According to the Associated Press as cited in the Post article, "Cuba has made recent advancements in biotechnology and exports its treatments to 40 countries around the world, raking in an estimated $100 million a year. ... In 2004, the U.S. government granted an exception to its economic embargo against Cuba and allowed a California drug company to test three cancer vaccines developed in Havana."
Actually, I posted a link to that website on one of these "Sicko" threads and the site is alive and well. The wife has a letter to MM posted there. Even though she thanked him, she doesn't agree with him. And her husband doesn't either and it hasn't stopped him from posting just that.
I spent some time on the url you posted and read about MM's contribution of $12 grand to help the wife of the owner of the moorewatch site.
The owner - I believe his name is Jim - wrote further down on the website that many, many people (some with some relative fame)sent money to help the couple and only MM made it known that he donated money.
It would be a given that care would be restricted. However, I would still think that in America if you could afford it, you would get it. Same as now.
As a middle class insured person, my care is restricted now. I go where United Health Care sends me, and if they don't think I need a procedure, I don't get it unless I want to pay for it myself.
Look at the strain of EMTALA on our emergency depts. That's what you get with lifting the consequences of demand; by creating unlimited demand. Only, even THAT isn't unlimited demand because people like me, with real insurance, must pay a high enough co-pay for ED services to provide a check on demand.
Even so, our EDs are overwhelmed. Add to that real unlimited demand, and our EDs would sink.
Now, add that concept of unlimited demand across the entire healthcare system, and you have the vaunted 'Universal Healthcare' model. Only. Our gov't couldn't create unlimited supply, even if it wanted to.
So, the result will be rationed care.
And why people continue to think that universal healthcare is "free" is beyond me.
That old saying, "don't look a gift horse in the mouth" comes to mind.
If a service is going to be supplied by the government it has to be paid for somehow. And that is through taxation.
Higher taxation for all of us writing on this thread and in this forum.
Now someone told me some time ago that Hilary's healthcare plan back in 1993 involved our corporations anteing up alot of the monies for universal health care. As he told me, employers would pay about a dollar and some cents per hour of work per employee. As I didn't pay any attention back then to Hilarycare, I can't say if this was the truth or not. I'm sure someone on this thread remembers the facts.
Regardless, if that goes through, we all can also kiss our raises goodbye.
G.W. is my president, just like the womanizing, lying, impeached, bloated, gas bag was my president, or the stuttering no new taxes guy, the jelly bean Iran Contra guy, peanut boy, the I am not a crook guy and even I pick my nose in public LBJ.
If your faith in the country is decided by who is president then I suggest you move to a dictatorship like, umm... I don't know CUBA maybe. They have great healthcare!
This country has been around for 231 years, we've had good and bad presidents yet we're still here. So step away from the kool aid, the end of the world is not nigh.
I have compared the U.S. health care with other countries. One of the major differences between us and them is what medical professionals are payed. U.S. Doctors & Nurses are making mint, what other job can you get a two year degree and walk out of school making $30/hr? Not many. Are you willing to drop your salary to CNA wages to help others get healthcare?? Another issue is the cost of medications in the U.S. and the excessive costs of emerging technology. It cost my mothers insurance $3500 a dose for her chemo!! Doesn't that seems a little excessive??
The problems with the U.S. system far outweighs anything a single president has done. Drop the George Soros talking points and look at the real problems.
Peace,
Tripps
Patriotism is usually the refuge of the scoundrel. He is the man who talks the loudest.
Here is my question: If our country is so terrible, why are there millions of people each year, including Cubans where they supposedly have great healthcare, trying to get here???
Millions of people are moving or trying to move here because of the relative wealth that exists especially when compared to developing nations. IF we use developing nations as the barometer by which to judge America, I would say that it would not be a fair comparison. America is the richest country in the history of the world and the fact that it has millions of its citizens (many of whom are veterans) without adequate health care is a crying shame. Its really sad when you look at the fact that as you read this line, the U. S. is spending millions of dollars to kill people in the middle east. Sad indeed, but only in america.
"But for free hospital care, Britons pay an awfully high price.
Just ask the nearly 1 million British patients on waiting lists for treatment. Or the 200,000 Britons currently waiting merely to get on NHS waiting lists. Mr. Moore must have missed those folks."
Rationing, as history proves time and again, is always a recipe for horror."
~~~
You think the horror stories of rationing by insurance companies are bad? Wait till it's the gov't rationing care and you have nowhere to turn, and nobody to sue.
I don't understand the concept that monopolies are always bad, unless it's the gov't.
The same people advocating gov't restricted care will say that they think teachers should get paid 100k a year. Know why they don't? The gov't has a basic monopoly on their salaries. That's another thing, an important thing, for the gov't to restrict: your salary. The only thing they need to do so is a monopoly on all the places where you can work. . .
It would be a given that care would be restricted. However, I would still think that in America if you could afford it, you would get it. Same as now.
Yeah, I've heard lots of people advocate a universal health care system, but I haven't heard anyone say that private health care should be forbidden at the same time.
i recently found something extremely interesting on the internet regarding michael moore.
well, peta's president, [color=#8e0000]ingrid newkirk, has a few words of advice for him: as she points out in the [color=#8e0000]letter she sent him this week, the best way to fight the u.s. health care bureaucracy is to take some personal responsibility and make positive changes that will lead to a healthy lifestyle--and there's no better way to do that than by adopting a vegetarian diet. as ingrid puts it,
"although we think that your film could actually help reform america's sorely inadequate health care system, there's an elephant in the room, and it is you. with all due respect, no one can help but notice that a weighty health issue is affecting you personally. we'd like to help you fix that. going vegetarian is an easy and life-saving step that people of all economic backgrounds can take in order to become less reliant on the government's shoddy healthcare system, and it's something that you and all americans can benefit from personally."
peta is challenging michael moore to reduce his risk of fat-related illnesses by taking peta's [color=#8e0000]30-day veg pledge. the idea is that if people didn't make themselves unhealthy in the first place by eating meat products that are known to cause heart disease, high blood pressure, and strokes, the situation would easier for everyone. as ingrid puts it, "yes, america's health care system needs to be fixed, but personal responsibility is a big part of why people look and feel as ill as they do." here's hoping michael moore puts his money where his mouth is.
though i definitely cannot consider myself a vegetarian, i do believe the peta president has a valid point. i believe we should all have an internal locus of control that says, "i will try to help myself and then also fight for my neighbor." however, when i look at michael moore's pictures, dang folks, he is a little heavy.
i agree that we need to something with the healthcare issues here in the us, but heck, it is time for him to do a little bit of working out, walking, or something. i think some of the biggest problems we deal with in healthcare are complications to diabetes and all the effects of long term smoking. yes, i know many people don't have healthcare; but could it be that it's because the money was used to give the alcoholic a the liver transplant? what about the diabetic patient, who wanted/received the kidney but continued to eat incorrectly?
yes, i agree something should be done regarding healthcare. however, i think more time should be given to assessing and prioritzing the needed changes, before we assign our government the responsibility.
But a complete overhaul is needed, how many bandaids can you keep applying. That tub of bath water is leaking seriously.
you didn't read my previous posts. the syst. is not so broken that it does not work at all. A little fiberglass filler and this tub could be good as new - not perfect but not bad either.:deadhorse
Posting the progressive graphic is not meant to be an insult to conservatives. (I don't totally agree with the structure of the graphic) Rather it is meant to emphasize that we need to work together to solve America's very real problems in a pragmatic and fair way. What I find interesting is the total lack of response from the right to my question which was to the effect of how are we going to build a society where we have affordable universal access to health care and a broadly shared prosperity. See:
What about keeping our current private insurance system with a program to provide gov't subsidation for those w/o insurance based on what they can afford to pay? (this is just a thought trown out. I don't have any research to show its feasabilty or details on how it could be put in place. Just wanted to show there are other ways of thinking about this problem.)
Good Morning America this morning had a news clip regarding the mis-managment of medicare funding. It involves several health care managment companies,who are supposed to take those government issued dollars and make sure that people who need the health care actually get it. Instead, they have made a PROFIT in the BILLIONS OF DOLLARS off of medicare patients, by denying the patient their needed treatments and medications, then turning around and giving their CEO's giant paychecks, private jets, sculptures in a Montana airport, a minor league baseball stadium, and funding a symphony......I am sure all those patients who are doing without their needed treatments and medications are just thrilled that the CEO gets to fly around in his private jet at their expense.....
Now, is this story also a LIE??? The stadium wasn't built with DONATIONS.....the filings with the SEC show these CEO's making multi-million dollar salaries.....it also shows the piles of denial forms that otherwise should have been approved.....
Think what you want about Michael Moore....but the truth is the truth about a very corrupt and broken health care system.....
again....many of my patients have had to choose between eating or buying their medication that would/was not covered under these new "health management" rules.....the ones THEY imposed on the needy, so they could go buy another JET!!
It would seem with some people here, that in the name of conservatism, they will defend even the most ruthless and corrupt among us, because they seem to be too fearful to face reality. I think it is possible to be conservative, yet honest about defectiveness in the health care system.
Those who castigate the messenger only further polarize the two opposites, while many of our society continue to fall through the cracks.
Until it actually happens to you personally, it would seem, seeing will then be believing. Which is more shameful: people who go about life believing that all is well when it isn't, or people who point out that life isn't all rosey and complete?
I often wonder if some of you here, (and now I am going to ignite a few tempers) would have shot Paul Revere on sight, simply because you could not imagine the British truly were coming!!
Take a step back from your prejudice, and look around you....
do a little more research before you quote yet another slanted view to support your stance.....ARE YOU REALLY SURE THAT HEALTH CARE IN THIS COUNTRY IS FINE???
If that is the case, why has this issue been on every politico's lips since before NIXON???
I, and a few others who have responded, have not tried to ignore the pitfalls of our heathcare syst. nor do we say all is rosey or fine. We have repeatedly said there are problems w/ our syst. We just don't believe that universal health care as proposed by Hillary, et al. is the panacea many on the left believe it to be. Would you please step back from your predjudice long enough to acknowledge that there may be other ways of dealing w/ the probs. of healthcare.
Surely, there is a way to comprimise b/t total universal health care run by the gov't (after all they did SUCH a good job checking up on the folks they were sending huge chunks of public money to) and completely private insurance (who we've already seen are more inclined to line their pockets with money of pt's than provide quality health care).
I, and a few others who have responded, have not tried to ignore the pitfalls of our heathcare syst. nor do we say all is rosey or fine. We have repeatedly said there are problems w/ our syst. We just don't believe that universal health care as proposed by Hillary, et al. is the panacea many on the left believe it to be. Would you please step back from your predjudice long enough to acknowledge that there may be other ways of dealing w/ the probs. of healthcare.
jyoung1950
157 Posts
I spent some time on the url you posted and read about MM's contribution of $12 grand to help the wife of the owner of the moorewatch site.
The owner - I believe his name is Jim - wrote further down on the website that many, many people (some with some relative fame)sent money to help the couple and only MM made it known that he donated money.