Sense prevails in US politics

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kiff

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There are 195 countries in the world, which means the UK has pretty damned good health care. I bet the majority of the top countries are European.
"There are lies, damn lies and there's statistics" - Obama

if you really looked into it you'd find that the US mortality rate is taken completely out of context. if you remove auto accidents and war related casualties OR infant mortality (due to teenage pregnancies) and homicide, then we're #1 in life expectancy. take out all 4 and we're miles ahead of the rest and place us in the top 10 (of the overall rating)

there is so much ignorance in this statement it's hard to quantify.your presumptions about the UK are totally off base, and you fail to realize just how far down the scale the US system has actually fallen when compared to our Democratic (and socialist) neighbors.
umm yea, ignorance :lol: see above...

not to mention that everything I posted in the previous pages of this thread all came from UK news sources. Like when I was actually there a few yrs ago and the only 2 hrs of tv I watched talked about the quotas and ppl dying in the backs of ambulances. 2 (or 3?) cases in 1 week in the Surrey area.
The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.

-Alexis de Tocqueville
Exactly. and...

"History teaches us that grave threats to liberty often come in times of urgency, when constitutional rights seem too extravagant to endure." - SCJ Thurgood Marshall

"Most men, after a little freedom, have preferred authority with the consoling assurances and the economy of effort which it brings." - Walter Lippmann

"Freedom is the will to be responsible to ourselves." - Nietzsche

"Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it." - George Bernard Shaw

That really sucks why do conservatives hate human rights so much?
jeez, this is even bad for you. Why are "pro-choice" libs so against unborn human rights?

But Michael Moore is a bloody socialist liberal!!!!!!!11one
not to mention a capitalist in the propaganda arena.

But here's someone that actually knows the constitution...

Mark Levin tears up Capital Hill
 

dragonfliet

I write stuffs
Apr 24, 2006
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"There are lies, damn lies and there's statistics" - Obama

if you really looked into it you'd find that the US mortality rate is taken completely out of context. if you remove auto accidents and war related casualties OR infant mortality (due to teenage pregnancies) and homicide, then we're #1 in life expectancy. take out all 4 and we're miles ahead of the rest and place us in the top 10 (of the overall rating)

Yes, apparently if you arbitrarily remove deaths that other countries have also included in their statistics, it comes out better:rolleyes:

I mean, seriously? We have THE HIGHEST INFANT MORTALITY RATE because of uninsured mothers and instead of thinking: we should get them insured so those kids don't die needlessly you propose we exclude the statistics. BRILLIANT. You also seem to forget that other countries ALSO have cars and car cultures and yet you want to remove our auto deaths instead of acknowledging they do a better job treating the victims.

Instead trying to gerrymander the statistics, shouldn't we be trying to (gasp) solve the problems? Our health system has HUGE gaps in it and you fight against filling those gaps (current legislation will insure 36 MILLION individuals that weren't before) and instead want to fudge the numbers. GG

~Jason
 

Crotale

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Jan 20, 2008
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Yes, apparently if you arbitrarily remove deaths that other countries have also included in their statistics, it comes out better:rolleyes:

I mean, seriously? We have THE HIGHEST INFANT MORTALITY RATE because of uninsured mothers and instead of thinking: we should get them insured so those kids don't die needlessly you propose we exclude the statistics. BRILLIANT. You also seem to forget that other countries ALSO have cars and car cultures and yet you want to remove our auto deaths instead of acknowledging they do a better job treating the victims.
Fact is that the WHO openly admits that many countries do not count infant deaths at birth or premature births that result in death as part of their intant mortality rates. The US does count these. That said, it is not worthy of attempting to discredit the excellent health we have in most hospitals and clinics in this country, even for those patients who cannot and do not pay. To say that we have a failed system just because 17% do not have coverage is not reason enough to totally restructure a system that does work for a vast majority.
 

dragonfliet

I write stuffs
Apr 24, 2006
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Fact is that the WHO openly admits that many countries do not count infant deaths at birth or premature births that result in death as part of their intant mortality rates. The US does count these. That said, it is not worthy of attempting to discredit the excellent health we have in most hospitals and clinics in this country, even for those patients who cannot and do not pay. To say that we have a failed system just because 17% do not have coverage is not reason enough to totally restructure a system that does work for a vast majority.

And you're going to see that the US isn't alone in reporting infant deaths at birth, etc. You can't just lay that out there and then not admit that the US is still leading the pack in mortality and that industrialized countries nearly unanimously count them.

Also, we aren't trying to discredit what is good. When it works our healthcare system is very good. Our hospitals are quite good and many of our health professionals are also quite good. What isn't good is people who ARE denied health services, who ARE driven into bankruptcy because of huge medical costs and who are unable to treat smaller, yet costly illnesses because of lack of funds which then spirals into larger problems. We aren't totally restructuring our medical system, we are overhauling the INSURANCE and payment system which has huge gaping holes in it.

Maest: how is ignoring relevant statistics 'normalizing' them? A health care system includes more than not dying of diabetes, it includes car accidents, deaths at birth, homicide/attempted homicide, etc. By choosing to exclude certain events that are beneficial for a particular country, you have skewed the statistics drastically and with specific intent. Such playing with numbers is absolutely bunk and makes null any conclusions drawn in such a manner.

~Jason
 

kiff

That guy from Texas. Give me some Cash
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we should get them insured so those kids don't die needlessly you propose we exclude the statistics. BRILLIANT.
man, I swear you must be joking. You actually think they get turned away? how about where I live (El Paso Tx) where we have one of the highest property taxes in the state... guess why? Because we take care of every delivery (and broken leg) that comes our way from across the border. The SCOTUS ruled that our public hospital must treat them because it's part of a social program and we can't discriminate based on citizenship. Awesome huh?!
You also seem to forget that other countries ALSO have cars and car cultures and yet you want to remove our auto deaths instead of acknowledging they do a better job treating the victims.
Ok, now this is very lol. Look on that WHO ranking and see who comes in first on responsiveness. Oh, and not to mention we probably have a very high auto/citizen rate... if not the highest. go ahead and google that one eh?

Instead trying to gerrymander the statistics, shouldn't we be trying to (gasp) solve the problems? Our health system has HUGE gaps in it and you fight against filling those gaps (current legislation will insure 36 MILLION individuals that weren't before) and instead want to fudge the numbers.
First off, it's only around 10 million that are chronically uninsured. the rest of the 30, 36, 45, 50 million (whatever number you guys happen to claim today) are illegal, don't bother applying or simply choose not to buy it (even though they can afford it).

second: This whole thing isn't even about covering the uninsured. You guys are so god damned blind it isn't even funny. It's about taking over the system and evolving it into SP. We could cover the uninsured TODAY (not in 4 years of PRE-taxation) with a fraction of the cost.
 

MÆST

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Jan 28, 2001
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Maest: how is ignoring relevant statistics 'normalizing' them? A health care system includes more than not dying of diabetes, it includes car accidents, deaths at birth, homicide/attempted homicide, etc. By choosing to exclude certain events that are beneficial for a particular country, you have skewed the statistics drastically and with specific intent. Such playing with numbers is absolutely bunk and makes null any conclusions drawn in such a manner.

~Jason

Normalizing for car accidents does not mean you don't count car accidents, it just means you seek to get useful information about the relative health care of accident victims on a per capita basis. For the most useful statistical analysis this should be done in all cases where health care related statistics can be influenced by variables not dependent on the health care system of the country in question.

In the same way that the US's average age of death might increase if we properly normalize for high accident rates, some other country might benefit if we normalize out child sacrifice or what have you.

That's not to say the raw, unnormalized data is not useful. It is important to recognize the impact that America's violent crime, its dependence on the automobile, and its unhealthy lifestyle choices has on its average lifespan, but this information only tells us about those cultural variables, and it tells us nothing about the quality of the health care system which is what we are interested in.
 

TWD

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Maest: how is ignoring relevant statistics 'normalizing' them? A health care system includes more than not dying of diabetes, it includes car accidents, deaths at birth, homicide/attempted homicide, etc. By choosing to exclude certain events that are beneficial for a particular country, you have skewed the statistics drastically and with specific intent. Such playing with numbers is absolutely bunk and makes null any conclusions drawn in such a manner.

~Jason

The simply fact is that the US has more car accidents, murders, underage pregnancies, etc than most countries. This is a culture factor, and not a care factor. So if you want to directly compare healthcare between two countries you must somehow normalize these out. The US system is under greater stress than many other health care systems, and this has to be taken into account.
 

Sir_Brizz

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I want the government to take 40% of my income to feed the hungry next, please. If you disagree you hate human life.
 
Beer is considered a health hazard and will soon be taxed to cover the health expenses of non beer drinking Americans.

as it should be. Cigarettes too.
and yes, kids have been getting turned away from care they needed, in many cases even care they needed to survive that night. not denied, just deferred to another hospital, one that "handles their type of case". Adults get denied all the time. I've been turned away and denied care, not for anything life threateneing, just stuff that's been chronic for me my entire life, also left untreated due to lack of funds..

Health Care should NOT be a private-for-profit enterprise. It should provide a comfortable living, but not be an alibi for a corporatocracy bent on world domination by smothering all opposition under piles of money.

"There are lies, damn lies and there's statistics" - Obama

if you really looked into it you'd find that the US mortality rate is taken completely out of context. if you remove auto accidents and war related casualties OR infant mortality (due to teenage pregnancies) and homicide, then we're #1 in life expectancy. take out all 4 and we're miles ahead of the rest and place us in the top 10 (of the overall rating)

Yeah, we make ppl live nice and long. Can't get many bills paid by a corpse after all.
 
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Sir_Brizz

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Cigarettes already are in most places (not including Utah..................)
 
Cigarettes already are in most places (not including Utah..................)

Very true. I love getting a good laugh at the skyrocketing prices. heh heh

Laughing right at ppl buying them and complaining is a lot better than my desired reaction of kicking a person in the neck for lighting up in front of me or my kids.

Seeing parents I know smoke with their or my kids in the room infuriates me. I actually kicked my brother in law in the chest for it once.
 

dragonfliet

I write stuffs
Apr 24, 2006
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man, I swear you must be joking. You actually think they get turned away? how about where I live (El Paso Tx) where we have one of the highest property taxes in the state... guess why? Because we take care of every delivery (and broken leg) that comes our way from across the border. The SCOTUS ruled that our public hospital must treat them because it's part of a social program and we can't discriminate based on citizenship. Awesome huh?!
Ok, now this is very lol. Look on that WHO ranking and see who comes in first on responsiveness.

But the mothers aren't getting proper visits to ob/gyn during the pregnancy nor are they receiving after birth care. This is what insurance covers and which is why we lag like a mofo behind other countries. Emergency care is required by law, but it isn't even nearly enough.

Also, great, we're responsive (which takes into account, by the way, other things like privacy--and HIPPA rocks) but we're still worst (of 19 countries) in preventable deaths.

~Jason
 
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Well, since we all require fluids and nourishment, we might as well make grocery stores and eateries part of the government in some form. Do they not affect our health?

Edit:/ Sorry if I don't feel that it is MY responsibility to pay for someone else's health care via taxes. If I pay more at the doctor's office because of those who do not have insurance, so be it. That is how a market works. It goes the same in Walmart and any store where I shop. I'm not cold-hearted; I just do not draw the same parallels as some of you when it comes to fire, police and the military on relation to a mandated federally-controlled public health care program.

So you don't mind paying a little extra for people who don't have insurance,..who can't see a doctor, because they're uninsured.. so you're basically pitching extra money into the wind, for no one.. Oooh wait I get it, you must have relatives who work for an insurance provider!

What about the millions of Americans who fall in the (purposely laid out) middle ground. Not enough money to afford the private options currently raping our paychecks, but too much to qualify for the federal stuff that currently I swear it seems you have to be dead to qualify for?

Currently it's sick that "Oh, I made the mistake of busting my ass to pay my bills all year, so I get the big foad from all types of health insurance providers. AWESOME!"
 

Sir_Brizz

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Issues like that can be addressed in other ways than what the House voted for.
 

Jacks:Revenge

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Well, since we all require fluids and nourishment, we might as well make grocery stores and eateries part of the government in some form. Do they not affect our health?
that's a terrible example.

look, I can do it too: well, since we all require oxygen to breathe, we might as well regulate and tax the use of it. does oxygen not affect our health?

health care means the ability to live and be taken care of no different than any other person. it's as basic as an issue can get. and it's something that every nation should provide for its people in so far as ensuring that virtually no one is without access with equality.

Sorry if I don't feel that it is MY responsibility to pay for someone else's health care via taxes.
ah!
this method of thinking is so uniquely American, I don't get it.
why are we so selfish?

it's about a human responsibility to take care of each other.
you "don't feel" like it's your duty to make sure someone has access to decent health care, but that person would do it for you! and someone else would do it for them. this is why people in other parts of the world laugh at our health care debate.

in other countries, they argue about how to maintain funding for their health care program by looking for ways to improve the system. but at least it's their, for everyone, they walk out of the hospital without visiting a cashier.

in our country, there's at least a pretty loud portion of our citizens that are ok with leaving people in desperation in their own backyard. we can't even agree how to better cover the individuals that ARE covered. meanwhile, free health clinics in California and Detroit draw thousands upon thousands of people who are unable to get the care they need otherwise.
these clinics cannot even afford to see everyone who turned out. this is the kind of stuff we normally do in like... Somalia.

If I pay more at the doctor's office because of those who do not have insurance, so be it. That is how a market works.
lol, but it doesn't have to work that way!

you just said, you'd put up with paying for that person at the doctors cash register.
so why wouldn't you put up with paying for that person in a way that is reciprocal? you covered them, because that person and everyone else has your ass covered.
I'm not cold-hearted
hey, whatever helps you sleep.

if you really looked into it you'd find that the US mortality rate is taken completely out of context. if you remove auto accidents and war related casualties OR infant mortality (due to teenage pregnancies) and homicide, then we're #1 in life expectancy. take out all 4 and we're miles ahead of the rest and place us in the top 10 (of the overall rating)
source please?

Like when I was actually there a few yrs ago and the only 2 hrs of tv I watched talked about the quotas and ppl dying in the backs of ambulances. 2 (or 3?) cases in 1 week in the Surrey area.
Exactly.
wow.
your little story sure does provide powerful evidence.
"History teaches us that grave threats to liberty often come in times of urgency, when constitutional rights seem too extravagant to endure." - SCJ Thurgood Marshall
how is health care a grave threat to anyone's liberty?
what is the matter with you?

"Freedom is the will to be responsible to ourselves." - Nietzsche
exactly.

you be responsible; you get a good education, you get a good job, you pay into the system which helps take care of people and then you are also taken care of. no one has to lose.
 
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Larkin

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So you don't mind paying a little extra for people who don't have insurance,..who can't see a doctor, because they're uninsured.. so you're basically pitching extra money into the wind, for no one.. Oooh wait I get it, you must have relatives who work for an insurance provider!

What about the millions of Americans who fall in the (purposely laid out) middle ground. Not enough money to afford the private options currently raping our paychecks, but too much to qualify for the federal stuff that currently I swear it seems you have to be dead to qualify for?

Ok I will now. :p

So you fine with forcing people to buy things they don't want. To actively give up their right of their own body which yes, includes the action of buying a service to take care of it and even includes the action of not taking care of it at all. I bet you are fine with people committing suicide right? Well tell me why can they have the ability to end their life and not the right to live the way they wish regardless if it is healthy or not?

You are also fine with the action of forcing small businesses to buy insurance they can't actually afford. Which no, the government won't actively check first. They will tell them what kind of coverage they must provide

You are fine with the government taxing all healthcare plans depending on what they cover.

You are fine with the government actually increasing healthcare cost by giving the trial lawyers more power in court for malpractice.

You are fine with the government actually increasing healthcare cost by taxing all pharmaceuticals fifty percent and all medical equipment two percent.

You are fine with the government taxing people that live unhealthy a right given to them by the very law the government is supposed to obeying here. The bill taxes sugary food and opens the door to controlling what restaurants serve by making them have to put up nutrition facts of their food. Undoubtedly they will regulate what is acceptable food.

You are fine with the government actually lowering doctors pay and increases their taxes all at the same time.

You are fine with the fact that this bill gives the government the power to decide what is actually acceptable pay of any citizen of the country and gives them the power to lower your wages if they decide you make too much.

You are fine with the healthcare czar getting to pick what individuals private coverage can cover. Even him having the power to reject people if he so pleases to have private healthcare at all. Btw, this doesn't make them private anymore...just an fyi. Afterall, they won't be responsible for picking people up or picking their coverage. The only thing they will be able to do is collect the money. Maybe its just me, but if they don't make any of the business decisions they aren't actually in control. You're fine with that though. I know, I know, but you will be able to keep your coverage. Just one thing that isn't mentioning is that if you don't have coverage now you will have to go through this. The only people that won't is people that presently have coverage. This is the replacement practice like it or not.

End of life committees. I know, I know, this is to make it so they know what do before they die, right. I'll get back to you when I believe this excuse.

You are fine with the idea that what the public opinion or what czar's plans cover isn't even mentioned. All of that will happen at some future time. I know you think because abortions was in there it did, but abortions was put in there to make sure it was covered, not because of anything else.

You are fine with medicare cuts of 300 billion. (I say cut it all together to cut cost in healthcare, but lol, I assume you are actually for Medicare)

....I could go on for more, but this is getting long and I'm very tired. Good night.
 
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