the stupidest argument I have ever seen used in health care. Are you actually thinking when you write this?

Yes. I'm thinking of the people who you promise medical care too, and can not receive it because of your inneficient method of distribution. You are holding on to a promise you can't deliver.

You actually haven't shown how capitalism can save more lives at all. You just spewed some rhetoric, and posted some anecdotes. Oh yes, maybe you'll yet again mention how 'private healthcare' is 'saving' canada. Well, those clinics only work because they are built on top of a very solid public system. When we turn to a much more private system like say in America... you have much higher mortality rates from absolutely everything which ultimately translates into the fact that life expectancy in America is lower than practically every other developed nation on the planet.

See, I am not under the delusion that capitalism will save everyone. I do not make such claims. All a capitalist can do is market a product, and hope it works to benefit the consumer. Whether or not a consumer makes right choices (overindulging Mcdonald's and dying at age 30) is not up to me, or you, or Joe Beauracrat. It is beneficial to make a product that does not harm a consumer, but when you're dealing with reality, you'll find people are pretty weird in what they consider "beneficial".

You are claiming to serve the interests of the people, I do not. I do not have the burden of proof that I save lives, but you do, because that's what you claim to do.

And people still die.

[Jerome Scuggs]

Not exactly, you lashed out at people which made your argument go from moderate to worthless. You seek public approval, good luck finding someone who completely believes your cold and calculate theories on health care.

See the post above you.

Nice.

[Zeebu]

jerome...
you need a new heart to remain living... and you need it now... within a month or you're dead

luckily for you they found a donor and you can afford the procedure

but here i come and i need a new heart too. i dont need it right now, but its convenient for me to go through the surgery at this moment. the only heart that would work is the same one that you would take. but i can pay more.

so, since i can pay more than you, i should get the heart and you can go find another?

is this a possibility in your health care system?

[Jerome Scuggs]

Epinephrine is in the industry, he has more credentials than you do and he knows a fuck lot more about the health care system in and outside Canada.

I worked in a body shop for a few weeks. Do I have more credentials than Henry Ford, who never actually worked on an assembly line?

[Jerome Scuggs]

jerome...
you need a new heart to remain living... and you need it now... within a month or you're dead

luckily for you they found a donor and you can afford the procedure

but here i come and i need a new heart too. i dont need it right now, but its convenient for me to go through the surgery at this moment. the only heart that would work is the same one that you would take. but i can pay more.

so, since i can pay more than you, i should get the heart and you can go find another?

is this a possibility in your health care system?

Yes. Because if you can make more money than me, you deserve it. I won't question it, as any man before Heart Transplants didn't question it.