Hillary's Health Care Idea NSFW - Page 8 - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

Cynthetiq · 10-31-2007, 07:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dc_dux

As interesting as the Icelandic health care system might be, I would rather compare Hillary's plan against, say a Bush plan?

Wait....Bush has never sent any comprehensive health care plan to Congress in the last 6 years.

How about a plan from the Repubs in Congress when they had control for 6 years?

Nope....cant find any plans there either.

The Republican candidates for President?

Nothing as detailed as Hillary's, Obama's, or Edwards' respective plans.

Help!!! Has any Republican proposed anything comprehensive (not just talking points)?

As a registered republican (chosen so I can vote in primary elections since I align myself more to the republicans than to the democrats) I don't care about universal healthcare. I don't give a shit about giving up more to those who don't wish to or can't help themselves and want the government to help themselves. So I don't expect any Republican candidate to come forward to debate point for point on a healthcare plan.

Since I choose to work full time for an employer that provides healthcare benefits, I don't give a crap about giving universal healthcare to those that don't work full time by choice or by issue.

dc_dux · 10-31-2007, 08:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cynthetiq

Since I choose to work full time for an employer that provides healthcare benefits, I don't give a crap about giving universal healthcare to those that don't work full time by choice or by issue.

Cynthetiq.....that seems very short-sighted to me, but I hope you never leave your current place of employment... or your current employer is not like most and increases the employees share of premiums by 7-10% every year.... or you have a family member who with a pre-existing condition and your employer suddenly changes providers (to save money) to a provider that wont cover you.

Cynthetiq · 10-31-2007, 08:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dc_dux

Cynthetiq.....that seems very short-sighted to me, but I hope you never leave your current place of employment... or your current employer is not like most and increases the employees share of premiums by 7-10% every year.... or you have a family member who with a pre-existing condition and your employer suddenly changes providers (to save money) to a provider that wont cover you.

I have left my employer before. I was even laid off twice.

But the choices were simple, my wife signed up for her plan. So long as there is no break in coverage, no pre-existing condition exists. I recently changed plans but not providers, my costs increased slightly since the company I worked for was 50,000 employees worldwide to only 10,000.

My employers have changed providers, and increases are passed on, this year it was 4% of the previous year premiums, to which many ignorant people said, "But I only got a 3% increase how can you allow it to be raised by 4%, 4% is more than 3%." They don't know how to do math when the increase is to the premium has NOTHING to do with the increase in the salary, but it's a good number to point at and demonize the system.

Had I to go on COBRA during the times I was laid off, it would have been expensive. That's okay with me. I don't NEED 125 cable channels with HBO, Showtime, Starz, and Encore. I don't NEED a cellphone. I don't NEED high speed internet. I don't NEED to own a car in a city with good public transportation, in fact on a nice day I can walk to work if I choose.

I have NEVER heard of a company changing providers that exclude members of their full time employment. If that's the case for some places, then so be it. I'll move to an employer that does provide me coverage.

Sorry, scare tactics are not something that I care to debate. Talk to me about facts.

I NEED to take care of my health. Those things *I* need to take care of, *NOT* the Federal government.

So far, the Icelandic government seems to be in debt covering it's 300,000 citizens, 175,000 of which live in Reykjavik which is where this $18M debt is being described as originating.

Seems to me like it doesn't work as advertised or touted. I don't want to buy a pig in a poke, and I'm definitely not interested in being sold a bill of goods.

dc_dux · 10-31-2007, 08:56 PM

Not scare tactics....facts of life for many.

Health care is the second most important 08 election issue for many Americans. Its not unreasonable to expect to see the issue addressed with substantive proposals from potential candidates and the Repubs have offered very little that I can see.

But i didnt expect to change your mind

edit: a study released today:

Quote:

The number of Americans lacking health insurance rose by nearly 8.6 million to 47 million from 2000 to 2006, with children and workers from every income level losing coverage, a new report said on Thursday.

The increase was "driven primarily by the continued erosion in employer-provided health insurance," said the report by the Washington, D.C.-based Economic Policy Institute.

In 2006, 2.3 million fewer Americans received health benefits from their employers than in 2000, the report said, noting the decline does not take the population increase into account...

...For jobholders, this was the sixth straight year of declines in health insurance coverage. The rate fell to just below 71 percent from nearly 75 percent in 2000.

"No category of workers was insulated from loss of coverage," as even workers whose earnings placed them in the top quintile saw coverage rates fall, the report said.
http://www.reuters.com/article/domes...e=domesticNews

scare tactics or facts?

Cynthetiq · 11-26-2007, 05:50 AM

More Icelandic Healthcare coverage

Quote:

Minister of Health Wants Healthcare without Borders
LINK
Minister of Health Gudlaugur Thór Gudlaugsson, who has earlier proposed a co-Nordic pharmaceutical market, announced last weekend that he would like an international healthcare market, which could eliminate waiting lists for surgery.

Gudlaugsson told Fréttabladid patients should have the ability to choose whether they want to be operated on in other countries, adding that an international healthcare market could also provide better opportunities for healthcare professionals to export knowledge.

A co-European healthcare market is currently in preparation within the EU, but Gudlaugsson believes that the Nordic countries could beat the EU to it and later provide certain leadership in healthcare within Europe.

Of note here is that there are waiting lists for surgery, in a country of 300,000 there are still waiting lists for surgery. What kind of surgery is uncertain and unknown from the article.

host · 11-26-2007, 08:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cynthetiq

More Icelandic Healthcare coverage

Of note here is that there are waiting lists for surgery, in a country of 300,000 there are still waiting lists for surgery. What kind of surgery is uncertain and unknown from the article.

This is from page 5 from a publication dated Feb., 2005:

Quote:

http://archsurg.ama-assn.org/cgi/reprint/141/2/199.pdf
Surgery in Iceland
Gunnar H. Gunnlaugsson, MD, MS; Margret Oddsdottir, MD; Jonas Magnusson, MD, Ph

....CURRENT STATUS
In Iceland there are waiting lists for certain types of surgery.
Today waiting lists exist for eye surgery, tonsillectomies,
hip and knee replacements, and major back surgery.
There are only normal working lists for other types
of elective surgery. The waiting lists have shortened during
the last 2 to 3 years, and the aim is to eliminate them
completely. All patients with cancer undergo operation
within 1 to 3 weeks of their diagnosis. Roughly one half
of the admissions to the general surgery wards are on an
emergency or urgent basis. Patients with cholelithiasis
who seek the emergency department with symptomatic
gallstones are as a rule admitted and operated on within
24 to 36 hours. Almost all cholecystectomies and about
two thirds of appendectomies are done laparoscopically.
Laparoscopic surgery is advanced. Almost all Nissen
fundoplications, gastrointestinal bypass procedures
for morbid obesity, and adrenalectomies are done laparoscopically,
as are most splenectomies. Cancer surgery
is routinely performed as an open procedure. Esophageal
resections are done by the gastrointestinal surgeons.
Since we do not have surgical residents beyond
the second year, all “major” surgery is performed by experienced
surgeons. Interventional radiology is also advanced.
The majority of procedures for aortoiliac disease
and about 20% of elective procedures for abdominal
aortic aneurysm are done through the endovascular route.
Some operations appear to be more frequent in Iceland
than in many other countries when presented as a
number of procedures per 100 000 inhabitants. Icelandic
neurosurgeons, for example, perform about 400 lumbar
microdiscectomies annually (133 per 100 000 inhabitants);
in 1981 they were the first of the Nordic surgeons
to start doing discectomies with the use of the operating
microscope. In 2003, the number of coronary artery procedures
(percutaneous coronary interventions plus coronary
artery surgery) was 806, or 272 per 100 000 inhabitants.
For the frequency of some other operations, see the
Table.....

Contrast Iceland's universal health care benefit with the US system that bankrupts even some who require medical treatment and believed themselves to be adequately insured. The crisis of more than 45 miliion uninsured, a number that is growing, and the burden of monthly insurance payments of a large number who pay premiums for individual coverage, is in the US, not in Iceland.

I cannot fathom what your point is, Cynthetiq? Is it simply that "you've got yours", so that indicates "anyone can get their's?"

Cynthetiq · 11-26-2007, 08:54 AM

Someone asked me if I knew anything about the Icelandic healthcare system since it is supposed to be a great system and I have a desire to live there one day. But if you look at the fact that Iceland cannot provide great coverage for 300,000 people as highlighted by large debt and waiting lists from the articles I posted.

Quote:

Originally Posted by host

I cannot fathom what your point is, Cynthetiq? Is it simply that "you've got yours", so that indicates "anyone can get their's?"

And yes, isn't that part of the American Dream? that people can strive to achieve and earn more and better their lives than previous generations? Seems to be working for me as a 1st generation immigrant. Seems to be working for my wife who grew up below the poverty line.

host · 11-26-2007, 09:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cynthetiq

Someone asked me if I knew anything about the Icelandic healthcare system since it is supposed to be a great system and I have a desire to live there one day. But if you look at the fact that Iceland cannot provide great coverage for 300,000 people as highlighted by large debt and waiting lists from the articles I posted.

And yes, isn't that part of the American Dream? that people can strive to achieve and earn more and better their lives than previous generations? Seems to be working for me as a 1st generation immigrant. Seems to be working for my wife who grew up below the poverty line.

You don't know how frustrating it is to read your posts on this thread, thinking as I do, that you do not have a clue. You forage for flaws in Iceland's admirable universal healthcare effort, while these parasites suck our "system" dry, for their own selfish gain, using questionable or illegal methods...the Frists took HCA public, at huge ancillary expense, and then, again at huge expense for fees to m&a lawyers and investment bankers, they took HCA private again, just recently:

Quote:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...oryId=16045685
Feds Fight Rampant Medicare Fraud in South Florida

by Greg Allen

Listen Now [5 min 13 sec] add to playlist

All Things Considered, November 6, 2007 · It doesn't sound sexy, but amid the bikinis, beaches and palm trees of South Florida, one of the most popular and lucrative crimes now is Medicare fraud, and a team of federal investigators and prosecutors are tasked with putting a stop to it.

The dollar totals are staggering: Law enforcement officials say they've uncovered more than a half-billion dollars in fraudulent claims this year in South Florida alone.

If you want to know how bad Medicare fraud is in Miami, a good place to start is with a study released by federal inspectors. They visited, at random, nearly 1,600 businesses in Miami that bill Medicare for services allegedly delivered to beneficiaries.

The U.S. attorney in Miami, Alexander Acosta, says the inspectors found that nearly one-third of the businesses — 481 — didn't exist.

"Those 481 businesses — so-called businesses that didn't exist — had billed $237 million in fraud over the past year," Acosta says.

That study helped focus national attention on the problem of Medicare fraud in Miami — especially among shell companies that purport to sell what's known as "durable medical equipment" — wheelchairs, walkers, respirators and the like.....

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/techinv...ionaires_x.htm
New names among the richest on Forbes' billionaires list
Updated 3/11/2005 5:40 AM

....Tennessee had three entries on the list: Martha Ingram and family of Ingram Industries at No. 228 with $2.6 billion; Frederick Smith of FedEx at No. 306 with $2.1 billion; and <h3>Thomas Frist Jr. and family of HCA Inc. at No. 584 with $1.1 billion.....</h3>

<h3>...and in a state with less than 9 million people with 1.7 million unisured, this is what is happening to the most important hospital in a metro area of 5 million residents, as a consequence of caring for the uninsured:</h3>

Quote:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&s...nt&btnG=Search
Sweeping changes expected for Grady | ajc.com
Pete Correll, a leader of the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, ... <h3>Grady's equipment has suffered as the cash-starved hospital has focused on paying its ...</h3>
http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/met..._1116_web.html - 48k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this

http://broadcastatlanta.com/index.ph...974&Itemid=871
DeKalb Gives $5 Million To Grady, Asks For Audit And Plan
Mary Swint
Tuesday, 09 October 2007

...“The issue is not going away,” Commissioner Kathie Gannon said. “The $5 milllion is a token amount of money. It says DeKalb County is doing its part, supporting the mission and vision of Grady.” She added that the board looked forward to working with the hospital authority on developing a plan for Grady.

Commissioner Burrell Ellis introduced the last resolution to come up for a vote. It urges the Governor and General Assembly to raise the Medicaid reimbursement rates to the maximum levels permitted under federal rules to adequately cover Grady’s cost in caring for Medicaid patients. The Ellis resolution also asked the state to provide health insurance to more uninsured and underinsured residents by extending Medicaid to cover more adults and extending Medicaid and PeachCare to cover all Georgia children. The resolution also urged the Governor, Lieutenant Governor and Speaker of the House “to state publicly at the earliest opportunity their intention to request the 2008 Session of the General Assembly“ to make these proposed changes.

Ellis pointed out Grady provided $72 million in unreimbursed care to uninsured and underinsured patients in 2005 and the Medicaid program pays Grady for about 85 percent of the cost for caring for Medicaid patients, causing the state’s largest hospital to lose $144 million in 2005. His resolution was approved....

http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache...lnk&cd=1&gl=us
State to give Grady $5.4M next year
Hospital board claims the money still is not enough

By Gayle White
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 11/08/07

Financially strapped Grady Memorial Hospital got a boost from the State Department of Community Health on Thursday, but not as much help as Grady officials had hoped.

Under a new formula for distributing federal funds, Grady will get $5.4 million more for next year than in 2007— but still considerably less than in 2006.

Grady Health System's estimated share of the funds in 2008 will be about $73.2 million, up from $67.8 million in 2007. But in 2006, the hospital system received almost $91 million.

Clayton Shepherd, treasurer of the board that governs Grady, said the additional money will help "a little bit," but that the state board of community health "just doesn't get it" when it comes to Grady.

"This is not what Grady really needs," Shepherd said. "We had hoped this Department of Community Health would be a big help to Grady in the turn-around process."

The federal money being distributed is from the Disproportionate Share Hospital fund, commonly called DSH or "dish," set aside for hospitals that provide most health care for the poor. Grady is by far Georgia's largest provider of health care to the poor and uninsured.

But because Georgia has changed the criteria hospitals must meet to qualify for the funds, about three dozen more hospitals are now eligible—meaning the pie has to be sliced into more pieces. And the federal government furnishes only about $260 million to cover about $1 billion in uncompensated costs for Georgia hospitals.

In a statement released after the meeting, the Department of Community Health emphasized its obligation to the whole state, saying Grady "is by no means the only hospital incurring costs from indigent and <h3<uncompensated care of the state's 1.7 million uninsured.".....</h3>

http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache...lnk&cd=1&gl=us
Shutting Grady would swamp other hospitals, many say

By GAYLE WHITE / gwhite@ajc.com
Published on: 11/25/07

Consider these possibilities:

A well-insured woman's long-awaited hip replacement is postponed. Her bed has been taken by a homeless woman in need of emergency surgery for a broken hip.

A house in Buckhead bursts into flames, and several people are burned. Helicopters airlift them to Augusta to the state's only burn center.

A late-night pileup occurs on the Downtown Connector. Ambulances race the most severely injured passengers to Macon, where the specialists they need are available around the clock.

Those and other images of metro Atlanta without Grady Health System have brought business leaders, elected officials, doctors and clergy together in a historic effort to save the state's largest public hospital.

Having Grady healthy is in the best interest of all metro Atlanta residents and all other hospitals, said Dr. Robert Albin, chairman of the board of the Medical Association of Atlanta.

"There's no doubt in our minds that the medical delivery system in Fulton and DeKalb counties is entirely incapable of absorbing the inpatient, outpatient, emergency and referral load if Grady is not there," Albin said.

"People would be naive to believe there wouldn't be a logjam in the emergency rooms in all our hospitals. They would be naive to believe there wouldn't be a shortage of beds. The access to health care people have taken for granted may be severely compromised."

Hope for survival

Months of studying, meeting and negotiating could come to a head Monday when the Fulton-DeKalb Hospital Authority is scheduled to vote on restructuring management of the Grady Health System.

A task force of the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce proposed turning over day-to-day management to a private nonprofit corporation run by a board independent from county politicians.

Leaders of the task force, which was created at the request of the hospital authority, said the shift is mandatory to attract the money needed to keep the hospital afloat.

Grady has lost money every year since 2000 and faces a projected record deficit of about $55 million this year.

Chamber leaders say they have a $200 million commitment for capital improvements at Grady if the proposal is approved.

Critics argue that county, state and federal governments should fund the hospital adequately under its current management system and warn that creating a private corporation could endanger Grady's commitment to the poor.

Both sides say Grady must be rescued. At stake is a range of medical services, from a neonatal intensive care unit that cares for babies from throughout Georgia, to Crestview, the state's largest nursing home.

Right now, Grady is the front-line hospital in the event of a plane crash at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, a major influenza outbreak in metro Atlanta or an assassination attempt on a visiting presidential candidate. And, as a teaching hospital for Emory University and Morehouse schools of medicine, Grady Memorial Hospital trains a quarter of Georgia's physicians.

"Grady doctors go all over the state," said Ben Robinson, executive director of the Georgia Board for Physician Workforce. "Grady is servicing rural Georgia as well as Atlanta."

Selling point for business

Any threat to Grady threatens not only medical care across metro Atlanta but possibly the region's economy, business and medical leaders say.

"Atlanta hosts over 3 million people a year in conventions and trade shows alone," said Bill Howard of the Atlanta Convention and Visitors Bureau. "Trauma centers are probably not at the top of the mind for meeting planners, but they become top of the mind if an emergency comes up."

Georgia Tech economist Thomas Boston, who conducted studies in 2001 and 2006 on the economic impact of Grady, said Grady is an essential part of the social infrastructure that draws businesses to Atlanta.

"Major corporations will not move to an area they perceive has overcrowded and inefficient health care services," Boston said.

Business aside, some Atlanta area clergy are saying Grady is essential to the moral vision of the city because of its role in indigent care.

Grady is there, said the Rev. Gerald Durley, co-chairman of the Regional Council of Churches of Atlanta, "for the least, the lost and the left out."

http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache...lnk&cd=1&gl=us
9 reasons Grady could matter to you

By GAYLE WHITE
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 11/25/07

What's so important about Grady? Medical experts say the 115-year-old hospital offers a range of services not duplicated elsewherein Atlanta.

TRAUMA

When a major tragedy happens in Atlanta — from the 1996 bombing at Centennial Olympic Park to the Bluffton University baseball team's deadly bus wreck in March — Grady Memorial Hospital's medical team is usually on the front line.

On an average day, Grady's trauma unit treats about 10 severely injured patients — about 3,700 a year.

Grady is one of only four Level One trauma centers in Georgia, a designation that signifies 24-hour-a-day coverage by a range of medical specialties. The others are in Macon, Augusta and Savannah.

"Grady sees literally twice the volume of trauma we do in a year," said Vernon Henderson, the surgeon who heads trauma at Atlanta Medical Center, which has a Level Two trauma center. "Grady is the standard-bearer for trauma in Georgia."

AMBULANCE

If workers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are exposed to a biohazard, specially trained Grady paramedics will transport them. Grady's is the only such team in the country outside the U.S. Army and is training medical transport teams from other cities.

As for day-to-day operations, Grady ambulances make more than 90,000 trips a year, transporting more than 66,000 patients.

INFECTIOUS DISEASE

Last year, clinicians from six countries visited Grady's infectious disease center, which is recognized internationally for HIV care. Patients with tuberculosis and increasingly with tropical diseases also are cared for there.

Besides treating 4,700 outpatients last year, infectious disease doctors were consulted on more than 1,000 additional inpatient cases.

The infectious disease clinics also dispensed more than $33 million worth of medication for the Georgia AIDS Drug Assistance Program.

MEDICAL EDUCATION

Earlier this year, Emory University neurosurgery resident Luis Tumialan allowed a television crew to film his life for a CNN documentary called "Grady's Anatomy."

Tumialan is passionate about Grady. "We take enormous pride in what we do here," he said.

About 900 of Emory University School of Medicine's 1,000 medical residents and almost all of Morehouse School of Medicine's 100 residents train at Grady. Emory and Morehouse faculty serve as Grady's attending physicians.

As many as half of the medical residents who come from out of state to train at Grady stay in Georgia, said Dr. Thomas Lawley, dean of Emory's medical school.

MENTAL HEALTH

Schizophrenia, depression, addiction — more than 1,000 patients a year are admitted to Grady's famed 13th floor with those and other mental health problems.

Some come through the health system's emergency psychiatric service, one of the busiest in the country with more than 17,000 annual visits. Altogether, patients see Grady psychiatric staff members more than 77,500 times a year.

With state mental hospitals already crowded, hospital officials say, many patients would be on the streets unmedicated without Grady.

NEONATAL SPECIAL CARE

Some are tucked under blankets decorated with teddy bears and bunnies. Some are invisible in isolettes that keep them in the dark, as if they were still in the womb.

The babies in the neonatal special care units at Grady are among the state's most fragile infants and are often born to indigent mothers. Some are delivered as much as three months premature, weighing less than 2 pounds. They will stay here for weeks or months until their organs develop more fully and they reach a weight more normal for birth.

On an average day, the Grady staff cares for 30 infants. Last year, about 600 were born or brought here from 55 counties across North Georgia.

POISON CONTROL

If a panicked mother in Hahira or a doctor in Valdosta calls the state poison hotline, Grady answers.

Grady operates the Georgia Poison Center, with funding provided by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Georgia Department of Human Resources.

The center, whose phones are staffed by doctors, nurses and pharmacists, answers about 200,000 calls a year — 800 a month from animal owners whose pets have just eaten something suspect.

SICKLE CELL DISEASE

With more than 1,000 patients, Grady is home to the world's largest center for adults with sickle cell disease, the most common genetic blood disorder in the United States. The Georgia Comprehensive Sickle Cell Center at Grady also has the only around-the-clock emergency department just for adults who develop acute complications from sickle cell disease.

The combined approach allows Grady doctors to do research on sickle cell disease.

"We're heavily involved in national trials to improve treatment and avoid complications," said the center's medical director, Dr. James Eckman.

BURNS

An average of one severely injured patient a day is admitted to Grady's 23-bed, specially equipped burn unit, the larger of only two such units in the state.

Many patients end up hospitalized for weeks because of severe pain and high risks of infection, scarring and complications. Grady physicians see outpatients for burn care about 2,000 times a year.

Georgia-Pacific executive Eric Armstrong was lighting a water heater at an Oklahoma vacation home two years ago when a propane leak caused a flash fire that burned him and his wife. Georgia-Pacific flew them back to Grady.

"My husband and I both talked about what great care we got," said Barbara Armstrong. Today, she's a volunteer in the burn unit.

Willravel · 11-26-2007, 09:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by host

You don't know how frustrating it is to read your posts on this thread, thinking as I do, that you do not have a clue.

One sympathizes.

Cynth, do you really, honestly think that our healthcare system is better than Iceland? Is that your honest informed opinion? Because it strikes me as a desperate last stand in a losing battle.

Cynthetiq · 11-26-2007, 09:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by host

You don't know how frustrating it is to read your posts on this thread, thinking as I do, that you do not have a clue. You forage for flaws in Iceland's admirable universal healthcare effort, while these parasites suck our "system" dry, for their own selfish gain, using questionable or illegal methods...the Frists took HCA public, at huge ancillary expense, and then, again at huge expense for fees to m&a lawyers and investment bankers, they took HCA private again, just recently:

<h3>...and in a state with less than 9 million people with 1.7 million unisured, this is what is happening to the most important hospital in a metro area of 5 million residents, as a consequence of caring for the uninsured:</h3>

Don't worry, the frustration is reciprocated not just in this thread but in many of your long quotations and diatribes. I try my best and that's all that I can do.

Quote:

Originally Posted by willravel

One sympathizes.

Cynth, do you really, honestly think that our healthcare system is better than Iceland? Is that your honest informed opinion? Because it strikes me as a desperate last stand in a losing battle.

I didn't say that it was. Please learn2read because nothing stated it as such.

I've only stated that I got mine and I don't give a shit about those lazy fuckers and other people who make choices and don't want to suffer the consequences of their choices.

I'm pointing out simply that for 300,000 people they seem to have the same flaws that people complain about in the UK and other socialized systems of debt and waiting lists.

Willravel · 11-26-2007, 09:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cynthetiq

I didn't say that it was. Please learn2read because nothing stated it as such.

I didn't say you said it was. I was asking if you do. Do you believe the American system of healthcare is better than Iceland's?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cynthetiq

I've only stated that I got mine and I don't give a shit about those lazy fuckers and other people who make choices and don't want to suffer the consequences of their choices.

"Fuck the poor" is an attitude usually reserved for the uber-rich. I don't know you to be a neocon, so it's surprising.

host · 11-26-2007, 09:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cynthetiq

Don't worry, the frustration is reciprocated not just in this thread but in many of your long quotations and diatribes. I try my best and that's all that I can do.

Why the vague attack and the reference to "other threads"? If you could see yourself, here. It would come off like this:

"I'm, young, healthy, well educated, but...I'm "self made", so that entitles me to not alter my perspective to consider the circumstances of anyone else who seeks affordable medical insurance coverage who is NOT young, healthy and well educated..."

I attempted to point you in the direction of your lack of perspective and empathy regarding the issue of affordable health care coverage, and you respond with:

Quote:

....the frustration is reciprocated not just in this thread but in many of your long quotations and diatribes...

The "long quotations" are intended to break through the "wall of denial", and the information "void" that is the buiding material of the wall....

Cynthetiq · 11-26-2007, 09:43 AM

Host, I can see myself. I have an opinion that is formulated by my actions and experiences which differ than yours. You don't like that. Pretty plain and simple.

will, fuck the poor that don't help themselves. Does that clarify it better? As for the USA vs. Iceland healthcare system, I don't think that Iceland's healthcare system can scale to cover the amount of Americans. I don't know much about the Icelandic Healthcare system, abaya asked me what I thought of it and I have posted my findings as I find them here. To asnwer your question directly, yes, I feel that the American system is fine in comparison to the Icelandic system. I don't ever expect something for nothing since I don't expect the government to ever take care of me.

Willravel · 11-26-2007, 09:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cynthetiq

will, fuck the poor that don't help themselves. Does that clarify it better?

That reads as "all poor that aren't insured don't help themselves, so fuck them". Unless you have anything at all besides cruel baseless judgments of the poor, that sentiment seems rather useless. Obviously not all poor people without healthcare are in that situation by choice. Most of them CAN'T HELP IT. They work twice as hard as you or I and get half as much, and yet there you are judging them. It'd be fascinating if it weren't so disappointing.

Stop acting as if
1) You're better than people because you were fortunate enough to get opportunities to live comfortably.
2) All poor people are lazy.

Both ideas are inane at best, and deeply ignorant and judgmental at their core.

host · 11-26-2007, 10:14 AM

Where does the negativity towards the poor...the powerless come from?

Is it not much more reasonable to direct the negativity at money churners like the Frists of HCA...the fraudulant billers assaulting medicare and the lax enforcement that permitted it to occur...the healthcare insurance and pharma lobbies who convince our congress to vote in the industry interests instead of ours...

Good god! Resentment of the poor would not even make my list. It is a tribute to those who paid for the campaigns to convince people to focus their vitriol on the least powerful and influential that to any extent it seems to have worked....especially because it seems to make no sense to lash out at those with least power and resources.

ottopilot · 11-26-2007, 10:30 AM

Ustwo · 11-26-2007, 10:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by host

Where does the negativity towards the poor...the powerless come from?

Is it not much more reasonable to direct the negativity at money churners like the Frists of HCA...the fraudulant billers assaulting medicare and the lax enforcement that permitted it to occur...the healthcare insurance and pharma lobbies who convince our congress to vote in the industry interests instead of ours...

Good god! Resentment of the poor would not even make my list. It is a tribute to those who paid for the campaigns to convince people to focus their vitriol on the least powerful and influential that to any extent it seems to have worked....especially because it seems to make no sense to lash out at those with least power and resources.

Interesting how you fail to mention the insane malpractice law suits such as those which HURT WOMEN AND COST THEM THEIR LIVES in the case of John Edwards, but since the litigation lawyers donate almost exclusively to democrats I can see where you think this isn't a problem even though its chasing OB/GYN's out of my democrat controlled state so they can practice without fear of losing everything to a frivolous lawsuit.

You know host if you want to get on that bully pulpit, you need to be consistent in how you approach an issue, otherwise you get to be our Anne Coulter, only without the fuckability factor.

host · 11-26-2007, 10:53 AM

"a state of mind"? What are you talking about?

If we could sometime have an actual discussion here...plain talk without the eyerolling and innuendo....and the vague incoherent attempts to defend the indefensible....

No wonder the "six questions" thread is bringing em all out of the woodwork....it is apparantly the best we are going to see on here.

Willravel · 11-26-2007, 11:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

Interesting how you fail to mention the insane malpractice law suits such as those which HURT WOMEN AND COST THEM THEIR LIVES in the case of John Edwards, but since the litigation lawyers donate almost exclusively to democrats I can see where you think this isn't a problem even though its chasing OB/GYN's out of my democrat controlled state so they can practice without fear of losing everything to a frivolous lawsuit.

You know host if you want to get on that bully pulpit, you need to be consistent in how you approach an issue, otherwise you get to be our Anne Coulter, only without the fuckability factor.

Are you saying you want to have sex with John Edwards? If not, what the hell are you talking about?

ottopilot · 11-26-2007, 11:18 AM

Cynthetiq · 11-26-2007, 07:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by willravel

That reads as "all poor that aren't insured don't help themselves, so fuck them". Unless you have anything at all besides cruel baseless judgments of the poor, that sentiment seems rather useless. Obviously not all poor people without healthcare are in that situation by choice. Most of them CAN'T HELP IT. They work twice as hard as you or I and get half as much, and yet there you are judging them. It'd be fascinating if it weren't so disappointing.

Stop acting as if
1) You're better than people because you were fortunate enough to get opportunities to live comfortably.
2) All poor people are lazy.

Both ideas are inane at best, and deeply ignorant and judgmental at their core.

Who the fuck are you to tell me how to act? Am I telling you to stop acting as a know-it-all? I'm telling you my opinion and like host, you don't like it because it differs vastly from yours.

Some facts of life:

Quote:

You don't get to pick what family you are born in.

You don't get to pick what country you are born in.

Life isn't fair.

Just like that, you could have easily been born in a destitute family of 10 in India. Should someone else be taking care of you because of it?

I never said I was better. I said I got myself to this point through hard work. So did my wife. I don't act as if I'm better. I may be better off then others, but I don't belittle my own accomplishments nor do I feel bad like you do. I earned my seat at the table.

Other people I know have also. Just as other people I know aren't as fortunate, and well, I can't help them nor am I interested in helping them. I'm SELFISH for me and mine. As I get older and I know that I need to take care of my own self during my elder years, the money that I give away to those "less fortunates" are dollars less for me and my own healthcare and needs.

I believe in the ability of the individual. If they aren't getting what they need then they need to do what they need to do in order to be better off, whatever that requirement is. This means making choices, as far as I can tell from the people in the projects down the street, fashionable clothes, rims, latest snazziest cellphone, are all more important than getting themselves ahead.

Ustwo · 11-26-2007, 07:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by willravel

Are you saying you want to have sex with John Edwards? If not, what the hell are you talking about?

Ummm willravel for someone who is politically vocal I would think you would have known the background of the last democrat VP candidate.

Willravel · 11-26-2007, 07:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cynthetiq

Who the fuck are you to tell me how to act?

The moral high ground is traditionally where people are who can help to correct the actions of those who do not have the moral high ground. The golden rule, generally, is considered the highest moral ground.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cynthetiq

Am I telling you to stop acting as a know-it-all? I'm telling you my opinion and like host, you don't like it because it differs vastly from yours.

Some facts of life:

You got #1 and #2 right, but you're way off on #3. I disprove #3 every day. Life isn't fair so long as those capable don't help those who are incapable. As soon as the capable start helping, life becomes more fair. It's very simple but it's something you, as a fellow 'capable', don't seem to get. Being capable to help is a responsibility. If you were shit poor and living on the street I'd help you. If I were shit poor and living on the street, I'd hope someone would help me. It's the golden rule. Do on to others as you would have them do onto you. I can't imagine a more simple, yet important rule.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cynthetiq

Just like that, you could have easily been born in a destitute family of 10 in India. Should someone else be taking care of you because of it?

You're confusing "taking care of with what is actually being said: "helping out". I don't think anyone is asking you to wipe their asses, but to allow your sympathy to guide your actions to help them in some way.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cynthetiq

I never said I was better. I said I got myself to this point through hard work. So did my wife. I don't act as if I'm better. I may be better off then others, but I don't belittle my own accomplishments nor do I feel bad like you do. I earned my seat at the table.

You aren't being asked to feel badly for succeeding. Far from it. It's a simple matter of sympathy and the golden rule. This is about doing the best thing and not just for yourself.

What do you feel when you see a homeless person? From your posts, it seems you don't respect them, and you feel they've earned that place in life. You've made that very clear. Why don't you see someone who may have never gotten the opportunity and despite their best effort have not succeeded? Is it so difficult to understand that not all poor people are responsible for their situation?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

Ummm willravel for someone who is politically vocal I would think you would have known the background of the last democrat VP candidate.

My attempts at humor go unnoticed. I'm well aware of Edwards' past. I wasn't sure what it had to do with the thread, so I attempted to diffuse the situation with a homosexual innuendo. Assuming Edwards has a y chromosome.

Cynthetiq · 11-26-2007, 08:06 PM

will, I'm not responsible for anyone else but myself and my own circle. You may decide to include those unfortunates and homeless in your circle. I don't.

Life is fair? Really? You got a heart operation and others who are in line for heart transplants that don't get them. That's fair? Oh because there's an organization that tries to make it more equitable that makes it more fair? Maybe in your world, not in mine. Life is still not fair.

Just because you believe in the golden rule doesn't mean that someone will give it to you. That fact alone is the problem with this discussion, you feel entitled to it if you were shit poor. You feel entitled to that help because you'd do it for someone else. No, I don't subscribe to that, I help myself, and will continue to do so. I don't care for someone else's help, in fact most of the time, someone else's help isn't for my benefit but for their own in some manner because like you said, it's their responsibility.

Being able to take care of myself FIRST before I help others is more important. Otherwise when travelling shouldn't the parent put that mask on the child first? No it's because if I don't take care of myself first, I would never be able to take care of another human being. After myself is my family and my friends, they unfortunately for the rest of the world take up a good chunk of the benevolence I have. Anything left over from that goes to the rest of the world.

taking care and helping out? This is healthcare thread remember? Nurses wipe asses... so that's what we are talking about.

It's pretty simple. Again, you decide and judge your ownself and how you live in it. I can sleep at night and look myself in the mirror. If you don't do all that you can, maybe you can't. I know that I can.

Willravel · 11-26-2007, 08:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cynthetiq

Life is fair? Really? You got a heart operation and others who are in line for heart transplants that don't get them. That's fair? Oh because there's an organization that tries to make it more equitable that makes it more fair? Maybe in your world, not in mine. Life is still not fair.

I got a plastic tube, not a heart. It's made out of dacron, the same compound used to make plastic coke bottles. It was medical grade, mind you, but it's very easy to manufacture and there wouldn't be a line to get it any more then there'd be a line to get plastic shopping bags. The procedure? I had a good doctor. There are lots of good doctors. Mine happened to be in SFSU when I needed the coarctation repair. He happened to be a cardiologist of some note, but the surgery isn't brain surgery. I was told that most hospitals have someone who could have done it. I was in and out in 2 weeks, and that's at age 5.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cynthetiq

Just because you believe in the golden rule doesn't mean that someone will give it to you.

You're right. Not everyone has morals. You're bright and well informed, though, which usually is accompanied by an integration of sympathy and empathy which translates into the golden rule.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cynthetiq

That fact alone is the problem with this discussion, you feel entitled to it if you were shit poor.

This is a discussion about the haves, not the have nots. It's not about entitlement at all. It's about responsibility as a member of the human race.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cynthetiq

You feel entitled to that help because you'd do it for someone else. No, I don't subscribe to that, I help myself, and will continue to do so. I don't care for someone else's help, in fact most of the time, someone else's help isn't for my benefit but for their own in some manner because like you said, it's their responsibility.

You do help yourself. I'm not against that. You also help others, because it's unselfish.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cynthetiq

Being able to take care of myself FIRST before I help others is more important. Otherwise when travelling shouldn't the parent put that mask on the child first? No it's because if I don't take care of myself first, I would never be able to take care of another human being. After myself is my family and my friends, they unfortunately for the rest of the world take up a good chunk of the benevolence I have. Anything left over from that goes to the rest of the world.

And that's how it works.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cynthetiq

taking care and helping out? This is healthcare thread remember? Nurses wipe asses... so that's what we are talking about.

We're talking about your paranoia that you think people are trying to steal from you to pay for the poor which you apparently took as some kind of attack.

Cynthetiq · 11-26-2007, 08:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by willravel

I got a plastic tube, not a heart. It's made out of dacron, the same compound used to make plastic coke bottles. It was medical grade, mind you, but it's very easy to manufacture and there wouldn't be a line to get it any more then there'd be a line to get plastic shopping bags. The procedure? I had a good doctor. There are lots of good doctors. Mine happened to be in SFSU when I needed the coarctation repair. He happened to be a cardiologist of some note, but the surgery isn't brain surgery. I was told that most hospitals have someone who could have done it. I was in and out in 2 weeks, and that's at age 5.

You're right. Not everyone has morals. You're bright and well informed, though, which usually is accompanied by an integration of sympathy and empathy which translates into the golden rule.

This is a discussion about the haves, not the have nots. It's not about entitlement at all. It's about responsibility as a member of the human race.

You do help yourself. I'm not against that. You also help others, because it's unselfish.

And that's how it works.

We're talking about your paranoia that you think people are trying to steal from you to pay for the poor which you apparently took as some kind of attack.

Paranoia??? I'm not paranoid about it, people are discussing actually spending more of my earnings in some capacity thus reducing my own stocks for my own purposes.

I feel I pay plenty of taxes. I pay more taxes than some people make as a year salary. You and host are suggesting that I pay more for more social services. I'm not interested in giving it up without a fight.

Sorry, the golden rule is a nice thing to believe in, but I still believe strongly that when I need the help that it won't be there for me because of this belief I prepare for my own needs and help myself. You would rather not bother to help yourself thinking that someone will be there to help you. That's great, I'm happy for you. I don't think that way and I'm not interested in thinking that way. I'm happy to give a hand out if someone needs it, but what we are discussing here isn't a once or twice shot, but actually universal healthcare, which is a LIFETIME.

robot_parade · 11-26-2007, 10:06 PM

Personally, I think that 'society' (aka, the government, aka the Man) should provide:

o food.
o housing.
o education.
o basic healthcare.

To anyone who is unwilling or unable to provide it to themselves. Why? Because I think it makes economic sense. If a person doesn't have one of those things, it becomes an emergency. Whether it's some poor homeless guy freezing to death, and gets taken to the emergency room, or some kid who doesn't get decent education, emergency situations are more expensive by definition. If the govmint provides for these basic services in a routine, structured way, we'll all be a lot better off. Those of us who can afford better will pay more for better than the bare minimum that the government provides. It would be crazy for the government to provide 'elective' services. The free market still rules because everyone wants to do better than just survive.

host · 11-26-2007, 11:47 PM

I've been watching all of this since I was in the seventh grade. It is all interconnected. I read, over on the "six questions" thread, how many of you <h2>do not</h2>

Quote:

...believe that part of the role of taxation is to redistribute resources more equally.....

You know who you are....the ones most likely not even to read what is in this post:

Quote:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/...312004,00.html
Los Angeles Dispatch
Civil wrongs

Decades after the Watts riots, life for the people of South Central Los Angeles is as tough as ever - and now they are losing their only good medical facility, reports Dan Glaister

Friday September 24, 2004
Guardian Unlimited

Next year sees the 40th anniversary of the Watts riots - or rebellion, depending on your politics. Among the hottest points of the civil rights struggles of the 1960s, the riots were condemned by the white establishment at the time as one of the largest outbreaks of mass looting ever seen, involving an estimated 50,000 people.

Almost 40,000 police and national guard officers confronted the rebels/rioters as the authorities reacted belatedly and heavy handedly. Of the 34 people who died during the six days of unrest, 28 were African-American.

After the event, despite the tepid recommendations of the official McCone commission, orthodoxy swung behind the more liberal interpretation of events: the Watts riots had been a "rebellion of rising expectations" fuelled by poverty, racial injustice, a lack of services and the awareness that Watts, Willowbrook and Compton, predominantly African-American areas of Los Angeles that were later renamed South Central, were being left behind.

The McCone commission, while largely dismissed as a whitewash, did produce one legacy, a legacy that has returned Watts and the events of almost 40 years ago to the news this week.

Three years after the riots and just six days after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr, work began on the construction of what came to be called the King/Drew medical centre, a response to the catastrophic lack of services for the local community. The 500-bed hospital, serving 1.5 million people, opened in March 1972.

Since then the proud hopes of the King/Drew medical centre have given way to less edifying stories of mismanagement, corruption, and inefficiency.

Yet a beacon shone out of the rubble of the hospital's original aims. The pride of the medical centre was its trauma unit. The unit, additional to the emergency room, specialised in the treatment of violent injuries such as gunshot wounds, stabbings and car accidents. It treated 2,150 patients last year and was the busiest and best trauma unit in the country.

However, at a press conference last week hospital officials announced that the trauma centre was to be shut down as part of an attempt to rationalise the chaotic state of the institution and prevent the closure of the entire facility....

A teaching hospital with 537 beds, reduced to 233 beds, then to 42 beds, and three months ago...to zero beds...and an elimination of:

Quote:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_...forces_closure
....If federal funding ends, among other problems, MLK-Harbor would permanently lose 250 medical resident slots, 15% of the 1,700 in Los Angeles County.[6]....

Hospital killed by racial/economic segregation driven dysfunction:

Quote:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_...forces_closure

Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital (MLK-Harbor), formerly known as Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center (King/Drew), is a public hospital in Willowbrook, an unincorporated section of Los Angeles County, California, north of the city of Compton and south of the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles.

MLK-Harbor is operated by the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services (DHS) and has 48 beds. In recent years, widely publicized problems related to incompetence and mismanagement caused the hospital to undergo a radical overhaul: <h3>bringing the number of beds down to 42 from 233.[1]</h3> Since 2004, 260 hospital staffers, including 41 doctors, had been fired or had resigned as a result of disciplinary proceedings. It currently has 1,400 employees. To alleviate the impact on the community of the large loss of capacity, The Los Angeles County Medical Alert Center (MAC) contracts ambulances take approximately 250 patients per month to other local hospitals. [1]

<h3>At the turn of the 21st century and before its crisis, MLK-Harbor (then MLK/Drew) had 537 beds</h3>, was the teaching hospital of the adjacent Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science, and spread over a 38.5-acre site that includes a dormitory for medical residents; with 2,238 full-time employees, and in 2004 treated 11,000 inpatients and 167,000 outpatients. Located near areas of high crime, the hospital has a very active trauma unit. <h3>In 2003, it handled 2,150 gunshot wounds and other life-threatening injuries.....</h3>

....Federal funding termination forces closure

On August 10, 2007, after the hospital failed a comprehensive review by the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, federal officials decided to revoke $200 million in funding.[21] Inspectors concluded that there was no functioning quality improvement plan at the hospital.[22] Los Angeles County health director Dr. Bruce Chernof moved quickly to notify the county Board of Supervisors of his decision to begin shutting down the facility. The emergency room was closed by 7 p.m. that day and ambulances were diverted to other area hospitals, the rest of the hospital was closed by August 27, 2007.[21] Some of King-Harbor's 1 600 employees would likely be reassigned to jobs at other county facilities.[21]

On August 13, at a specially convened board meeting, LA County supervisors voted unanimously to shut inpatient services and promised to pay up to $16.3 million to nearby private hospitals and doctors bracing for a deluge of patients from the closed facility.[22] They also released the 124-page report by federal inspectors that detailed dozens of errors and failures by the hospital during their final make-or-break review; the citations included improperly sterilized medical equipment, nurses who could not rapidly find medication, a nurse who did not know how to mix medication in an emergency, and a patient who complained of severe chest pain but was not given pain medication for 4.5 hours.[22]

Hospital imperiled by racial/economic segregation driven dysfunction:

Quote:

http://www.ajc.com/shared-gen/conten...cxntlid=inform
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&q=...-8&sa=N&tab=wn

Atlanta Hospital in Grave Condition
By ERRIN HAINES
Associated Press Writer

ATLANTA — For generations, Grady Memorial Hospital has treated the poorest of the poor, victims of stabbings and shootings, and motorists grievously injured in Atlanta's murderous rush-hour traffic.

Now, Grady itself is in grave condition.

Staggering under a deficit projected at $55 million, the city's only public hospital could close at the end of the year, leaving Atlanta without a major trauma center and foisting thousands of poor people onto emergency rooms at other hospitals for their routine medical care.

"I don't have the words to describe the onslaught of health care needs that will hit the region if Grady were to close," said Dr. Katherine Heilpern, chief of emergency medicine at the Emory University medical school, which uses Grady as a teaching hospital and supplies many of its physicians. "This is a huge deal. We may literally have people's lives at stake if the Grady Health System fails and spirals down into financial insolvency."

Grady Memorial Hospital's board of trustees on Monday unanimously agreed to establish a nonprofit governing board intended to attract $300 million in immediate and long-term funding from the city's business, philanthropic and government communities as well as from the state.

Dozens of activists, doctors, clergy members, lawmakers and citizens packed an auditorium across from Grady and demanded to be heard before the board voted.

"Y'all ought to be ready to stay here all night," said state Sen. Vincent Fort, who was involved in a scuffle with hospital security guards shortly before the meeting. "The fight ain't over. If some of us have to go to jail, so be it."

Founded in 1892, Grady has struggled financially for years. But now it has reached a crisis because of rising health care costs, dwindling government aid, a lack of paying customers and years of neglect — a situation not uncommon among urban hospitals like Grady that primarily serve the needy.

In addition to losing money on patient care, Grady needs an estimated $300 million to repair and modernize its buildings and acquire new equipment such as CT scanners and an up-to-date computer system.

The loss of Grady would be unconscionable to many political and civic leaders in this booming metropolitan area of 5 million people. The overwhelming majority of the 900,000 patients treated at Grady each year are poor and black, and the institution is considered a vital part of Atlanta's black community.

But some fear that after the switch to a nonprofit governing board the hospital will be less committed to the poor, and that the board will go from mostly black to mostly white. Grady has been run by a governing board whose members are appointed by politicians in Fulton and Dekalb counties.

Fort, a black Democrat from Atlanta, said earlier that Grady is "absolutely critical" to the city's black poor. And he charged that Atlanta's "white power structure" — including the business leaders and politicians who are pushing for the nonprofit board — is trying to orchestrate a takeover.

"To the extent that you have African American doctors, nurses and other professionals operating a big-city hospital and taking care of black people, that is a source of pride in the black community," Fort said. "So there is a great deal of skepticism that the Chamber of Commerce is interested in Grady. There are some of us who believe that is a self-interest."

<h2>With 953 beds and 5,000 employees, Grady is an anchor of Atlanta's downtown and accepts all patients, without regard to their ability to pay.

Only 7 percent of Grady's patients have private insurance, and 75 percent are on Medicaid. Because they lack insurance and have no family doctor, many go to Grady's emergency room even when they don't have an emergency. The ER ends up treating sore throats and other ordinary aches and pains.</h2>

Besides Atlanta's poor, Grady's patients include tourists passing through on their way south to Walt Disney World and victims of auto accidents, since Grady is the only hospital in a 100-mile radius of Atlanta that has a Level 1 trauma center, capable of treating the most serious injuries. (A popular bumper sticker seen on cars along Atlanta-area highways reads: "If I'm in a car crash, take me to Grady.")...

...."Quite frankly, that would've overwhelmed any other system in the city," Heilpern said. "That was sort of all in a day's work for us."

<h3>Grady also has the state's only poison control center, obstetrics intensive care unit and comprehensive sickle cell center. And the city's emergency command center for handling plane crashes and terrorist attacks is based at Grady.</h3>

If Grady were to close, poor people would probably swamp other hospitals' ERs with everything from ordinary colds to genuine medical emergencies.

"It will be a sad day for Atlanta if Grady closes. If people realized the benefits Grady provides, closure would not be on the table," said Dr. Marsha Regenstein, a health policy professor at George Washington University in the nation's capital.

Doctors, activists, lawmakers, business leaders and the hospital leadership are scrambling to find a fix for Grady, which gets most of its funding from Medicare, Medicaid and Fulton and Dekalb counties.

In July, a 17-member task force of business leaders recommended the shift to a nonprofit board. Some of Atlanta's major corporations have said they would contribute to Grady if it were run by a nonprofit board because it would manage the hospital more efficiently.....

Quote:

http://www.pewtrusts.org/our_work.aspx?category=428
<h3>Economic Mobility of Black and White Families</h3>

Nov 13, 2007

The dream that one can rise up from humble beginnings and achieve a comfortable middle-class living, if not attain great wealth, transcends racial lines. But is this a reality for black and white families alike?

This report, by Julia Isaacs of The Brookings Institution, reviews overall income trends based on Census Bureau data and provides an intergenerational analysis based on a longitudinal data set that allows a direct match of the family income of parents in the late 1960s to their children’s family income in the late 1990s to early 2000s.

In brief, trends show that median family incomes have risen for both black and white families, but less so for black families. Moreover, the intergenerational analysis reveals a significant difference in the extent to which parents are able to pass their economic advantages onto their children. Whereas children of white middle-income parents tend to exceed their parents in income, a majority of black children of middle-income parents fall below their parents in income and economic status. These findings are provided in more detail below....

Quote:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/20/na...=1&oref=slogin
Plight Deepens for Black Men, Studies Warn
Published: March 20, 2006

BALTIMORE — Black men in the United States face a far more dire situation than is portrayed by common employment and education statistics, a flurry of new scholarly studies warn, and it has worsened in recent years even as an economic boom and a welfare overhaul have brought gains to black women and other groups.....

...Although the problems afflicting poor black men have been known for decades, the new data paint a more extensive and sobering picture of the challenges they face.

"There's something very different happening with young black men, and it's something we can no longer ignore," said Ronald B. Mincy, professor of social work at Columbia University and editor of "Black Males Left Behind" (Urban Institute Press, 2006).

"Over the last two decades, the economy did great," Mr. Mincy said, "and low-skilled women, helped by public policy, latched onto it. But young black men were falling farther back."

Many of the new studies go beyond the traditional approaches to looking at the plight of black men, especially when it comes to determining the scope of joblessness. For example, official unemployment rates can be misleading because they do not include those not seeking work or incarcerated.

"If you look at the numbers, the 1990's was a bad decade for young black men, even though it had the best labor market in 30 years," said Harry J. Holzer, an economist at Georgetown University and co-author, with Peter Edelman and Paul Offner, of "Reconnecting Disadvantaged Young Men" (Urban Institute Press, 2006).

In response to the worsening situation for young black men, a growing number of programs are placing as much importance on teaching life skills — like parenting, conflict resolution and character building — as they are on teaching job skills.

These were among the recent findings:

¶The share of young black men without jobs has climbed relentlessly, with only a slight pause during the economic peak of the late 1990's. In 2000, 65 percent of black male high school dropouts in their 20's were jobless — that is, unable to find work, not seeking it or incarcerated. By 2004, the share had grown to 72 percent, compared with 34 percent of white and 19 percent of Hispanic dropouts. Even when high school graduates were included, half of black men in their 20's were jobless in 2004, up from 46 percent in 2000.

¶Incarceration rates climbed in the 1990's and reached historic highs in the past few years. In 1995, 16 percent of black men in their 20's who did not attend college were in jail or prison; by 2004, 21 percent were incarcerated. By their mid-30's, 6 in 10 black men who had dropped out of school had spent time in prison.

¶In the inner cities, more than half of all black men do not finish high school.

None of the litany of problems that young black men face was news to a group of men from the airless neighborhoods of Baltimore who recently described their experiences.....

The POTUS and former Texas governor, left this legacy when he left Texas, for Washington:

Quote:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...oryId=15822844

All Things Considered, October 31, 2007 · The Texas juvenile corrections system is in a deep crisis.
Nation
Crisis-Prone Texas Juvenile Facilities Look to Reform

by Jason Beaubien

Listen Now [4 min 45 sec] add to playlist

This is the second report in a two-part series.

.....Texas Seeking Alternatives

For those residents who can't maintain control, there is an isolation area called the Security Unit where as many as 30 people are kept in isolation cells. All the cells are occupied. In one cell, a 13-year-old near the door screams profanities and bangs on his cell walls. Assistant Superintendent Gonzales says teens can be held in this isolation unit — at times just until they calm down — or for as long as 90 days.

<h3>By comparison, in Missouri, there are only nine isolation cells in the entire state for a system serving 1,000 youth offenders. Evins, along with the rest of the facilities run by the Texas Youth Commission, is attempting to change and to become a bit more like Missouri, where the focus is on small, treatment-orientated group homes.</h3>

Missouri has reaped the benefits of an alternative system. Tim Decker, the director of the Missouri Division of Youth Services, says Missouri's recidivism rate is less than 10 percent. According to the Texas Youth Commission report, the recidivism rate in Texas tops 50 percent.

Evins is shutting down one of its large dorms and building individual cells. It also offers education and counseling for its residents, but in this isolated corner of the state, it's often difficult to attract and keep professional staff. Will Harrell, who earlier this year was appointed as the ombudsman for the Texas Youth Commission, credits Missouri with offering a model for reform, <h2>but he says whatever changes are adopted in Texas will be unique to the state and will take time.</h2>

"It's a transition and a difficult one at that," Harrell says, "but everyone needs to understand that <h3>it took many years to get to the crisis that imploded the agency earlier this year, and it's going to take a while to stabilize the agency and move forward.".....</h3>

Read the last few sentences in the preceding quote box; these are kids, they don't "have time"....while Texas juvie takes fucking forever to emulate what is in place, and known to work well in Missouri.

I've been aware of all of this for more than forty years. Not only do we have to solve these problems if we are going to have vibrant city centers with performing arts, orchestras, and advanced teaching and research medical centers, expecially with $5.00 gas "a'comin" to slow suburban sprawl, but the rest of us have to drag some of you along, "kickin and screamin", as you vote to sabotage the relief that can only come from government driven and managed solutions. Piecemeal doesn't work, turning whole cities into ghettos entered only to receive trauma care in dire emergencies, isn't working, and private health insurance sure as hell is not working.

Why are we torturing juvenile detainees in Texas, and why are we incarcerating so many blacks not convicted of violent crimes?

You can keep voting for Bush, for Paul, and you can pay much more later if the problems are not dealt with now. The choice is living in gated communities with increasingly heavy security needed when you want to leave your "GREEN ZONED" world.

Nothing will change while you refuse to even see the problems, then, accept that they are your problems, and you look around to see who is able to pay to fix them, besides you.
Trauma medicine is not state of the art because of what doctors have learned at the Mayo clinic in Rochester, Minn...it is because of the experience gained in the practice of emergency medicine at the teaching hospitals in the centers of old, run down, American cities.

Either the wealthiest pay a disproportionate share to help bring everyone else up to a higher quality of life with government managed and subsidized, "single payer" healthcare, as in the rest of the indusrtialized and post industrialized world, or the entropy currently weighing on American society will pull everyone down with it.

Let's stop talking BS like, "it's the tort lawyers and their malpractice lawsuits". It isn't coherent, IMO, to claim that private malpractice insurance for doctors is broken, so government must pass laws to stop those who cannot afford upfront legal fees from suing on a contingency basis, while simultaneously claiming that private medical insurance is a hunky dory status quo solution for the American healthcare crisis. It is the opposite....the lawsuits are driven by the high cost of longterm care for people who are rendered uninsurable after botched medical care that leaves them with expensive to treat, "pre-existing conditions" that are excluded from future medical insurance coverage.

I'm not a medical practitioner, but even I'm sharp enough to evaluate how ludicrous the idea that medical malpractice lawsuits are a significant cause of "the problem", and not merely another symptom of a broken system that can only be mitigated by a single payer solution. <h3>It is obvious that there is no way to keep "have nots" in the current private payer system, from using emergency and trauma centers as clinics of last resort, without reform that provides them equal and routine access to neighborhood clinical and preventive medical treatment.</h3>

Cynthetiq · 11-27-2007, 05:17 AM

host, WTF does that juvie system have to do with Universal Healthcare?

Oh right you said it's all interconnected...

sure, I'll agree to that to a point, but at some point in order to have a discussion there's a reasonable line to stop at. Otherwise, well, we could be discussing nuclear energy since that's connected somewhere too.

circle of life and all that...

Cynthetiq · 11-30-2007, 08:16 AM

Quote:

11/30/2007 | 11:19
Millions Cut in Funding for National Hospital
LINK

Department directors at the National Hospital in Iceland recently received a letter from Vilhjálmur Egilsson, head of a committee on hospital issues, explaining that funding to the hospital would be cut by ISK 500 to 700 million (USD 8 to 11 million, EUR 5 to 8 million) next year.

“No one is saying it will be easy, but no one is saying it will be impossible either. This is exactly the same thing everyone else involved in management has to deal with,” Egilsson told Fréttabladid.

The state’s total contribution to the National Hospital amounts to ISK 33 billion (USD 534 million, EUR 363 million), but last year the hospital was operated with a considerable deficit and therefore an additional funding of ISK 1,800 million (USD 29 million, EUR 20 million) was required. As a result, the hospital will have less money next year.

“People are always looking for ways to operate more efficiently,” Egilsson said, adding he does not believe the cut in funding will result in a cut in services offered at the hospital. He explained the cut also involves shifting projects away from the National Hospital to other health institutions.

Healthcare centers in Akranes, Selfoss, Hafnarfjördur and Reykjanesbaer, none more than an hour away from Reykjavík, will thus receive additional financial support of ISK 430 million (USD 7 million, EUR 5 million) so they can take on added projects.

Magnús Pétursson, Director of the National Hospital, told Fréttabladid it is clear that the cut will have an impact on the hospital’s operations.

Pétursson said the management will stay inside the financial frame established by the Althingi parliament but it has not been decided in which departments cuts will be made.

So how do you cut costs without cutting benefits? Something has to give somewhere. To reiterate for will, I don't think that the system is better here in the US vs. Iceland, and since Iceland is a socialized healthcare system, and was voted #1 place to live by the UN this week, I see even more interest in looking closer at a small socialized system that supports only 300,000 people and see that it still is expensive.

host · 11-30-2007, 10:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cynthetiq

So how do you cut costs without cutting benefits? Something has to give somewhere. To reiterate for will, I don't think that the system is better here in the US vs. Iceland, and since Iceland is a socialized healthcare system, and was voted #1 place to live by the UN this week, I see even more interest in looking closer at a small socialized system that supports only 300,000 people and see that it still is expensive.

I don't know how much moiney beyond the amounts described in your article are spent by the gov of Iceland on annual healthcare, but the amonts mentioned are well under $600 million, US, or less than $2000 per resident.

They are hampered by a lack of an economy of scale, and most medical supplies and equipment are likely imported. In contrast, if you've looked at the furnishings and equipment in the US medical clinics and hospitals, surprisingly, it is almost all US made, as well as the drugs. Even with that advantage, medical treatment is one of the most dramatically rising services in the US.

They also have a corporatist conservative PM who saw some of his center-right coalition voted out of office last spring.

Isn't it in his interest to paint the state medical care operations and benefit as something that is responsible for it's own increased spending because it is not as efficient as it could be, and therefore, his government, with increased industrialization facing opposition, cannot fully fund medical care without unrestricted growth?

Quote:

http://www.reuters.com/article/world...BrandChannel=0

http://www.reuters.com/article/world...BrandChannel=0

......The Independence-Progressive coalition had wanted aluminum giants such as Alcoa to keep building smelters powered by Iceland's abundant geothermal and hydroelectric resources, a trend that has driven rapid economic growth in recent years.

But the Social Democrats and Left Greens called for a pause until the environmental and economic impact of the latest projects became clear.

A growing number of Icelanders have expressed concern about dams on the country's rivers to power the smelters and record-high borrowing costs in a fast-growing economy.

Gisladottir said after her meeting with Haarde that they had not discussed detailed policies or the sharing of ministries.

Independence walked away from Saturday's vote with 25 seats, a gain of three, while the Progressives kept just seven of 12.

This left the government with the 32 seats needed for a majority in the 63-seat parliament but Sigurdsson, who lost his own seat, suggested on Sunday he would heed voters and leave.

Gisladottir, who wants Iceland to join the European Union, wants the poorest to share in the country's prosperity.

Haarde, a proponent of corporate tax cuts and a staunch opponent of EU membership, has said the most important goal for Iceland is to spur economic growth.

Ustwo · 01-27-2008, 09:46 PM

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.../27/nhs127.xml.

Just food for thought.

Willravel · 01-27-2008, 09:58 PM

In the article they're offering cash to fat people who lose weight. That's kinda brilliant.

BTW, I just checked the Bill of Rights and it didn't say anything about cigarettes or donuts. Or do you think the free market will stop people from smoking and getting fat?

ASU2003 · 01-27-2008, 11:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by willravel

In the article they're offering cash to fat people who lose weight. That's kinda brilliant.

I don't think it is brilliant.

Healthy, inshape people should get money back from their healthcare taxes each year. That will be an incentive to stay healthy.

Actually, they could penalize overweight people with more taxes and then give it back to them if they kept the weight off.

pr0f3n · 01-28-2008, 04:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ASU2003

Actually, they could penalize overweight people with more taxes and then give it back to them if they kept the weight off.

A regressive tax on vice items including fast food and transfat items, for example, would be a more reasonable approach. It would accomplish what you're proposing more directly plus help by pricing those things out of the lifestyles of the poor.

Ustwo · 01-28-2008, 05:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pr0f3n

A regressive tax on vice items including fast food and transfat items, for example, would be a more reasonable approach. It would accomplish what you're proposing more directly plus help by pricing those things out of the lifestyles of the poor.

This says so much about Liberalism as a philosophy.

pr0f3n · 01-28-2008, 05:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

This says so much about Liberalism as a philosophy.

It says a lot about Goldberg that Jon Stewart could dismantle his drivel.

About what in my statement you disagree?

Ustwo · 01-28-2008, 07:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pr0f3n

It says a lot about Goldberg that Jon Stewart could dismantle his drivel.

About what in my statement you disagree?

You have decided what the proper choices in diet is for people assuming they can not make the right ones.

You think it should be enforced by forcing everyone to pay far more for such food items via a tax which makes them unable to buy them. It doesn't matter if you are a healthy person who wants a bag of chips or someone with a problem. EVERYONE has to pay extra so you can price it out of the poors range.

You would also therefore be regulating industry to do so.

They called it national socialism for a reason

dc_dux · 01-28-2008, 07:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pr0f3n

A regressive tax on vice items including fast food and transfat items, for example, would be a more reasonable approach. It would accomplish what you're proposing more directly plus help by pricing those things out of the lifestyles of the poor.

pr0f3n...I thnk the conservative free market approach to cost containment is for heatlh insurers to provide bonues to their executives who can drop the most customers from coverage:

Quote:

Health insurer tied bonuses to dropping sick policyholders

One of the state's largest health insurers set goals and paid bonuses based in part on how many individual policyholders were dropped and how much money was saved.

Woodland Hills-based Health Net Inc. avoided paying $35.5 million in medical expenses by rescinding about 1,600 policies between 2000 and 2006. During that period, it paid its senior analyst in charge of cancellations more than $20,000 in bonuses based in part on her meeting or exceeding annual targets for revoking policies, documents disclosed Thursday showed.

The revelation that the health plan had cancellation goals and bonuses comes amid a storm of controversy over the industry-wide but long-hidden practice of rescinding coverage after expensive medical treatments have been authorized.

These cancellations have been the recent focus of intense scrutiny by lawmakers, state regulators and consumer advocates. Although these "rescissions" are only a small portion of the companies' overall business, they typically leave sick patients with crushing medical bills and no way to obtain needed treatment.

*snip*

Insurers maintain that cancellations are necessary to root out fraud and keep premiums affordable. Individual coverage is issued to only the healthiest applicants, who must disclose preexisting conditions.

full article: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-f...la-home-center

Its called "compassionate conservatism"

pr0f3n · 01-28-2008, 09:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

You have decided what the proper choices in diet is for people assuming they can not make the right ones.

You think it should be enforced by forcing everyone to pay far more for such food items via a tax which makes them unable to buy them. It doesn't matter if you are a healthy person who wants a bag of chips or someone with a problem. EVERYONE has to pay extra so you can price it out of the poors range.

You would also therefore be regulating industry to do so.

They called it national socialism for a reason

There are proper dietary choices for people, there's quite a bit of research on the subject, and our educational system and lack of UHC has hobbled people's abilities to make informed choices in self-care. Those problems need to be addressed, but there's further support for the levy.

A pigovian tax certainly isn't a revolutionary or especially socialist idea, and the fact that it also promotes moderation is a side benefit. EVERYONE has to pay for the effects of obesity anyway, through higher health care costs and lost productivity, but this particular extra cost is going directly to combat those health and economic impacts.

We already regulate the food industry.

As for Goldberg's Godwin Delusion, I'm not derailing this thread any further with regard to hack punditry.

11-26-2007, 09:43 AM	#293 (permalink)
Cynthetiq Tilted Cat Head Administrator Location: Manhattan, NY	Host, I can see myself. I have an opinion that is formulated by my actions and experiences which differ than yours. You don't like that. Pretty plain and simple. will, fuck the poor that don't help themselves. Does that clarify it better? As for the USA vs. Iceland healthcare system, I don't think that Iceland's healthcare system can scale to cover the amount of Americans. I don't know much about the Icelandic Healthcare system, abaya asked me what I thought of it and I have posted my findings as I find them here. To asnwer your question directly, yes, I feel that the American system is fine in comparison to the Icelandic system. I don't ever expect something for nothing since I don't expect the government to ever take care of me. __________________ I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not. What's the best nation in the world? DO-NATION!

11-26-2007, 10:14 AM	#295 (permalink)
host Banned	....hmmm Where does the negativity towards the poor...the powerless come from? Is it not much more reasonable to direct the negativity at money churners like the Frists of HCA...the fraudulant billers assaulting medicare and the lax enforcement that permitted it to occur...the healthcare insurance and pharma lobbies who convince our congress to vote in the industry interests instead of ours... Good god! Resentment of the poor would not even make my list. It is a tribute to those who paid for the campaigns to convince people to focus their vitriol on the least powerful and influential that to any extent it seems to have worked....especially because it seems to make no sense to lash out at those with least power and resources.

11-26-2007, 10:30 AM	#296 (permalink)
ottopilot let me be clear Location: Waddy Peytona	edit Last edited by ottopilot; 12-26-2007 at 08:10 PM..

11-26-2007, 11:18 AM	#300 (permalink)
ottopilot let me be clear Location: Waddy Peytona	edit Last edited by ottopilot; 12-26-2007 at 08:09 PM..

11-26-2007, 08:06 PM	#304 (permalink)
Cynthetiq Tilted Cat Head Administrator Location: Manhattan, NY	will, I'm not responsible for anyone else but myself and my own circle. You may decide to include those unfortunates and homeless in your circle. I don't. Life is fair? Really? You got a heart operation and others who are in line for heart transplants that don't get them. That's fair? Oh because there's an organization that tries to make it more equitable that makes it more fair? Maybe in your world, not in mine. Life is still not fair. Just because you believe in the golden rule doesn't mean that someone will give it to you. That fact alone is the problem with this discussion, you feel entitled to it if you were shit poor. You feel entitled to that help because you'd do it for someone else. No, I don't subscribe to that, I help myself, and will continue to do so. I don't care for someone else's help, in fact most of the time, someone else's help isn't for my benefit but for their own in some manner because like you said, it's their responsibility. Being able to take care of myself FIRST before I help others is more important. Otherwise when travelling shouldn't the parent put that mask on the child first? No it's because if I don't take care of myself first, I would never be able to take care of another human being. After myself is my family and my friends, they unfortunately for the rest of the world take up a good chunk of the benevolence I have. Anything left over from that goes to the rest of the world. taking care and helping out? This is healthcare thread remember? Nurses wipe asses... so that's what we are talking about. It's pretty simple. Again, you decide and judge your ownself and how you live in it. I can sleep at night and look myself in the mirror. If you don't do all that you can, maybe you can't. I know that I can. __________________ I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not. What's the best nation in the world? DO-NATION!

11-26-2007, 10:53 AM	#298 (permalink)
host Banned	"a state of mind"? What are you talking about? If we could sometime have an actual discussion here...plain talk without the eyerolling and innuendo....and the vague incoherent attempts to defend the indefensible.... No wonder the "six questions" thread is bringing em all out of the woodwork....it is apparantly the best we are going to see on here.

11-26-2007, 10:06 PM	#307 (permalink)
robot_parade Junkie Location: San Antonio, TX	Personally, I think that 'society' (aka, the government, aka the Man) should provide: o food. o housing. o education. o basic healthcare. To anyone who is unwilling or unable to provide it to themselves. Why? Because I think it makes economic sense. If a person doesn't have one of those things, it becomes an emergency. Whether it's some poor homeless guy freezing to death, and gets taken to the emergency room, or some kid who doesn't get decent education, emergency situations are more expensive by definition. If the govmint provides for these basic services in a routine, structured way, we'll all be a lot better off. Those of us who can afford better will pay more for better than the bare minimum that the government provides. It would be crazy for the government to provide 'elective' services. The free market still rules because everyone wants to do better than just survive.

11-27-2007, 05:17 AM	#309 (permalink)
Cynthetiq Tilted Cat Head Administrator Location: Manhattan, NY	host, WTF does that juvie system have to do with Universal Healthcare? Oh right you said it's all interconnected... sure, I'll agree to that to a point, but at some point in order to have a discussion there's a reasonable line to stop at. Otherwise, well, we could be discussing nuclear energy since that's connected somewhere too. circle of life and all that... __________________ I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not. What's the best nation in the world? DO-NATION!

01-27-2008, 09:46 PM	#312 (permalink)
Ustwo Pissing in the cornflakes	http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.../27/nhs127.xml. Just food for thought. __________________ Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

01-27-2008, 09:58 PM	#313 (permalink)
Willravel ... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.	In the article they're offering cash to fat people who lose weight. That's kinda brilliant. BTW, I just checked the Bill of Rights and it didn't say anything about cigarettes or donuts. Or do you think the free market will stop people from smoking and getting fat?