Makes sense to me... Why should the government pay for a service we're not gonna use?

--Ray

PS> Hee hee... I really am the master of humor...

In a way I agree with it too. Preventative care is far less cheaper than treating diseases, and if you are going to "live off the system" I'd rather my taxes go to paying for healthy doctor visits than constant unhealthy ones. For example, it boggles my mind when I see patients picking up medications for all kinds of inhalers and breathing medications and heart medications and they are attached to an oxygen tank with a cigarette in their hand.

Of course, don't get me started on this subject. I could tell you stories of people coming through the pharmacy. I enjoy my job and I enjoy taking care of people, but I see ALOT of people who are addicts and make a hobby of getting prescriptions filled.

But then, someone could say that my family is addicted to going to the doctor and hospital when we actually dread it, so I guess I'd better shut up now.

I wouldn't worry too much. Edwards has as much chance of being President as Ron Paul has.

How would this mandatory preventative care be enforced? Is some fat bossy nurse going to come and escort me to the clinic at hypodermic needlepoint?

Nice one, Shiz. :)

--Ray

Cat Herder wrote:

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Edwards is a rich dork who doesn't have a clue beyond what his speech writers and his party's strategists tell him.

Encouraging preventative care is wonderful. Incenting for people to do preventative stuff is wonderful too. But mandating compliance to it? What do the yahoos who think up this stuff think they will do to force compliance with their social programs? Gulags for non-comformists?

Makes you wonder if all these other democrat candidates are planted stooges to make Billary look more appealing...

Of course, the same thing could be said of most of the republican candidates... to make Guiliani look more appealing, which isn't working because the majority of republicans do not like Guiliani either... so, that must also be a ploy to get Billary back into office.

Evil no good nasty ugly wicked lieing politicians...

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 Edwards loves the medical profession - how do you think you got so stinking rich? He'd sue obstetricians for the birth defects that some babies were born with. And I am not kidding in the least. Edwards is a shining example of why medical care is so expensive. The doctors have to earn a lot of money to pay for malpractice insurance in case a weasel like Edwards sets his sights on them.

But don't rich people need to be punished!?

I'm just waiting for the fat tax...

According to www.newswithviews.com/Duke/selwin50htm  on 6 April 2006 Romney signed into law a bill that creates a universal health care system intrusive to be the envy of socialits everywhere.  The plan mandates that every MA resident must obtain health insurance by July 1, 2007, or face a fine that could exceed 1,200 dollars a year.  Of course, this scheme includes the creaation of a new bureaucracy, ont that will, using Big Brother's infinite wisdom, determine how much you can afford to pay.  

According to Wikipedia, on 6 April 2006 Mitt Romney, as Governor of Massachusetts, signed the Massachusetts Health Reform Law, which requires all MA residents to purchase health insurance coverage or else face a substantial penalty in the form of an income tax accessment.  The bill also establishes subsidies for people without adequate employer health insurance and make below an income threshold by using funds previously designated to compensate for the health costs of the uninsured.

I believe Ron Paul is the only presidential candidate with experience as a medical doctor.  And he is probably the only one who considers immoral any program that takes from one person and gives it to another. 

"Free market" hasn't worked in the 90 years since we've been trying it in healthcare.

I'm really curious as to where the 90 years figure came from. Did we have socialized medicine 90 years ago, and then gave it up for a free market approach? Not to my knowledge. As far as I know, until very recently, historically speaking, people have always paid for their own healthcare, unless a charity helped them. Government was not always part of the equation.
The concept of "health insurance" really took off during World War II. Companies, faced with a shortage of qualified workers, started offering health insurance as a way to attract employees.
I'll be the first to admit that I don't know everything there is to know about the subject of health care. So please expand on your statement. What happened 90 years ago, regarding health care, that did not exist before that?
All the headaches you name about private insurance just get worse when government gets involved in the picture. SCHIP, when you get right down to it, is just government funded health insurance. Are you really saying that, with government involved, health insurance suddenly becomes easy to deal with and less bound by red tape? The mind boggles.
Granted, I don't know much about SCHIP. But I know that I hear horror stories all the time of trying to get Medicare to approve something. I hear horror stories about trying to get anything in countries with more socialized medicine than what we have. A man in London waited a week for immediately needed life saving surgery while they ironed out the little bureaucratic details.
True, what we have isn't working. But government funded health care is taking all the worst of what we have right now and getting rid of all the good. In fact, I've worked in the medical industry (the part that makes medical software). Do you know how many thousands of byzantian little regulations that they need to satisfy just to be in compliance? Huge sums of money are spent on government compliance. If you were to remove government from the picture entirely, a huge amount of money would be saved. That, and restore some sanity to medical malpractice, and you could cut health care costs tremendously. That would go a long way towards solving our problems.
Socialized medicine embraces the problems and gets rid of the good, rather than the other way around.

yeah like I have to get sick sometimes and eventually die... oh wait...

palmon wrote:

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Once upon a time, people became doctors because it was a noble calling. I'm not convinced that anyone anymore does anything because it is noble.

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My nephew did just this...  He saw how much pain his grandfathers suffered as a result of arthritis and became an Orthopedic Surgeon...  Most of his patients are 70+...  He's already done hundreds of hip and knee replacements...  The most important thing to him is to relieve suffering.

He served quite a few years in the Navy to reimburse Uncle Sam, for Medical School and had active duties in some pretty awful places... Is that sorta' the same thing???

Seriously I will ask him... To give you an example of why I say what I do... Currently as his first private practice he is teamed with other doctors in an Orthopedic Clinic (all Ex-Navy, a couple that will soon retire in their mid-late 60s...) that handle a lot of county health care cases... Seniors on Medicare pay according to a sliding scale, and some don't pay anything above their Medicare coverage, (the ones that are below a certain poverty level.) The Clinic also handles HS Sports Injuries/Orthopedic Follow-up Care, at a flat fee for each self insured district in their area, each doctor takes a certain # of cases, it's a kind of co-op thing they worked out with their county... I better not say where he practices... cause I heard from my SIL (his Mom) that the Clinic tries to be real low-key about all the good they do in the community...

This is what happens when people believe it is a right to recieve any care needed to keep them healthy, and at the same time it costs lots of money to keep people healthy. What an difficult situation.

Someone gets hurt or sick and doesn't have insurance, ideally they should be able to pay it off themselves, or with help from charities.

I suppose you could be treated even if you couldn't pay, but then people start leeching off the system and people who do have insurance have to pay more in order to support those who don't. Or if the person can't pay, maybe they shouldn't be treated and be left to die, this seems even worse, yet should people pay for other peoples houses or food too?

It seems to me there are four ways of approaching the problem in todays world.

1: (Current situation), people who have insurance have insurance pay, those who don't have to pay themselves, unless it is emergency care, of which the hospital pays (which leads to higher costs for everybody else, and hospitals closing)

2: Same as 1 except people who can't pay at all get no treatment at all, even for emergency care. Poor people must rely on the charity of others.

3: (Hillary Clinton / John Edwards) Everyone pays higher taxes in order for medical care to be socialized. No one needs to buy insurance or worry about paying for care, however overall care decreases in quality, more people are more likely to use the system when not needed which leads to shortages of doctors and waiting lists, people are more likely to be as responsible with their health since the government will just pay for it, thus rising costs and/or giving interest to the government to require you to have constant checkups and live healthy, government would be massively grown, and did I mention higher taxes.

4: (Mitt Romney) Everyone is required to have health insurance, much like if you drive a car you must have auto insurance. No one can leech off the system anymore. It stays in the private sector. If you can afford it, you buy it. If you can't, you are subsidized by the local government by the money saved by everyone having insurance, however this gives the government more power then it has now (but not as much as #3), and you no longer have the option to spend your money on other things.

Personally I don't think Mitt Romneys approach is that bad, especcially when compared to the democrats approach, but my mind still isn't made up.

BTW I was thinking, If some sort of pandemic broke out, what kind of impact would it have today?

-- Edited by Pt314 at 12:57, 2007-09-07

Coco, you must live for when Steven King's "The Stand" is on TV, right?

Not only do many people consider it a right to receive any care needed, but I notice at least as many consider it OK to force other people to contribute to the care of others.  They do this by supporting legislators who promote, and legislation that compels such programs.  I can remember in the '60's and '70's when some General Authorities warned against supporting such programs.