Journal Marxist Hacker 42's Journal: Why I can't get health insurance 34
Well, maybe not me specifically, but it's cases like these 9 mental defectives who are pushing up costs for EVERYBODY- if not your health insurance costs, then certainly your FICA taxes.
Seems to me, as usual, that there's a simple, bottom up solution for this: Hospitals should have the right to commit patients who come into ER more than 3 times a month for a full mental workup. These 9 people shouldn't be out on the street to begin with (7 of them self-medicating with illegal substances)- they should be in a rubber room someplace wearing a jacket with sleeves that are joined together.
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Note that I'm not specifically disputing your point, just that the actual European examples, such as they are, may not fit that criteria.
My European wife, who works in pharma is an interesting source of anecdotal evidence against putting the government in charge of managing health care.
But until you, or someone dear, is thoroughly burned by the bad idea, counter-arguments are so much
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I prefer statistical evidence. An employee of pharma would hardly sound like an unbiased observer. If I work for Monsanto, I would be very upset if people quit buying my pesticides. I would be talking up their benefits all over the place. Now we have all seen what happens when we let the market decide what's humane. No pain killers for the uninsured, denials in spite of a person's coverage, etc. And we all know that Europe is every bit as advanced as anyone. The market is run by crooks. It always ends up th
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Then anecdotal it is :-) In which case I personally have that on my side also...three close friends saved by proper and humane health care.
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Bring on the universal, proper, humane health care. Let the good times and the unavoidable http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_fallacy [wikipedia.org] roll.
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Get bent. It wasn't Ronnie, but his ideas that mattered.
You seem to internalize two myths at once:
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Well, first off, none of them were his ideas. They were dreamed up by a bunch of whack jobs who's only intention was to create a bigger Wall Street kettle to skim from. And secondly, every single thing you reference revolves around that time period, and 99% of the people you link to was somehow involved with the administration and had something to gain personally from those "ideas", and at the same time, conveniently ignoring the dirty wars (and illegal, it turns out) the administration was carrying out to
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No, of course not, and he never claimed they were and I never claimed he claimed they where. As a result of ontological theft, the ideas of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism [wikipedia.org] have come to be called "conservative" as a means of wresting them from the Orwellian grasp of those who'd destroy the individual.
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No, of course not, and he never claimed they were and I never claimed he claimed they where. As a result of ontological theft, the ideas of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism [wikipedia.org] [wikipedia.org] have come to be called "conservative" as a means of wresting them from the Orwellian grasp of those who'd destroy the individual.
If the end result of Reaganism hasn't been to destroy the individual in favor of ever-larger-capitalism-by-merger control of the economy, then I'm afraid I don't see yo
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Classical liberalism is about centralization of wealth and power
Not according to the wikipedia page linked or any discussion on the topic I've ever heard, MH42.
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It may not be the stated intent- after all, the rich are playing a very long game of chess with all the rest of us as pawns, and they don't want to offend the pawns- but that is the end result of every form of classical liberalism ever tried.
Personally, I blame the lack of authoritarianism in the mix; if you don't actively punish fraud, violence, and tyranny; the market will reward fraud, violence, and tyranny to such an extent that it would be the same as if you encouraged them.
The result of rewarding frau
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Get bent. It wasn't Ronnie, but his ideas that mattered.
Well, actually, with the crash of September 2008, we've pretty much proven his ideas were morally bankrupt, haven't we? Of course, they weren't really his ideas, but Milton Friedman's. Let's look over those myths again:
The government can 'save' you
Well, without a common defense, the free market fraud isn't going to.
Members of the 110th and 111th Congresses are not playing right along and pocketing big
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A fetus isn't a "person". It is part of the mother's body until the umbilical cord is cut.
Not according to the genetics- every other part of the mother's body has the same DNA as the mother.
Hell, a baby isn't a person. But it is alive and separate. That's what makes the difference. That is the dividing line and nothing else. Nobody, but nobody has ANY authority as to the fate of a fetus but the mother. The authoritarian patriarchy disagrees, but screw them. So Ron Paul is incorrect
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Because a living, breathing baby deserves all the same rights as any other living, breathing person. But the big difference between a baby and a fetus is the physical separation from the mother. It might be genetically separate, but it has to be physically separate for it to count. Until it is born, the mother is the only rightful arbitrator. If I wanted to get really pithy about it, I would insist that you are not a person until you reach sexual maturity and can live on your own. There are times that I don
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Because a living, breathing baby deserves all the same rights as any other living, breathing person.
Biologically, though, there are many beings that don't breathe that are separate from their parents, just not of our species.
But the big difference between a baby and a fetus is the physical separation from the mother. It might be genetically separate, but it has to be physically separate for it to count.
So to you, siamese twins are one person, despite the two brains?
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So to you, siamese twins are one person, despite the two brains?
Heh, I would be interested to see if an airline would charge two tickets. I suppose it would depend on whether they* could fit into one seat. What if one committed murder. Should the other suffer the same sentence? How would this work in a death penalty case? Or two brains, one penis. Can there be two wives? You present a good question. I wouldn't know who on earth is qualified to answer. How does natural law, or any of the holy books handle it
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Heh, I would be interested to see if an airline would charge two tickets. I suppose it would depend on whether they* could fit into one seat.
Likely- they already charge pregnant women and certain obese men and women for two tickets, based on the idea that one seat is not enough.
What if one committed murder. Should the other suffer the same sentence? How would this work in a death penalty case? Or two brains, one penis. Can there be two wives? You present a good question. I wouldn't
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Likely- they already charge pregnant women..
That sucks! In that case they should price it like cargo...by the pound. And that would give good incentive for some to go on a diet :-)
Well, in natural law- most siamese twins didn't make it to the age of reason...
That's what I was thinking. It is a mutation of sorts, and mutants rarely survive.
But based on the success often of medical intervention to separate such twins, I'd treat them as two people.
Okay, but they are two equals. I doubt very much one could call
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Okay, but they are two equals. I doubt very much one could call for the other to be killed or "aborted". Though sometimes that is necessary for the other to survive.
:-), give birth, and run off...The "force"
The concept of triage is equal rights, but make the decision based on the patient more likely to survive. The classic case accepted even by theologians is ectopic pregnancy- which will result in an abortion in a triage situation every time.
Well, she can always check into the ER
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The whole thing, even private insurance, would be much cheaper if we just got a few crazies like the 9 in TFA off the streets and into some form of insane asylum.
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True enough- need a place that specializes in 24x7 treatment of extreme hypochondria for these people.
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Actually, hypochondria, like any other psychological ailment, or addiction, does need treatment. I don't blame them any more than anybody else for the failures* of the health care system. Doing so is scapegoating. They didn't create this environment, they're merely capitalizing on it.
*only to some, not those who created it.
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The point is, under the current system, where there is no bed space available and emergency room doctors can't commit somebody who is abusing the system, they're NOT getting the treatment they need. And so they end up self medicating (7/9) while living on the streets (8/9) and the conditions get worse and worse and worse.
And in the mean time, their abuse of the system, which needs to be paid for, means people like me with relatively minor pre-existing conditions and no group insurance available wind up pay
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The point is, under the current system...
Yes I understand that, but let's stay focused on the root of the problem, not it's results. It is the system that makes this happen. And you're diverting attention away from that. That's exactly the way the crooks who run it want you react. It keeps the cameras and microphones away from them. It's like smacking a guy on the head with a hammer so he forgets about the heart attack he's having. To put it another way, you don't like when people accuse you of "making up"
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The trouble is, these few crazies aren't alone. I got this article from a facebook rant group "Which part of "Emergency Department" don't you understand d*ckhead !!", with 32,000 members. Guess what most of them do for a living?
The number 1 joke in their discussion page seems to be: "I want to write a pamphlet on how to do Suicide PROPERLY!!!!"
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The trouble is, these few crazies aren't alone.
Well of course not. There's over 6 billion of us :-) They are like electricity. It goes nowhere without a conduit. In this case you gotta blow up and replace the generator. Merely cutting the wire won't work. I understand the ER workers plight, but with no other place to go because we have no system in place, they're just going to have to put up with it. You did see that famous video of the "crazy" lady who died in the ER [google.com]? The number of incidences of this might
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Actually, wasn't even normal ER- it was the psych unit. That's amazing to me- but yes, it points out that the real problem is a lack of beds in the psych wards. And so they're thrown back out onto the street- with their only option for health care being ER.
I couldn't believe the idea that "check the patient every 15 minutes" is the response. NO. You don't leave a psych patient unmonitored *at all*.
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Well, nothing good will come from this until we are willing to quit subsidizing big business, and redirect the fundage to where it is actually needed. I'm going to plug my JE [slashdot.org] to illustrate briefly some of the basic mechanics behind why we act the way we do.
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I just realized 2 things:
1) I haven't friended you yet- not surprising since I hover around 400 friends in my list, and you came late to the party.
2) I haven't friended ANYBODY since the new look took over, and I don't know how to edit my friends list anymore.
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You don't have to.. talking is good enough.
(sappy blubbering)
You're one of the coolest cats around here. I appreciate the time you take to talk with this goofball.
(/sappy blubbering)
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So sorry, I should have put this in:
Go to the person's info page and click "Change your relationship with...", which should be just beneath the bio, up on the right hand side of the page...My time is short, so you may want to hold off.