bigreddog1934

yes, of course the global derivatives scheme, the utter deregulation of white collar crimes on an international scale that required trillions of dollars worldwide had nothing to do with this. yes capitalism has always had it under control and anyone who bands together outside of governments and corporate board rooms to get back some of the money they produce is just lazy and incapable. yes in capitalism we all control our own destiny, unless, that is we actually have to work for a living and can't expect government bailouts larger than the gdp of entire countries. oh, and unless you live on the gulf coast, or in an army barracks, or next to a closed factory or anywhere outside of wall street. yes, we've never been so free. go get em' minnesota.

The only rights we get depend on who is in power and who power represents. All sort of documents and publications come out in every country exclaiming rights that represent nothing other that the political forces at work. Because the framers of the constitution were landowning males, the constitution does not guarantee the right to vote by anyone other than these people. So it doesn't really matter if health care is a right or privilege. Its entirely up to the people to make that decision, which is where all authority should come from. Because the current system is controlled entirely by two corporate run parties, their interests are what dictate the current broken, inefficient, health care system that we have today. A simple way to find out how people would feel about health care is to put a national referendum together that asks people hoe much of their health care costs should go to profit and redundant overhead. We could then take the average and give that to insurance companies and leave the remainder toward training, better wages and staffing, up-to-date equipment, etc.

of course, that is except for the military and the two ongoing wars. oh, and prisons.

i find that the people on this discussion that claim not to understand the dire need for universal health care are incredibly lazy with their research. it requires all of us advocating some form of guaranteed health care to do the grunt work for them so that they can no longer claim the transparent excuse of not having, " the slightest idea". i can only hope that their nursing care is not as passive. Here is one link that took me about 7 total seconds to find explaining the relationship of insurance and child mortality: http://prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/30/lacking-insurance-hospitalized-children-more-likely-to-die/

I dont think the constitution guaranteed women's suffrage, an end to slavery, workplace safety protections, oversight into how safe our food is, an end to child labor, social security, or the ability to vote by men who did not own land, but i dont think anyone here is open to restoring those institutions. as hard as it is to believe, we can actually progress, sometimes at the cost of profit and power for the elites, as terrible as that sounds. out of curiosity, though, are the people here that are against any public health care system also for privatizing things like the water supply? how about the military? if the government cant do anything right, should we then have for profit companies in charge of that? should the fda be sold off? what about the licensing of health care professionals, should the board of nursing be a corporation? it would seem that this would be the logical next step.

You have to be kidding me. Have you read a page of US history? The entire reason that we have any standards of living at all is because there were labor struggles that nearly consumed the country - certainly not because the clever people rose to the top. If it were not for these struggles, including the current one for health care, we would still be living under feudal lords, considering the terms of child labor, or debating slavery. Please, please do not attempt to rewrite history on the newest "market reform" which is to retire insurance companies to the dustbin.

Yes, K98. At this point would you like me to do your research for you, or would you actually like to look outside of your personal experience and perceptions for information. Either one is fine with me. We can consider it a mutual exploration into US healthcare satisfaction numbers. Also, does the World Health Organization have any credibility with you? How about Gallup and USA Today? I am just wondering where your sources of information come from before we start into an informed discussion.

"On the issue that has been perhaps the most pronounced flash point in the national debate, 57 percent of all Americans now favor a public insurance option, while 40 percent oppose it." - Washington Post-ABC News poll, October 20, 2009 Once again, K98, your personal experiences to do replace the actual evidence. And given the accelerating failure of health insurance, I would expect the number favoring guaranteed healthcare to rise in the future.

Lack of funding has wrecked public education, K98, which is why public education in the richest communities is among the best in the world, and why people like yourself use the poorest and most underfunded schools to illustrate a generalization.

Where are you from GCTMT? I am north of Denver and helping to plan the civil disobedience action at an insurance company to be announced. This is just the start. It our civil rights movement and RNs should be at the front of the entire cause for universal, non profit health care. I would encourage all RNs here, as well as student RNs to get involved in this movement. it long overdue.

I entire agree onekidney. The last hospital that I worked at was a "not for profit" where the CEO was making over $1.2 million dollars. Just because its called that does not mean that a section of people working there aren't bringing home far far more than necessary. But there is also a difference between profit and wages. Profit is the excess wealth generated by the work of wage earners that is taken by the company. Wages are the simple payments we are given for the work that we do. If anything, we could enact a maximum earnings law. I dont see why people would starve to death making something along the lines of $250,000/year. Of course its no money any nurse on this list will see, but the balance of wealth could go to so many things other than propping up a caste of billionaires.

These are the results of a New England Journal of Medicine Study. Results In 1999, health administration costs totaled at least $294.3 billion in the United States, or $1,059 per capita, as compared with $307 per capita in Canada. After exclusions, administration accounted for 31.0 percent of health care expenditures in the United States and 16.7 percent of health care expenditures in Canada. Canada's national health insurance program had overhead of 1.3 percent; the overhead among Canada's private insurers was higher than that in the United States (13.2 percent vs. 11.7 percent). Providers' administrative costs were far lower in Canada. Again, its not enough to quote your personal experience and to apply that to the entire heath care system. There are many studies out there that support the widely known fact that US health care is the most inefficient in the world.

I am headed to this in November. It is the most important patient advocacy of our times. Healthcare-NOW! is the coalition that has been staging sit - ins at insurance companies around the country. Our position is that profit needs to be taken out of health care funding and that a single payer system should replace the debacle we are currently in. Healthcare-NOW! 2009 National Strategy Conference Join Us in St. Louis! You are invited to join Healthcare-NOW! activists from around the country to plan our strategy to win guaranteed single-payer national health insurance. By learning and sharing from one another we can build on the tremendous successes of the last year and develop the plan to push Congress to implement single-payer national health insurance NOW. When: Saturday, November 14th and Sunday, November 15th Where: Sheraton Westport Plaza, 900 Westport Plaza, St. Louis, MO Time: Sat, 4pm - 9pm (dinner on your own) Sun, 8am - 4pm http://www.healthcare-now.org/campaigns/strat-conf/

In my last job it was about two years before they started inching you into triage. Then you would be part of two nurses for a bit until you were the sole triage RN. There was also a class on triage you took before heading out there.

why pick on this little guy? there are plenty of overweight senators that do not favor public health care that we could throw throw to the curb. i think a few fox news commentators would fit this description as well...