"Gould 0738" wrote in message
...
Great idea. What if all of "them" get better jobs? Do you suppose NOYB
would
mind checking into a hotel with his own toilet cleaning tools?

You have any idea how long it takes to clean a whole toilet with a cotton
swab
on the end of a stick?


Ahhhhh...so you've pledged a fraternity, eh?

You have any idea how long it takes to clean a whole toilet with a cotton
swab
on the end of a stick?


Ahhhhh...so you've pledged a fraternity, eh?

Naw, but I've been to the dentist. The swab on the stick isn't as bad is
scraping the dried on "plague" off the bowl with stainless pick. :-)

On Mon, 14 Jul 2003 22:50:21 -0700, ralph
wrote:

z wrote:

"NOYB" wrote in message om...
and the poor ignorant wogs are too ignorant to figure this out
by
themselves, so we must protect them from voting them back in by
accident.

With logic like yours, the Nazi party would not have been outlawed in
Germany after WWII.

Instead, the Nazis were brought to the US to help set up the CIA and
other government programs.

BTW, many of the officials we have installed in Iraq are former
Ba'athists.

Absolute horsepoop. The Bush administration made it clear that former
members of the Baath party would hold no positions in the new government.

Made it clear as horsepoop, and continue to clarify it today.

Baath officials backed to rebuild Iraq
BBC News Sunday, 13 April, 2003, 14:25 GMT 15:25 UK
Baath Party members who were loyal to Saddam Hussein will take part in
the reconstruction of Iraq, according to Geoff Hoon.
"They had a system of administration that will deliver," the defence
secretary told The Observer.
And many were "perfectly decent people who have not participated in
any atrocities".
There has already been anger in the southern city of Basra after the
man chosen by the British forces there to run the city was revealed to
be a Baath Party member.
Mr Hoon told the newspaper: "It is understandable people that have
lived in dread and terror of this organisation should go and kick in a
few doors."
But he added: "We have to ensure it does not get out of hand."

Iraq's Baath Party Is Abolished
Franks Declares End of Hussein's Apparatus as Some Members Retake
Posts
(May 12, 2003)
By Peter Slevin and Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, May 12, 2003; Page A10
BAGHDAD, May 11 -- Gen. Tommy R. Franks, the commander of U.S. forces
in Iraq, announced today that Saddam Hussein's Baath Party, which
dominated the country for more than three decades through violence and
intimidation, has been abolished, although U.S. authorities have
allowed many prominent members to return to top government positions.
The effect of Franks's declaration remained unclear, but it seemed
largely symbolic, given the party's organizational implosion and the
somewhat contradictory U.S. request that many former high-ranking
government officials, most of whom were Baath members, report to their
jobs as usual.
U.S. authorities have made "de-Baathification" a goal of the
occupation period, but have not laid out consistent rules for
accomplishing it.

U.S. vows to remove Baath officials in Iraq
Thursday, May 15, 2003 Posted: 12:49 PM EDT (1649 GMT)
• Any former Baath Party personnel will be "aggressively removed from
office" in all parts of Iraq's postwar administration.
BAGHDAD (CNN) -- Iraq's U.S. administrators will "aggressively move"
to identify and remove former officials of Saddam Hussein's Baath
Party from office and are working to restore security in Baghdad, the
civilian authority's new chief said Thursday.
"Shortly, I will issue an order on measures to extirpate Baathists and
Baathism from Iraq forever," L. Paul Bremer told reporters in Baghdad.
"We have and will aggressively move to seek to identify these people
and remove them from office."
But Bremer, who assumed office Monday, said that such action would be
difficult while U.S. officials are trying to restore services such as
power, water and health care.
"In some cases, we have found, people who have offered to work with us
have turned out to be members of the Baath Party," he said. "Those
people have been put out of office when we found that out."

Officials: Ban on Baathists delays Iraqi government
Monday, May 19, 2003 Posted: 1653 GMT (12:53 AM HKT)
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The decision to ban senior Baath Party members
from holding jobs in a future Iraqi government will delay the handover
of control to Iraqis, senior officials with the Pentagon's Office of
Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance said.
U.S. civil administrator L. Paul Bremer has ordered a large-scale
operation to ensure that Baath Party members are removed from critical
positions in the public sector. This ban could affect as many as
30,000 senior Baath Party members.
The delay was revealed Friday as Bremer and John Sawers, British envoy
to Iraq, met with opposition leaders.
Retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Jay Garner initially had allowed some
former Baath officials to hold positions, including interim health
minister and Baghdad University president, but the decision resulted
in protests among Iraqis. Bremer replaced Garner this week.

ANALYSIS
By Gen. Wayne Downing
MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR
KUWAIT CITY, Kuwait, April 4 —
In order to establish the new Iraq that President Bush speaks of,
the grip established by Saddam's security apparatus must be broken.
This task will be difficult and, to my knowledge, the coalition plan
on how it will go about doing this is rudimentary at best. In fact,
compared with their knowledge of the Iraqi military, the U.S. and
British intelligence agencies know comparatively little about the the
extent of this Baathist web and potentially acceptable Baath Party
members.
Retired Army Lt. Gen. Jay Garner, the head of the Office of
Reconstruction and Humanitarian Affairs, is to be the senior U.S.
official in postwar Iraq. His office is not equipped to tackle the job
of neutralizing the Baathist security web.
The inability of the United States to get a consensus and a
working coalition of in-country and expatriate Iraqis on what will
happen after the war will bedevil Washington and U.S. military forces.
Reports from Washington do not sound encouraging, with factions
centered in the Pentagon, State Department and the CIA continuing to
advocate their own contradictory solutions.
Not only are they failing to cooperate with each other, these
key agencies appear to be actively working against each other,
promoting their favored candidates and undermining those they oppose.
The failure to develop a coherent Baath vetting process (akin
to the de-Nazification program that turned West Germany into a
functioning democracy after World War II) could prove a major problem.
"Regime change" was a major stated goal of this war, and many now
suspect there is no plan beyond the immediate goal of toppling
Saddam's regime, an eventuality that appears closer every day.
What will replace it? Unfortunately, there exists no clear
answer, even at this late date. How will U.S. administrators determine
which Iraqi civil servants may continue to serve and which are too
tainted to stay? This is key to the Pentagon's reconstruction and
humanitarian assistance plan and the timely departure of U.S. forces.
Gen. Wayne Downing, U.S. Army (ret.), is an NBC News military
analyst and former head of U.S. Special Operations Command.

kinda get the feeling they're winging it?

"winging" would appear to be a kind word. Does anyone outside the
gov't have any idea what plan or policy we are persuing? Does anyone
*inside* the gov't have any idea?

Sadly, it seems to be a mish-mash, and US soldiers are dying daily.

Anybody got a plan?
noah


Courtesy of Lee Yeaton,
See the boats of rec.boats
www.TheBayGuide.com/rec.boats

We know they're out there, but we don't agree with the Dems that government
issued health care is the answer for them. For too long, insurance
companies have operated under different rules than most businesses. Go to
any of the cities that headquarter several of the large insurance companies.
The biggest, most lavish buildings are either banks or...you guessed
it...insurance companies.

Because of special protection they were granted under the McCarron-Ferguson
Act, insurance companies aren't subject to the same Federal anti-trust
regulations that all other companies operate under...rather, they are
governed by state laws. Consequently, they pick and choose the states they
want to operate in so as to maximize their profits. When one state passes
laws that might squeeze their profits, they pull out...or skyrocket the
premiums.

One answer is Association Health Plans (AHP's) that allow a group to buy
across state lines. Also, the Federal government ought to consider
repealing, or reforming the McCarron-Ferguson Act, and taking some of the
regulation back under Federal control. This is the one exception in which I
feel control by the Federal government rather than state governments is the
answer.



"Harry Krause" wrote in message
...
ralph wrote:

lazarus wrote:

On Mon, 14 Jul 2003 02:00:24 GMT, "NOYB" wrote:


"Harry Krause" wrote in message
...
Hooda Gest wrote:



Even those "millions" have access to health care. What they don't
have
is
health care insurance and many of them CHOOSE not to.

Oh? Many? Is that an unsubstantiated "many?"

Let's see...how many of those many are in the "I can pay for a
health
insurance premium...or...I can pay the rent..."

Some choice.

It's seldom a choice between rent and insurance. More like insurance
and
nintendo/new car/big screen tv/$150 Nikes.



I have none of those, still can't afford insurance. Quite luckily, my
wife has insurance.

Tell me how someone working minimum wage is supposed to afford
insurance? Especially if their company doesn't offer it?

if you need it and your employer doesn't offer it you can't buy it. HMOs
aren't crazy.


I work with people almost every week who are marginally employed and who
have neither health insurance nor access to reasonable health care, if
they have access to any at all, especially dental health care and mental
health care, for themselves and their children.

Conservatives like to pretend such people don't exist, but they are out
there, by the millions. My wife spends almost half her time treating
people without means or insurance, more of her time trying to find
specialists who will help the indigent and even more time trying to
arrange "hardship" meds for patients who simply have no ability to pay
for medications and who have fallen through the rapidly disappearing
holes in what used to be a safety net.

There are millions and millions of residents of this country without
insurance or access to health care. They're out there...among all of
us...despite the crap spewed by those Conservatives who don't give a
damn about society or its ills.



--
* * *
email sent to will *never* get to me.

"noah" wrote in message
...

kinda get the feeling they're winging it?

"winging" would appear to be a kind word. Does anyone outside the
gov't have any idea what plan or policy we are persuing? Does anyone
*inside* the gov't have any idea?

Sadly, it seems to be a mish-mash, and US soldiers are dying daily.

Anybody got a plan?
noah


Someone does, but unfortunately, he's only the secretary of state.

Hooda Guest wrote:

You are incredibly ignorant. You know nothing about this country if you
think that health care is being denied to anyone.

Hooda's right. When you kid is running a 103-degree fever and no doctor will
see you because you can't pay $150 cash for the call and don't have health
insurance, you do what the parental instinct dictates and get some help for the
kid where you can. That turns out to be the hospital emergency room most of the
time, as the desperate know that most hospitals won't turn you away.

Now the feverish kid costs $675 to examine and medicate, rather than $150.
Who picks up the $675? It gets passed along to everybody with the means to pay
for their own health care or with health insurance in the form of increased
fees from the hospital for all "paying" patients.

We're already paying for universal health care in the US. I think the only
remaining question is whether we are doing so in the most efficient manner.

Gould 0738 wrote:

Even those "millions" have access to health care. What they don't have
is
health care insurance and many of them CHOOSE not to.

There's a difference between access to health care and (practical) access to
health care insurance, particularly for poor or middle income people.

Fact is, the majority of poor people work at
low wage jobs. They are on the battle lines of American commerce, actually
delivering the services or building the widgets at $10 an hour, or often less.
These jobs rarely include health insurance any more. When you're paying
$1000-1200 a month for a worker's wages, adding 30, 40, 50 percent
to that total to fund health insurance doesn't make economic sense.

Even middle income jobs have tightened up on health insurance benefits. At my
wife's bank, they pay the premiums for the
employee only and the employee must pay the premiums for the family members.
(Not entirely unfair, why should party "A" with six kids be compensated more
highly than single person "B" for doing the same job? If the bank had to pay
for everybody, people with lots of kids would be less employable and have
trouble finding work).

A great observation.


And its not just corporate greed, it's the "global economy".

So, why don't poor folks just park the "$150 sneakers" and turn off the "big
screen TV"? and buy health insurance instead?

The cost is prohibitive. My wife and I could make a choice at any time to
retire. It wouldn't require much reorganizing of things to live a simpler, but
acceptably comfortable lifestyle for just about forever. We don't seriously
consider it for two reasons. 1) We both enjoy our work. 2) Health insurance.

We have looked into private health insurance in our state. $1000 deductible
plans for healthy adults in their early 50's run about $500 a month. *Each*.
The cost goes up at age 55, and again at age 60, and can go up in any
particular year when the health insurance companies decide their costs have
increased too much or their profits haven't increased enough.

You forgot to mention one of the greatest sources of increased premiums;
Increased payouts due to increases in damages awarded by overzealous
lawsuits, and a legal system which favors putting the screws to a large
company to pay for claims that exceed normal allowances for "pain and
suffering".


We could probably handle a giesel a month, but who wants to be in a position of

having to return to work 5 or six years from now because health insurance costs
have gone from $1000 a month to $2800?

So think of the poor mini-wage family.
Poppa, Mama, three or four kids...... probably $1200 to $1500 a month locally
(for health insurance that doesn't have such a ridiculously high deductible
that for most poor people with minor illnesses it would be a moot point whether
they had insurance or not).

Pretty tough to write even a single person a take-home check for $200-300 a
week and expect him to run out and buy a health insurance policy for $500 a
month.

So the observation is correct. The poor do have access to health insurance- but
not health insurance *and* groceries, rent, transportation, clothing, etc. "Big
screen TV's and $150 sneakers" aren't keeping the poor from health coverage, in
spite of the derogatory sterotypes.

The costs are high. So what do we do about it?

Dave

The costs are high. So what do we do about it?

Dave


You won't like my answer.

1) Face the fact that the uninsured are currently being treated at the expense
of the rest of society in the US, at very expensive hospital emergency rooms.

2) Reinvigorate the Public Health services gutted by the present and previous D
and R adminsitrations kow-towing to the medical lobbies

-or-

3) Formalize the de-facto public funding of health care services and institute
strict cost controls.

"Gould 0738" wrote in message
...
The costs are high. So what do we do about it?

Dave


You won't like my answer.

1) Face the fact that the uninsured are currently being treated at the
expense
of the rest of society in the US, at very expensive hospital emergency
rooms.

2) Reinvigorate the Public Health services gutted by the present and
previous D
and R adminsitrations kow-towing to the medical lobbies

-or-

3) Formalize the de-facto public funding of health care services and
institute
strict cost controls.

#3 could work, but people who think Karl Marx is the guy with the moustache,
the cigar and the three goofy brothers will say "socialism".

Doug Kanter wrote:

"Gould 0738" wrote in message
...
The costs are high. So what do we do about it?

Dave


You won't like my answer.

1) Face the fact that the uninsured are currently being treated at the
expense
of the rest of society in the US, at very expensive hospital emergency
rooms.

2) Reinvigorate the Public Health services gutted by the present and
previous D
and R adminsitrations kow-towing to the medical lobbies

-or-

3) Formalize the de-facto public funding of health care services and
institute
strict cost controls.

#3 could work, but people who think Karl Marx is the guy with the moustache,
the cigar and the three goofy brothers will say "socialism".

The problem with this, or any other "socialist" solutions, is that when
you place tight cost controls, you remove the incentive for many people
to choose the health services as a career. If healthcare workers become
the same as teachers, what will happen to the quality of our care?

Dave