in article , BCITORGB
at wrote on 3/27/05 7:15 PM:

KMAN shares:
================
On a lighter note, I share with the group a low-res version of a photo
that
I call "Melt...Please?"
===================

Melt? What are you talking about?

Surely you guys don't still have ice and snow?!

Condolences from the WEsT COAST.

frtzw906

Argh. Must...have...comeback...must...think...

It hasn't rained here for months!

A Usenet persona calling itself KMAN wrote:

in article , Scott Weiser at
wrote on 3/26/05 2:48 PM:

A Usenet persona calling itself KMAN wrote:

I've notice you yourself don't give a damn for the "rule of law" if it
doesn't meet your needs.

Really? How so?

If it became a law that you could not have a gun, how would you feel
about
that?

Evasion. What specific evidence do you have to make the claim "I've
noticed
you yourself don't give a damn for the 'rule of law' if it doesn't meet
your
needs"?

You have accused me of something, now either substantiate this accusation
or
be branded a liar.

Brand away rick. Er, Scotty.

It's clear to me that you wouldn't give a damn about a law that
contradicted
what Scotty Weiser believes to be his fundamental rights.

Based on what evidence, precisely?

If only I had a warrant...

But seriously dear Scotty, it's just an impression.

Again, based on what evidence? Or are you admitting that you're just a
brainless bigot who judges people based on some mental aberration you suffer
from?

I'm saying that based on the persona you've displayed here I could see you
with an assault rifle shooting up an entire town for passing a bylaw against
having a different colour mailbox than the one you have.

Well, that would make you a loon, but you're entitled to your opinion.


You falsely presume that a "share" of some adult's medical problems can be
ethically and legitimately imposed on others.

It's imposed on me and I find it totally ethical and legit.

Which is your right. How do you ethically justify imposing it on others,
however? Do you have any reasoned argument in support of your position, or
are you just brainlessly parroting some socialist dogma you once heard?

It's very simple, and I have explained it. I believe in universal education
and universal health care. This means I believe every citizen should
contribute. Most of the citizens in the society where I live agree with
this.

Polly want a cracker?


Do you suppose that if they had all had a gun, that the genocide in Rawanda
would have even been possible?

Or are you simply too callous and uncaring in your paranoid hoplophobia to
admit that sometimes, having a gun can be a good thing.

Only if you have a means of ensuring that the good people have 'em and the
bad ones don't.

So, because it's factually impossible to keep "bad people" from illegally
obtaining guns, or machetes, or stones, or gasoline and matches, it's okay
with you if "good people" are brutally murdered because they have been
disarmed and are incapable of defending themselves, merely in order to
comply with your impossibly stupid utopian ideal of a gun-less society?

How remarkably barbaric and abysmally stupid.

Handing out guns won't turn a barbaric society into a peaceful one.

Actually, you're wrong. An armed society is a polite society. The usual
failure however is that *not enough* guns are available in society, so that
only the elite and the criminals have them, leaving the middle-class to be
victimized by both without any chance of defending themselves.

It will
simply increase the rate of barbarism.

Could it be true that you really have never heard of the concept of "self
defense?" Can you possibly be that ignorant?

You obviously can't have education and health care (or a fire
department)
for all if selfish prigs can simply opt out.

Sure you can. Charity begins at home.

Charity cannot provide universal education and health care.

Why not?

Because it is a charity, not a universal program with the requisite funding
to operate one.

That's not an explanation of why, that's a tautological assertion.

You simply failed to understand. I'll try agian.

You can't have a universal program if the means to deliver that program is
dependent upon random contributions.

Why not? You falsely assume that most people are not willing to contribute
voluntarily to support those in need. Given the massive outpouring of
private donations for the tsunami victims, I'd say that shows a fundamental
mistrust on your part rather than any factual parsimony on the part of the
public.


When the charity doesn't get enough donations, what do you
think happens? Operations close. Services are eliminated.

So what? Perhaps those operations and services are unneeded or improperly
run and need to be eliminated.

You asked why a charity cannot provide universal education and health care.

And you implied that without government funding, no care would be available.
I merely posit that the closure of operations and the suspending of services
may not be harmful to the ability of people to obtain the services, but is
more likely to be a reflection of an elimination of government-mandated
duplication and waste.


Perhaps society, through its unwillingness to fund these programs, is saying
that the objectives are unworthy and no longer comport with society's
beliefs about who is eligible for charity. Why is society precluded from
making such determinations?

Some societies don't have universal education and health care.

Er, no society has universal anything. At best, countries with socialized
health care only provide minimal "free" services. Everything else is a la
carte or mostly unavailable.

--
Regards,
Scott Weiser

"I love the Internet, I no longer have to depend on
friends, family and co-workers, I can annoy people WORLDWIDE!" TM

© 2005 Scott Weiser

Scott thinks:
===========
I doubt you speak for everyone, or even a substantial number of
Canadians,
given how much dissatisfaction there is in Canada now and how many
calls for privatization and reform.
================

WOW! Where DO you get your information?!

A substantial (read: vast majority) number of Canadians support the
current system and DEFINITELY reject privatization. Read virtually ANY
(ALL) polls done on this issue. There is likely greater unanimity on
this than on any other Canadian issue.

Please cite your sources.

frtzw906

in article , Scott Weiser at
wrote on 3/27/05 7:46 PM:

A Usenet persona calling itself BCITORGB wrote:

Scott, commenting on many (most) in Canada getting immediate ca
==================
Yup. While at the same time, teenagers who need knee surgery have to
wait
three years.
==================

Notwithstanding the protestations of rick, several of us from Canada
have commented on, and admitted, that one of the consequences of our
style of healthcare is that, for some procedures, there are waiting
lists. That's a fact. But it's a price we're willing to pay,

I doubt you speak for everyone, or even a substantial number of Canadians,
given how much dissatisfaction there is in Canada now and how many calls for
privatization and reform.

There is a much stronger desire for universal health care in the US than the
dismantling of universal health care in Canada.

From: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4798058/

Why can't the richest nation in the world provide health-care coverage to
all its people? It's the question that hangs over all debates about medical
care and insurance -- particularly in an election year when jobs -- and the
employer-based health system that ties insurance to work -- are a key voter
concern.

The answer: It's not that Americans don't want to cover the 41 million
uninsured . And the cost, pegged by Kaiser Commission on Medicaid & the
Uninsured at less than $69 billion a year, isn't insurmountable, adding just
6 percent to annual health spending.

It's just that no consensus exists -- in the public, among politicians, or
in the health industries -- about how best to get the job done. And because
the vast majority of voters have health insurance (85 percent of the
population is insured, but 92 percent of those who participated in the 2000
election were covered), political leaders have little incentive to overcome
that impasse.

That's not to say Americans don't wish that health care was available to
all. Some 62 percent support universal coverage, according to an October,
2003, Washington Post/ABC News Poll.

A Usenet persona calling itself KMAN wrote:

in article , Scott Weiser at
wrote on 3/26/05 2:54 PM:

A Usenet persona calling itself KMAN wrote:

in article , Scott Weiser at
wrote on 3/25/05 6:55 PM:

A Usenet persona calling itself KMAN wrote:

in article , Scott Weiser at
wrote on 3/25/05 4:57 PM:

A Usenet persona calling itself BCITORGB wrote:

Scott demonstrates that he doesn't understand renters and rent:
================
For example, my property taxes pay for schools. I
pay property taxes because I own property, therefore I support schools.
But
many of Boulder's residents are renters and do not own property, and
thus do
not pay any property taxes. They are not participating in supporting
schools, and yet schools exist. By your metric, they are "selfish
prigs" who
have opted-out by evading property taxes.
============

And the renters pay "property" tax through their rents. Or don't you
think the landlords pass their property taxes on to the renters by way
of higher rents? If that doesn't happen in Boulder, your landlords must
be very charitable indeed.

Ah, the "indirect taxation" argument. Sorry, doesn't wash. Yes, a
landlord
may charge more on rent to cover his property taxes, but remember that
there
is only one property tax assessment per property, and the rate is the
same
for each class of property, no matter how many people live on it and no
matter how much the owner profits from renting space. Thus, 50 renters in
an
apartment building split the costs of the property tax, which is based on
the acreage of land, not the income from rents, and so they are,
essentially, free riders on the system. They get to send their kids to
public school but only have to pay a fraction of what I, for example,
pay.
And I don't have any kids in public school at all.

A much more equitable system is to levy school taxes on those who
actually
use the schools, or at least find a way to levy school taxes on a
per-capita
basis for people residing in the community rather than placing the burden
on
property owners while letting non-property owners to ride essentially
free.

And then there's the people who have kids but pay to put them in private
schools. Why should they have to pay for public schools too? Shouldn't
the
tax dollars collected for allegedly schooling their children follow the
*children*, no matter what school they attend?

Haha. Sure, if you want to eliminate public schools.

That's precisely what I want to do.

I know.

That's what a lot of people who have
some intelligence and understanding of free-market economics want to do.

That's what selfish prigs want to do.

Not everybody who wants to eliminate government waste and inefficient,
ineffective public schools is a "selfish prig."

Demanding less wasteful, more efficient, and more effective public schools -
and getting off your ass and contributing to that - is different from
whining about it and wanting them shut down so you can keep more of your own
money.

Most of them are far more
concerned about the education of children than you are.

Oh dear, you aren't making a judgement about me are you? How do you know
what my level of concern is?

You advocate socialism. Ipso facto you don¹t care about the individual.


They simply realize
that the free market, combined with a minimal amount of taxpayer-funded
stipends for the truly disadvantaged will result in a much better system of
childhood education.

It will result in education for the wealthy. There is no free market
incentive to provide education to the poor.

Sure there is. Even industry realizes there is a genuine incentive to raise
the next generation of workers so they are smarter and better able to adapt
to the technological workplace. That's why big businesses support trade and
vocational schools and colleges, as well as funding private elementary
education.


I have a perfect understanding of free
market ecomomics.

Remarkable. Why is it then that you are not the world's leading economist,
to whom all others, with their imperfect understanding, go to for advice?

Could it be that you overestimate your understanding?

Free market economics is quite simple.

Which makes it all the more puzzling why you don't understand it.


The outcome of applying free market economics to education
and health care is marginalize the poor and divide society into a rigid
system of haves and have-nots.

Socialist twaddle.

There's no profit in educating people who can't afford to pay.

Sure there is. You just have to take the long view.


Doing so will result in better, cheaper, more widely available education,
and combined with a modest stipend for the very poor, garnered from a
consumer goods national sales tax, it will provide the closest thing to
high-quality, universally-available education we can have.

Absolutely insane.

What an erudite and reasoned rebuttal from the only person on the planet
with a "perfect understanding" of free market economics.

How do you define free market economics Scotty?

What is it you see in your definition that leads you to believe that private
sector educational insitutions will be motivated to educate the poor in a
free market economy?

Because, for one thing, the companies that will be employing them in the
future don¹t want to have to provide basic remedial education in the three
R's. It's far more cost-effective to put money into educating children when
they are children and are receptive to learning than it is to try to teach
an old dog new tricks in order to have a pool of reasonably well-educated
potential employees to choose from.

And as I said, and you have continuously elided, I believe that it's
reasonable for society to fund basic education for the *truly poor*, but
through the free-market system, not through government run bureaucracies.
Those that can pay, pay. Those that absolutely cannot pay still get
educated, but the overall costs to society to educate the truly poor is far,
far less than what we pay today for inefficient, ineffective public
schooling that far too often does no good at all and graduates illiterate
dunces because it's too expensive or "socially stigmatizing" to keep them
back until they actually learn what they need to know.

--
Regards,
Scott Weiser

"I love the Internet, I no longer have to depend on
friends, family and co-workers, I can annoy people WORLDWIDE!" TM

© 2005 Scott Weiser

Scott leads us through some convoluted reasoning:
================
She need only wait till the money's available or her parents can find a
charitable program or hospital to do the surgery pro bono. In Canada,
it's
not possible to take out a loan or get a grant and get the surgery done
in a
timely manner, so what was an acute injury will turn into a chronic
disability due to lack of timely medical care that may cripple the
child for
life.

Is it likely that as people with
insurance arrive, some "bureaucrat" in the hospital will priorize and
thereby establish a "waiting list"?

Nope. The priority is set by the patient.

Can you assure me that, under the American system, the teenager will
get immediate attention,

Yup.
===================

You assure me she'll get immediate attention, but earlier you said
she'll get attention when the money becomes available. I established in
my scenario that the was NO insurance and let's say, no money.

How is the priority set by the patient. Sauppose she says: "I want to
be #1." Does that make her #1? Of course not. And who tells her she
can't be #1? Likely some hospital bureaucrat. Hmmm.... sounds like what
you describe the Canadian system to be like. At least in Canada, her
condition determines her priority.

frtzw906

A Usenet persona calling itself KMAN wrote:

in article , Scott Weiser at
wrote on 3/26/05 3:09 PM:

A Usenet persona calling itself KMAN wrote:

in article , Michael Daly at
wrote on 3/25/05 9:36 PM:


On 25-Mar-2005, Scott Weiser wrote:

HOSPITALIZATION and SURGERY. It does
not, by law.

Which law? Provide proof.

The supplemental policies _do_ provide for hospitalization and
surgery. It is you who is too ignorant to accept the truth.

Mike

What's he trying to say Mike? That we can't have health insurance? Or that
it can't be used for hospital care?

Neither. I'm saying that no amount of health care insurance in Canada will
get you into a hospital or surgical suite ahead of anyone higher on the
priority list than you. That it may cover all sorts of things that Canada's
socialized medical system doesn't cover is beside the point. If you cannot
use your insurance to guarantee you a room or surgery when YOU need it, not
when the government decides to provide it to you, it's nothing more than
palliative and gives you nothing more than a few perks in the hospital,
provided you don't die waiting to be admitted.

If you are saying that supplemental health care insurance in Canada won't
allow me to skip ahead of some other person in the emergency room, that is
quite true.

Evasion. I didn't say "emergency room." I said that Canada rations
hospitalization and surgery, of ALL kinds, both for acute, life threatening
illnesses as well as non life threatening problems that require a hospital
stay and/or surgery.


My old medical insurance provided that I could go to any hospital in the
world and get immediate treatment, including admission and surgery as
necessary, without any delay, without any permission from anybody, and it
would pay the bills.

You only get to go into the hospital if some government bureaucrat decides
you "need" to do so

You don't have a clue. I can go to the hospital right now and see a doctor.

But can you be admitted for your knee pain right away, or do you have to
take your place in line. The issue is not whether you get seen for an
initial evaluation, it's whether you get TREATMENT for your condition.

But it would make more sense to go to one of the nice GP clinics unless it's
a serious emergency.

If you need a hospital stay or surgery, you can't get it when you want it,
you have to get in line based on what some government bureaucrat says you
deserve.


and you "need" to do so more urgently than somebody else.

Well, yeah, like any hospital, there are only so many doctors on duty. If a
busload of kids crashes and they are coming in with burns and severed limbs
and I am there with my sprained ankle, you are right, I will probably have
to wait.

Evasion. You'll wait no matter what, depending on the acuteness of your
condition, even if there's a bed available, if your condition puts you down
on the list.


If they don't think you "need" to be admitted, or if they don't have
room, you're ****ed, and you have to come to the US and pay the full price
for your care.

Having lived here for 30+ years I have yet to meet one person where this has
ever happened.

As I said, the paucity of your social circle is not the metric.

Most people here have a family doctor that they see regularly. I have one.
His office has an after hours service as well. If it is regular business
hours, I can get an appointment with him pretty much whenever I want one. If
it is after hours, I can see one of the other doctors that he shares his
practice with for after hours care. About two blocks from his office is a
nice hospital, where I have been, and friends and family have been, for
everything from what turned out to be stomach flu to one of my best friends
that had cancer (with the help of many fine doctors he beat it).


And every time you jumped the queue with an emergency, somebody with a
deteriorating chronic condition was pushed down and had to wait longer.

--
Regards,
Scott Weiser

"I love the Internet, I no longer have to depend on
friends, family and co-workers, I can annoy people WORLDWIDE!" TM

© 2005 Scott Weiser

Scott replies:
================
Tell me about your waiting lists for non-emergent cases without
insurance, OK?

That would be, perhaps, a list used by a charitable organization.
However,
the point is that in the US, the teenager is not *prohibited* from
seeking
out and obtaining any medical care that she needs from a provider
willing to provide the service. In Canada, no matter how willing the
surgeon, no matter how ready the charity is to pay for it...or the
parents for that matter,
government bureaucrats decide who gets to be treated
====================

Bottom line: a teenager without insurance and without money is
"prohibited" insofar as her freedom to seek care is illusionary. Fine
in principle, nonexistant in practice.

And, can we establish somehow, some way, for the last time, there is no
"government bureaucrat" making these decisions. If there is such a guy,
please give me his title. Where does he reside in the bureaucracy? Is
he federal? Provincial? Local?

frtzw906

in article , Scott Weiser at
wrote on 3/27/05 7:57 PM:

A Usenet persona calling itself KMAN wrote:

in article , Scott Weiser at
wrote on 3/26/05 2:48 PM:

A Usenet persona calling itself KMAN wrote:

I've notice you yourself don't give a damn for the "rule of law" if
it
doesn't meet your needs.

Really? How so?

If it became a law that you could not have a gun, how would you feel
about
that?

Evasion. What specific evidence do you have to make the claim "I've
noticed
you yourself don't give a damn for the 'rule of law' if it doesn't meet
your
needs"?

You have accused me of something, now either substantiate this
accusation
or
be branded a liar.

Brand away rick. Er, Scotty.

It's clear to me that you wouldn't give a damn about a law that
contradicted
what Scotty Weiser believes to be his fundamental rights.

Based on what evidence, precisely?

If only I had a warrant...

But seriously dear Scotty, it's just an impression.

Again, based on what evidence? Or are you admitting that you're just a
brainless bigot who judges people based on some mental aberration you suffer
from?

I'm saying that based on the persona you've displayed here I could see you
with an assault rifle shooting up an entire town for passing a bylaw against
having a different colour mailbox than the one you have.

Well, that would make you a loon, but you're entitled to your opinion.

Perhaps you aren't aware of the loony image you are projecting.


You falsely presume that a "share" of some adult's medical problems can be
ethically and legitimately imposed on others.

It's imposed on me and I find it totally ethical and legit.

Which is your right. How do you ethically justify imposing it on others,
however? Do you have any reasoned argument in support of your position, or
are you just brainlessly parroting some socialist dogma you once heard?

It's very simple, and I have explained it. I believe in universal education
and universal health care. This means I believe every citizen should
contribute. Most of the citizens in the society where I live agree with
this.

Polly want a cracker?

Scotty is a cracker!


Do you suppose that if they had all had a gun, that the genocide in
Rawanda
would have even been possible?

Or are you simply too callous and uncaring in your paranoid hoplophobia to
admit that sometimes, having a gun can be a good thing.

Only if you have a means of ensuring that the good people have 'em and the
bad ones don't.

So, because it's factually impossible to keep "bad people" from illegally
obtaining guns, or machetes, or stones, or gasoline and matches, it's okay
with you if "good people" are brutally murdered because they have been
disarmed and are incapable of defending themselves, merely in order to
comply with your impossibly stupid utopian ideal of a gun-less society?

How remarkably barbaric and abysmally stupid.

Handing out guns won't turn a barbaric society into a peaceful one.

Actually, you're wrong.

Actually, I'm not.

An armed society is a polite society. The usual
failure however is that *not enough* guns are available in society, so that
only the elite and the criminals have them, leaving the middle-class to be
victimized by both without any chance of defending themselves.

Why are the middle class being victimized?

It will
simply increase the rate of barbarism.

Could it be true that you really have never heard of the concept of "self
defense?" Can you possibly be that ignorant?

The ultimate self-defense would be to kill everyone else, and I have a
feeling that's not too far off from what you believe.

You obviously can't have education and health care (or a fire
department)
for all if selfish prigs can simply opt out.

Sure you can. Charity begins at home.

Charity cannot provide universal education and health care.

Why not?

Because it is a charity, not a universal program with the requisite funding
to operate one.

That's not an explanation of why, that's a tautological assertion.

You simply failed to understand. I'll try agian.

You can't have a universal program if the means to deliver that program is
dependent upon random contributions.

Why not? You falsely assume that most people are not willing to contribute
voluntarily to support those in need. Given the massive outpouring of
private donations for the tsunami victims, I'd say that shows a fundamental
mistrust on your part rather than any factual parsimony on the part of the
public.

An outpouring of donations for disaster relief has nothing to do with
providing and maintaining a universal system of healthcare.

When the charity doesn't get enough donations, what do you
think happens? Operations close. Services are eliminated.

So what? Perhaps those operations and services are unneeded or improperly
run and need to be eliminated.

You asked why a charity cannot provide universal education and health care.

And you implied that without government funding, no care would be available.

No, I said you can't provide a system of universal health care if it is
dependent upon random generosity.

I merely posit that the closure of operations and the suspending of services
may not be harmful to the ability of people to obtain the services, but is
more likely to be a reflection of an elimination of government-mandated
duplication and waste.

And I merely posit that privatized health care (as it should) seeks to make
money. There is no money to be made in providing health care to people who
can't afford to pay for it.


Perhaps society, through its unwillingness to fund these programs, is saying
that the objectives are unworthy and no longer comport with society's
beliefs about who is eligible for charity. Why is society precluded from
making such determinations?

Some societies don't have universal education and health care.

Er, no society has universal anything. At best, countries with socialized
health care only provide minimal "free" services. Everything else is a la
carte or mostly unavailable.


How minimal is minimal? My father had a hernia operation last year. My
father in law had heart bypass surgery. One of my best friends had
successful cancer treatment. All provided through our universal health care
system.

Scott:
=============
And every time you jumped the queue with an emergency, somebody with a
deteriorating chronic condition was pushed down and had to wait longer.

=============

Hmmm.... triage is taught in med school here... and practiced in the
hospitals.... so don't worry about those with a deteriorating chronic
condition

frtzw906