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I'm voting republican because...
On Sep 11, 7:04*pm, "Tom Gardner" wrote:
"John R. Carroll" wrote in .. . jimz wrote: I don't want this to happen again. http://hk.youtube.com/watch?v=8mKpOKK5S_U CLINTON dropped the ball on this one. snip How come you don't address the fact that Clinton could have gotten OBL a number of times but didn't? *Was it above his pay grade? *(Good thing OBL didn't change his name to "Vince Foster") Don't confuse Ms Carrol with the ugly truth. |
I'm voting republican because...
CLINTON dropped the ball on this one. snip How come you don't address the fact that Clinton could have gotten OBL a number of times but didn't? Was it above his pay grade? (Good thing OBL didn't change his name to "Vince Foster") Don't confuse Ms Carrol with the ugly truth. Your "truth" is a lie told originally by NewsMax. Read the 9/11 Commission Report for the truth. http://www.9-11commission.gov/staff_...tatement_5.pdf (bottom of page 3): If you think that by informing our right wingers of the truth about the subject it will have any effect on their beliefs you are out of your mind. The point is those guys don't care about the truth so informing them won't do any good. They believe what they want to believe and even if you show them they are wrong they still won't change their minds. That's just the way they are. Hawke |
I'm voting republican because...
Hawke wrote:
How come you don't address the fact that Clinton could have gotten OBL a number of times but didn't? Was it above his pay grade? (Good thing OBL didn't change his name to "Vince Foster") Don't confuse Ms Carrol with the ugly truth. Your "truth" is a lie told originally by NewsMax. Read the 9/11 Commission Report for the truth. Apparently the Commission didn't hear Bubba when he said it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wvo2lQe81xk technomaNge -- Obama - raises taxes and kills babies. Sarah Palin - raises babies and kills taxes. |
I'm voting republican because...
technomaNge wrote:
Hawke wrote: How come you don't address the fact that Clinton could have gotten OBL a number of times but didn't? Was it above his pay grade? (Good thing OBL didn't change his name to "Vince Foster") Don't confuse Ms Carrol with the ugly truth. Your "truth" is a lie told originally by NewsMax. Read the 9/11 Commission Report for the truth. Apparently the Commission didn't hear Bubba when he said it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wvo2lQe81xk Well, it was the Bush administration's commision wasn't it? http://www.9-11commission.gov/staff_...tatement_5.pdf (bottom of page 3): -- John R. Carroll www.machiningsolution.com |
I'm voting republican because...
John R. Carroll wrote:
technomaNge wrote: Hawke wrote: How come you don't address the fact that Clinton could have gotten OBL a number of times but didn't? Was it above his pay grade? (Good thing OBL didn't change his name to "Vince Foster") Don't confuse Ms Carrol with the ugly truth. Your "truth" is a lie told originally by NewsMax. Read the 9/11 Commission Report for the truth. Apparently the Commission didn't hear Bubba when he said it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wvo2lQe81xk Well, it was the Bush administration's commision wasn't it? http://www.9-11commission.gov/staff_...tatement_5.pdf (bottom of page 3): Perhaps, but you are changing the subject. Little Chicken said upstream that it was a lie, told by NewsMax. This just proves that the tweet is full of feathers, as usual. technomaNge -- Obama - raises taxes and kills babies. Sarah Palin - raises babies and kills taxes. |
I'm voting republican because...
On Sep 12, 10:49*am, "Lamont Cranston"
wrote: wrote: On Sep 11, 7:04 pm, "Tom Gardner" wrote: "John R. Carroll" wrote in .. . jimz wrote: I don't want this to happen again. http://hk.youtube.com/watch?v=8mKpOKK5S_U CLINTON dropped the ball on this one. snip How come you don't address the fact that Clinton could have gotten OBL a number of times but didn't? Was it above his pay grade? (Good thing OBL didn't change his name to "Vince Foster") Don't confuse Ms Carrol with the ugly truth. Your "truth" is a lie told originally by NewsMax. *Read the 9/11 Commission Report for the truth. http://www.9-11commission.gov/staff_...tatement_5.pdf (bottom of page 3): "These contacts with Sudan, which went on for years, have become a source of controversy. Former Sudanese officials claim that Sudan offered to expel Bin Ladin to the United States. Clinton administration officials deny ever receiving such an offer. We have not found any reliable evidence to support the Sudanese claim."- Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text - I thought you guys didn't believe the government? |
I'm voting republican because...
On Sep 12, 5:14*pm, "Hawke" wrote:
CLINTON dropped the ball on this one. snip How come you don't address the fact that Clinton could have gotten OBL a number of times but didn't? Was it above his pay grade? (Good thing OBL didn't change his name to "Vince Foster") Don't confuse Ms Carrol with the ugly truth. Your "truth" is a lie told originally by NewsMax. *Read the 9/11 Commission Report for the truth. http://www.9-11commission.gov/staff_...tatement_5.pdf (bottom of page 3): If you think that by informing our right wingers of the truth about the subject it will have any effect on their beliefs you are out of your mind.. The point is those guys don't care about the truth so informing them won't do any good. They believe what they want to believe and even if you show them they are wrong they still won't change their minds. That's just the way they are. Hawke The truth of your free health care is that I get to pay for mine and I get to pay for yours. |
I'm voting republican because...
On Sep 15, 9:55*pm, wrote:
The truth of your free health care is that I get to pay for mine and I get to pay for yours which you do now. it's just more expensive now than it would be under universal care. of course, if you lose your job and don't want health care, just refuse it...for you and your kids. i won't mind |
I'm voting republican because...
On Sep 15, 11:40*pm, wf3h wrote:
On Sep 15, 9:55*pm, wrote: The truth of your free health care is that I get to pay for mine and I get to pay for yours which you do now. it's just more expensive now than it would be under universal care. I get first dibs at the doctors under the present system. And why shouldn't I? I'm paying for it. Under the squirrels and the hawkes system, I pay for theirs and I pay for mine, and some else says who gets dibs on appointments and treatments. of course, if you lose your job and don't want health care, just refuse it...for you and your kids. i won't mind That, in part, is what motivates me to keep working. If only we could motivate the little squirrel and the little hawke to work... |
I'm voting republican because...
On Mon, 15 Sep 2008 21:29:20 -0700, hot-ham-and-cheese wrote:
On Sep 15, 11:40*pm, wf3h wrote: On Sep 15, 9:55*pm, wrote: The truth of your free health care is that I get to pay for mine and I get to pay for yours which you do now. it's just more expensive now than it would be under universal care. I get first dibs at the doctors under the present system. And why shouldn't I? I'm paying for it. Under the squirrels and the hawkes system, I pay for theirs and I pay for mine, and some else says who gets dibs on appointments and treatments. of course, if you lose your job and don't want health care, just refuse it...for you and your kids. i won't mind That, in part, is what motivates me to keep working. If only we could motivate the little squirrel and the little hawke to work... And you continue to make **** up. What psychedelics do you take? -- Regards, Curly ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ I Love Republicans, They Taste Just Like Chickenhawks ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ .................................................. ............... Posted via TITANnews - Uncensored Newsgroups Access at http://www.TitanNews.com -=Every Newsgroup - Anonymous, UNCENSORED, BROADBAND Downloads=- |
I'm voting republican because...
On Sep 15, 11:29*pm, wrote:
On Sep 15, 11:40*pm, wf3h wrote: On Sep 15, 9:55*pm, wrote: The truth of your free health care is that I get to pay for mine and I get to pay for yours which you do now. it's just more expensive now than it would be under universal care. I get first dibs at the doctors under the present system. *And why shouldn't I? *I'm paying for it. so you enjoy having average health care for inflated prices? yep sounds republican. Under the squirrels and the hawkes system, I pay for theirs and I pay for mine, and some else says who gets dibs on appointments and treatments. never heard of an HMO did you? they tell you what doctors you'll go to, what treatment they'll pay for, etc. you really HAVE swallowed the GOP kool aid, haven't you? you don't have control over your health care at all. your boss does. your insurance company does. you don't. of course, if you lose your job and don't want health care, just refuse it...for you and your kids. i won't mind That, in part, is what motivates me to keep working. *If only we could motivate the little squirrel and the little hawke to work... and if your company decides you and 5000 other folks need to get canned? oh. you're SO valuable your company would NEVER do that....just like they didnt at ATT, TI, HP, etc. |
I'm voting republican because...
On Sep 16, 2:32*am, Curly Surmudgeon wrote:
On Mon, 15 Sep 2008 21:29:20 -0700, hot-ham-and-cheese wrote: On Sep 15, 11:40*pm, wf3h wrote: On Sep 15, 9:55*pm, wrote: The truth of your free health care is that I get to pay for mine and I get to pay for yours which you do now. it's just more expensive now than it would be under universal care. I get first dibs at the doctors under the present system. *And why shouldn't I? *I'm paying for it. Under the squirrels and the hawkes system, I pay for theirs and I pay for mine, and some else says who gets dibs on appointments and treatments. of course, if you lose your job and don't want health care, just refuse it...for you and your kids. i won't mind That, in part, is what motivates me to keep working. *If only we could motivate the little squirrel and the little hawke to work... And you continue to make **** up. *What psychedelics do you take? -- it's part of his health care program...you know...the one he thinks he controls. |
I'm voting republican because...
wrote:
On Sep 12, 5:14 pm, "Hawke" wrote: CLINTON dropped the ball on this one. snip How come you don't address the fact that Clinton could have gotten OBL a number of times but didn't? Was it above his pay grade? (Good thing OBL didn't change his name to "Vince Foster") Don't confuse Ms Carrol with the ugly truth. Your "truth" is a lie told originally by NewsMax. Read the 9/11 Commission Report for the truth. http://www.9-11commission.gov/staff_...tatement_5.pdf (bottom of page 3): If you think that by informing our right wingers of the truth about the subject it will have any effect on their beliefs you are out of your mind. The point is those guys don't care about the truth so informing them won't do any good. They believe what they want to believe and even if you show them they are wrong they still won't change their minds. That's just the way they are. Hawke The truth of your free health care is that I get to pay for mine and I get to pay for yours. A study coming out Tuesday from scholars at Columbia, Harvard, Purdue and Michigan projects that 20 million Americans who have employment-based health insurance would lose it under the McCain plan. There is nothing secret about Senator McCain's far-reaching proposals, but they haven't gotten much attention because the chatter in this campaign has mostly been about nonsense - lipstick, celebrities and "Drill, baby, drill!" For starters, the McCain health plan would treat employer-paid health benefits as income that employees would have to pay taxes on. "It means your employer is going to have to make an estimate on how much the employer is paying for health insurance on your behalf, and you are going to have to pay taxes on that money," said Sherry Glied, an economist who chairs the Department of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. Ms. Glied is one of the four scholars who have just completed an independent joint study of the plan. Their findings are being published on the Web site of the policy journal, Health Affairs. http://healthaffairs.org/blog/2008/0...ice-the-price/ According to the study: "The McCain plan will force millions of Americans into the weakest segment of the private insurance system - the nongroup market - where cost-sharing is high, covered services are limited and people will lose access to benefits they have now." The net effect of the plan, the study said, "almost certainly will be to increase family costs for medical care." Under the McCain plan (now the McCain-Palin plan) employees who continue to receive employer-paid health benefits would look at their pay stubs each week or each month and find that additional money had been withheld to cover the taxes on the value of their benefits. -- John R. Carroll www.machiningsolution.com |
I'm voting republican because...
John R. Carroll wrote:
wrote: On Sep 12, 5:14 pm, "Hawke" wrote: CLINTON dropped the ball on this one. snip How come you don't address the fact that Clinton could have gotten OBL a number of times but didn't? Was it above his pay grade? (Good thing OBL didn't change his name to "Vince Foster") Don't confuse Ms Carrol with the ugly truth. Your "truth" is a lie told originally by NewsMax. Read the 9/11 Commission Report for the truth. http://www.9-11commission.gov/staff_...tatement_5.pdf (bottom of page 3): If you think that by informing our right wingers of the truth about the subject it will have any effect on their beliefs you are out of your mind. The point is those guys don't care about the truth so informing them won't do any good. They believe what they want to believe and even if you show them they are wrong they still won't change their minds. That's just the way they are. Hawke The truth of your free health care is that I get to pay for mine and I get to pay for yours. A study coming out Tuesday from scholars at Columbia, Harvard, Purdue and Michigan projects that 20 million Americans who have employment-based health insurance would lose it under the McCain plan. There is nothing secret about Senator McCain's far-reaching proposals, but they haven't gotten much attention because the chatter in this campaign has mostly been about nonsense - lipstick, celebrities and "Drill, baby, drill!" For starters, the McCain health plan would treat employer-paid health benefits as income that employees would have to pay taxes on. "It means your employer is going to have to make an estimate on how much the employer is paying for health insurance on your behalf, and you are going to have to pay taxes on that money," said Sherry Glied, an economist who chairs the Department of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. Ms. Glied is one of the four scholars who have just completed an independent joint study of the plan. Their findings are being published on the Web site of the policy journal, Health Affairs. http://healthaffairs.org/blog/2008/0...ice-the-price/ According to the study: "The McCain plan will force millions of Americans into the weakest segment of the private insurance system - the nongroup market - where cost-sharing is high, covered services are limited and people will lose access to benefits they have now." The net effect of the plan, the study said, "almost certainly will be to increase family costs for medical care." Under the McCain plan (now the McCain-Palin plan) employees who continue to receive employer-paid health benefits would look at their pay stubs each week or each month and find that additional money had been withheld to cover the taxes on the value of their benefits. The amount that would be withheld could be as much as $300 to $400 a month. This is, quite simply, a McCain-Palin regressive tax increase. |
Health Care
On Tue, 16 Sep 2008 10:22:28 -0700, John R. Carroll wrote:
wrote: On Sep 12, 5:14 pm, "Hawke" wrote: CLINTON dropped the ball on this one. snip How come you don't address the fact that Clinton could have gotten OBL a number of times but didn't? Was it above his pay grade? (Good thing OBL didn't change his name to "Vince Foster") Don't confuse Ms Carrol with the ugly truth. Your "truth" is a lie told originally by NewsMax. Read the 9/11 Commission Report for the truth. http://www.9-11commission.gov/staff_...tatement_5.pdf (bottom of page 3): If you think that by informing our right wingers of the truth about the subject it will have any effect on their beliefs you are out of your mind. The point is those guys don't care about the truth so informing them won't do any good. They believe what they want to believe and even if you show them they are wrong they still won't change their minds. That's just the way they are. Hawke The truth of your free health care is that I get to pay for mine and I get to pay for yours. A study coming out Tuesday from scholars at Columbia, Harvard, Purdue and Michigan projects that 20 million Americans who have employment-based health insurance would lose it under the McCain plan. There is nothing secret about Senator McCain's far-reaching proposals, but they haven't gotten much attention because the chatter in this campaign has mostly been about nonsense - lipstick, celebrities and "Drill, baby, drill!" For starters, the McCain health plan would treat employer-paid health benefits as income that employees would have to pay taxes on. "It means your employer is going to have to make an estimate on how much the employer is paying for health insurance on your behalf, and you are going to have to pay taxes on that money," said Sherry Glied, an economist who chairs the Department of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. Ms. Glied is one of the four scholars who have just completed an independent joint study of the plan. Their findings are being published on the Web site of the policy journal, Health Affairs. http://healthaffairs.org/blog/2008/0...ice-the-price/ According to the study: "The McCain plan will force millions of Americans into the weakest segment of the private insurance system - the nongroup market - where cost-sharing is high, covered services are limited and people will lose access to benefits they have now." The net effect of the plan, the study said, "almost certainly will be to increase family costs for medical care." Under the McCain plan (now the McCain-Palin plan) employees who continue to receive employer-paid health benefits would look at their pay stubs each week or each month and find that additional money had been withheld to cover the taxes on the value of their benefits. Lets not get sidetracked into the health insurance debate for it masks the underlying problem. The fundamental problem is that our health care system has been hijacked by corporate powers making healthcare too expensive. Health care insurance is just another facade by those who have plundered our economy. Have you tried to get a doctors appointment without insurance? -- Regards, Curly ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ I Love Republicans, They Taste Just Like Chickenhawks ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ .................................................. ............... Posted via TITANnews - Uncensored Newsgroups Access at http://www.TitanNews.com -=Every Newsgroup - Anonymous, UNCENSORED, BROADBAND Downloads=- |
I'm voting republican because...
On Tue, 16 Sep 2008 05:39:04 -0700, wf3h wrote:
On Sep 15, 11:29*pm, wrote: On Sep 15, 11:40*pm, wf3h wrote: On Sep 15, 9:55*pm, wrote: The truth of your free health care is that I get to pay for mine and I get to pay for yours which you do now. it's just more expensive now than it would be under universal care. I get first dibs at the doctors under the present system. *And why shouldn't I? *I'm paying for it. so you enjoy having average health care for inflated prices? You hit the nail on the head, "insurance" isn't the problem. yep sounds republican. Under the squirrels and the hawkes system, I pay for theirs and I pay for mine, and some else says who gets dibs on appointments and treatments. Cite? -- Regards, Curly ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ I Love Republicans, They Taste Just Like Chickenhawks ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ .................................................. ............... Posted via TITANnews - Uncensored Newsgroups Access at http://www.TitanNews.com -=Every Newsgroup - Anonymous, UNCENSORED, BROADBAND Downloads=- |
Health Care
Curly Surmudgeon wrote:
On Tue, 16 Sep 2008 10:22:28 -0700, John R. Carroll wrote: wrote: On Sep 12, 5:14 pm, "Hawke" wrote: CLINTON dropped the ball on this one. snip How come you don't address the fact that Clinton could have gotten OBL a number of times but didn't? Was it above his pay grade? (Good thing OBL didn't change his name to "Vince Foster") Don't confuse Ms Carrol with the ugly truth. Your "truth" is a lie told originally by NewsMax. Read the 9/11 Commission Report for the truth. http://www.9-11commission.gov/staff_...tatement_5.pdf (bottom of page 3): If you think that by informing our right wingers of the truth about the subject it will have any effect on their beliefs you are out of your mind. The point is those guys don't care about the truth so informing them won't do any good. They believe what they want to believe and even if you show them they are wrong they still won't change their minds. That's just the way they are. Hawke The truth of your free health care is that I get to pay for mine and I get to pay for yours. A study coming out Tuesday from scholars at Columbia, Harvard, Purdue and Michigan projects that 20 million Americans who have employment-based health insurance would lose it under the McCain plan. There is nothing secret about Senator McCain's far-reaching proposals, but they haven't gotten much attention because the chatter in this campaign has mostly been about nonsense - lipstick, celebrities and "Drill, baby, drill!" For starters, the McCain health plan would treat employer-paid health benefits as income that employees would have to pay taxes on. "It means your employer is going to have to make an estimate on how much the employer is paying for health insurance on your behalf, and you are going to have to pay taxes on that money," said Sherry Glied, an economist who chairs the Department of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. Ms. Glied is one of the four scholars who have just completed an independent joint study of the plan. Their findings are being published on the Web site of the policy journal, Health Affairs. http://healthaffairs.org/blog/2008/0...ice-the-price/ According to the study: "The McCain plan will force millions of Americans into the weakest segment of the private insurance system - the nongroup market - where cost-sharing is high, covered services are limited and people will lose access to benefits they have now." The net effect of the plan, the study said, "almost certainly will be to increase family costs for medical care." Under the McCain plan (now the McCain-Palin plan) employees who continue to receive employer-paid health benefits would look at their pay stubs each week or each month and find that additional money had been withheld to cover the taxes on the value of their benefits. Lets not get sidetracked into the health insurance debate for it masks the underlying problem. The fundamental problem is that our health care system has been hijacked by corporate powers making healthcare too expensive. Health care insurance is just another facade by those who have plundered our economy. Have you tried to get a doctors appointment without insurance? Sure. My doctors all love me. I pay them with $100's up to $5K and beyond that write checks. My prosthodontist lowered a quote from $25K all the way down to thirteen thousand. The entire treatment was done over an eighteen month period and I baid inadvance and with cash. I'll bet I could get a house call as a courtesy if I wanted. -- John R. Carroll www.machiningsolution.com |
Health Care
"Curly Surmudgeon" wrote in message . .. snip Lets not get sidetracked into the health insurance debate for it masks the underlying problem. The fundamental problem is that our health care system has been hijacked by corporate powers making healthcare too expensive. Nonsense. The main thing that makes it so expensive is that medical technology marches forward, not backward, and there's always more stuff to apply to medical problems -- increasingly expensive stuff. And it marches forward because people will pay for it, as an alternative to living in misery or dying. There's always a ready market for new drugs and new medical technology. Health care insurance is just another facade by those who have plundered our economy. Have you tried to get a doctors appointment without insurance? Ask Larry. -- Ed Huntress |
Health Care
"Curly Surmudgeon" wrote in message . .. On Tue, 16 Sep 2008 13:55:31 -0400, Ed Huntress wrote: "Curly Surmudgeon" wrote in message . .. snip Lets not get sidetracked into the health insurance debate for it masks the underlying problem. The fundamental problem is that our health care system has been hijacked by corporate powers making healthcare too expensive. Nonsense. The main thing that makes it so expensive is that medical technology marches forward, not backward, and there's always more stuff to apply to medical problems -- increasingly expensive stuff. That is one factor but there are many others such as malpractice insurance but the overriding component is that a corporate monopoly has seized control of the industry at large. Sure, Curley, malpractice insurance is a factor, and there are many other factors. It's not a single thing that's done all of it. But if you spend some time sorting out where the costs are you'll see that most of it boils down to the fact that doctors can -- and do -- employ more expensive drugs, procedures, and so on. Technology has brought down the costs of some treatments but it's increased the cost of many more, and added hundreds, or thousands, of completely new ones. Couple that with the malpractice insurance mess, which leads to excessive testing and so on, and all of the technology is simply employed more. Just amortizing an MRI machine results in incredible costs for an MRI. I think my last one was $880, and took maybe 30 minutes of machine time and the time of two technicians. It's a multi-million-dollar machine and they charge shop time on amortization, just like in a machine shop. g In the old days, they'd just apply an educated guess to what's wrong in that joint or brain. Meantime, here's another one: I have a nice new insulin pump with feedback sitting in a box next to me, to be stuck into/onto me tomorrow. It cost $6,000. 35 years ago I had a 25-cent syringe and a $10/month bottle of insulin, and that was it, pard'. Pumps didn't exist. Neither did home blood-glucose monitoring. I just took a stab at it -- literally. g I got lucky and survived it with my limbs, kidneys, and eyes. Good luck for me. And it marches forward because people will pay for it, as an alternative to living in misery or dying. That substantiates my point. Let me give an example: My daughter had her first yeast infection. A simple anti-fungal yeast prescription was all that was required yet the doctor/hospital demanded a pregnancy test (she was/is virgin), blood panels, hormone tests, etc. running the price up to $4,600. Then they wanted to negotiate. Note that not a single curative action was taken. Right, but that's only marginally a "corporate powers" issue. That's mostly a "we don't want to be sued" issue. Take it up with the tort reformers. We can sure use some tort reform. Now, if you want to know what I do when I suspect a doctor/hospital is just running up my costs to keep the cash flowing to their own lab, I tell them "please write a prescription for the test procedure, and I'll check around to see where I want it done." Then I go look up the procedure and see if I really want to have it done at all. Most hospitals, particularly, are in desperate cash-flow situations now. It's not greed that drives it. It's their survival. In Argentina no prescription is required, just a visit to a local pharmacy with a short discussion to an educated pharmacist and a $7 prescription which I mailed to her. Cured the infection in 3 days. So, did she have this infection in the US or in Argentina? Health Care is essentially unavailable in the US without insurance. That is hijacking health care holding Americans hostage. Actually, that's not the case. Emergency rooms can't refuse you, and many people use ERs as their primary-care physicians. Then the rest of us pay for it. There's always a ready market for new drugs and new medical technology. True, and sometimes the costs are justified. But recognize that a full 60% of new drugs are governmentally subsidized through university research then turned over to pharmaceuticals for manufacture and distribution with but a bare tithe to the university while Abbott et. al. gains usuary profits on our own tax dollar. sigh I'm well aware of how that works. My last job in a medical communication agency involved a drug on which Sanofi-Aventis had paid something like $135 million in development costs, and $110 million in pre-approval marketing costs (which was paying my salary). Then the FDA decided not to approve the drug. So my company laid half of us off. d8-) The basic research on that drug was not from a university, however. I know that a lot of the basic research is done in universities. What you may not know is that the testing that the pharma companies have to go through after some basic-science lab makes a discovery often costs ten times more than the basic research. Generics, Canadian, and other sources are often 90% cheaper. Of course. Generics just ride on the research, testing, post-marketing studies and marketing that was done for the original drug. All they have to recover is manufacturing costs and quality-control reporting. In Canada, they have price controls and just refuse to allow the drug companies to amortize research and development. The Canadians, and the French, and the Brits, and everyone else knows that they can collect those costs in the US. Don't like it? Talk to your congressman. The money has to come from somewhere, or nobody will have any new drugs. Health care insurance is just another facade by those who have plundered our economy. Have you tried to get a doctors appointment without insurance? Ask Larry. Non responsive. Oh, Larry is quite responsive, and he has no insurance. He's the one to ask. I've had insurance without a break for decades, excepting one gap of a few months when my COBRA ran out and I was having trouble getting new insurance. (My doctors knew it, and took me anyway.) So I don't know what it's like now. -- Ed Huntress |
Health Care
On Tue, 16 Sep 2008 15:58:22 -0400, Ed Huntress wrote:
"Curly Surmudgeon" wrote in message . .. On Tue, 16 Sep 2008 13:55:31 -0400, Ed Huntress wrote: "Curly Surmudgeon" wrote in message . .. snip Lets not get sidetracked into the health insurance debate for it masks the underlying problem. The fundamental problem is that our health care system has been hijacked by corporate powers making healthcare too expensive. Nonsense. The main thing that makes it so expensive is that medical technology marches forward, not backward, and there's always more stuff to apply to medical problems -- increasingly expensive stuff. That is one factor but there are many others such as malpractice insurance but the overriding component is that a corporate monopoly has seized control of the industry at large. Sure, Curley, malpractice insurance is a factor, and there are many other factors. It's not a single thing that's done all of it. But if you spend some time sorting out where the costs are you'll see that most of it boils down to the fact that doctors can -- and do -- employ more expensive drugs, procedures, and so on. That's what I was attempting to communicate, there are many factors, but the underlying commonality is corporate monopoly of the health care industry. Technology has brought down the costs of some treatments but it's increased the cost of many more, and added hundreds, or thousands, of completely new ones. Couple that with the malpractice insurance mess, which leads to excessive testing and so on, and all of the technology is simply employed more. Just amortizing an MRI machine results in incredible costs for an MRI. I think my last one was $880, and took maybe 30 minutes of machine time and the time of two technicians. It's a multi-million-dollar machine and they charge shop time on amortization, just like in a machine shop. g In the old days, they'd just apply an educated guess to what's wrong in that joint or brain. Not my point. Meantime, here's another one: I have a nice new insulin pump with feedback sitting in a box next to me, to be stuck into/onto me tomorrow. It cost $6,000. 35 years ago I had a 25-cent syringe and a $10/month bottle of insulin, and that was it, pard'. Pumps didn't exist. Neither did home blood-glucose monitoring. I just took a stab at it -- literally. g I got lucky and survived it with my limbs, kidneys, and eyes. Good luck for me. And if you weren't forced to have health care would you have paid for the pump? Note, I've designed medical instrumentation. One product is not too dissimilar to your insulin pump, it took a blood sample from a drip line and tested for lactate acid giving real time results. I am very familiar with the industry. And it marches forward because people will pay for it, as an alternative to living in misery or dying. That substantiates my point. Let me give an example: My daughter had her first yeast infection. A simple anti-fungal yeast prescription was all that was required yet the doctor/hospital demanded a pregnancy test (she was/is virgin), blood panels, hormone tests, etc. running the price up to $4,600. Then they wanted to negotiate. Note that not a single curative action was taken. Right, but that's only marginally a "corporate powers" issue. That's mostly a "we don't want to be sued" issue. Take it up with the tort reformers. We can sure use some tort reform. I don't think it is a tort issue but a corporate hospital trying to fleece patients. The outcome was that we paid to prevent a negative credit rating then sued in small claims recovering almost all the charge. The judge read the riot act to the hospital agent. Now, if you want to know what I do when I suspect a doctor/hospital is just running up my costs to keep the cash flowing to their own lab, I tell them "please write a prescription for the test procedure, and I'll check around to see where I want it done." Then I go look up the procedure and see if I really want to have it done at all. Do you have health insurance? Most people take everything they can get when the price is subsidized by insurance, a different situation arises when cost is out of pocket. Most hospitals, particularly, are in desperate cash-flow situations now. It's not greed that drives it. It's their survival. In Argentina no prescription is required, just a visit to a local pharmacy with a short discussion to an educated pharmacist and a $7 prescription which I mailed to her. Cured the infection in 3 days. So, did she have this infection in the US or in Argentina? In the USA, she's still in college. Health Care is essentially unavailable in the US without insurance. That is hijacking health care holding Americans hostage. Actually, that's not the case. Emergency rooms can't refuse you, and many people use ERs as their primary-care physicians. Then the rest of us pay for it. True but the root cause is that health care insurance is unavailable at rational cost. Kaiser for my wife and I would be $1600/month in the USA and is about $25 in Argentina. There's always a ready market for new drugs and new medical technology. True, and sometimes the costs are justified. But recognize that a full 60% of new drugs are governmentally subsidized through university research then turned over to pharmaceuticals for manufacture and distribution with but a bare tithe to the university while Abbott et. al. gains usuary profits on our own tax dollar. sigh I'm well aware of how that works. My last job in a medical communication agency involved a drug on which Sanofi-Aventis had paid something like $135 million in development costs, and $110 million in pre-approval marketing costs (which was paying my salary). Then the FDA decided not to approve the drug. So my company laid half of us off. d8-) The basic research on that drug was not from a university, however. I know that a lot of the basic research is done in universities. What you may not know is that the testing that the pharma companies have to go through after some basic-science lab makes a discovery often costs ten times more than the basic research. I'm familiar with the problem. The FDA should be an advisory, not regulatory, agency. All the special interest groups like, encourage, support, and fund that evil. Note that I've actually been through the FDA approval process. Not responsible but as an independent contractor responsible for adhering to the requirements on glucose monitors, inhalation dispensers and patient monitoring systems. Generics, Canadian, and other sources are often 90% cheaper. Of course. Generics just ride on the research, testing, post-marketing studies and marketing that was done for the original drug. All they have to recover is manufacturing costs and quality-control reporting. In Canada, they have price controls and just refuse to allow the drug companies to amortize research and development. The Canadians, and the French, and the Brits, and everyone else knows that they can collect those costs in the US. How long do you think a pharmaceutical should have a monopoly? Is 17 years not enough? And do you believe that a patent monopoly gives the right to blackmail public health? Don't jump to the conclusion that I'm a socialist. Neither am I a greedy capitalist extremist. There is a large grey area to discuss. Don't like it? Talk to your congressman. The money has to come from somewhere, or nobody will have any new drugs. Ha! My congressman is John Doolittle. I've tried to consult him previously and been denied because I didn't contribute to his campaign funds. He is now about to be tried for corruption. Placer County, California is about 40% Mor(m)on and they own the political process. Health care insurance is just another facade by those who have plundered our economy. Have you tried to get a doctors appointment without insurance? Ask Larry. Non responsive. Oh, Larry is quite responsive, and he has no insurance. He's the one to ask. I have no US insurance and refuse to bankrupt ourselves paying. It's impossible in California to get a doctors appointment without insurance and it's actually cheaper to live in Argentina and commute back and forth getting my healthcare there. It more than pays for transportation. I've had insurance without a break for decades, excepting one gap of a few months when my COBRA ran out and I was having trouble getting new insurance. (My doctors knew it, and took me anyway.) So I don't know what it's like now. You are one of the lucky, many cannot get insurance because they are under employed, unemployed, homeless. This transitions into the quality of care issue too. Another factor we've not discussed is the costs caused by AMA monopoly of providers. Midwives and alternative treatments have essentially been banned to create a monopoly. Then there is the FDA making many drugs prescription only. In fact some years ago the FDA stated that they would have made many current over the counter drugs a prescription item if they had it to do over. They are now trying to rectify that by regulating vitamins, minerals and even tobacco. It's a complex topic. We agree that there is no one cause, unless you agree with me that governmentally mandated monopolies are the root cause. -- Regards, Curly ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ I Love Republicans, They Taste Just Like Chickenhawks ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ .................................................. ............... Posted via TITANnews - Uncensored Newsgroups Access at http://www.TitanNews.com -=Every Newsgroup - Anonymous, UNCENSORED, BROADBAND Downloads=- |
Health Care
"Curly Surmudgeon" wrote in message . .. On Tue, 16 Sep 2008 15:58:22 -0400, Ed Huntress wrote: "Curly Surmudgeon" wrote in message . .. On Tue, 16 Sep 2008 13:55:31 -0400, Ed Huntress wrote: "Curly Surmudgeon" wrote in message . .. snip Lets not get sidetracked into the health insurance debate for it masks the underlying problem. The fundamental problem is that our health care system has been hijacked by corporate powers making healthcare too expensive. Nonsense. The main thing that makes it so expensive is that medical technology marches forward, not backward, and there's always more stuff to apply to medical problems -- increasingly expensive stuff. That is one factor but there are many others such as malpractice insurance but the overriding component is that a corporate monopoly has seized control of the industry at large. Sure, Curley, malpractice insurance is a factor, and there are many other factors. It's not a single thing that's done all of it. But if you spend some time sorting out where the costs are you'll see that most of it boils down to the fact that doctors can -- and do -- employ more expensive drugs, procedures, and so on. That's what I was attempting to communicate, there are many factors, but the underlying commonality is corporate monopoly of the health care industry. I think this would take more time to sort out than either of us want to give it. Technology has brought down the costs of some treatments but it's increased the cost of many more, and added hundreds, or thousands, of completely new ones. Couple that with the malpractice insurance mess, which leads to excessive testing and so on, and all of the technology is simply employed more. Just amortizing an MRI machine results in incredible costs for an MRI. I think my last one was $880, and took maybe 30 minutes of machine time and the time of two technicians. It's a multi-million-dollar machine and they charge shop time on amortization, just like in a machine shop. g In the old days, they'd just apply an educated guess to what's wrong in that joint or brain. Not my point. But it's *my* point, in response to your point. d8-) We do more in medicine because we can. Meantime, here's another one: I have a nice new insulin pump with feedback sitting in a box next to me, to be stuck into/onto me tomorrow. It cost $6,000. 35 years ago I had a 25-cent syringe and a $10/month bottle of insulin, and that was it, pard'. Pumps didn't exist. Neither did home blood-glucose monitoring. I just took a stab at it -- literally. g I got lucky and survived it with my limbs, kidneys, and eyes. Good luck for me. And if you weren't forced to have health care would you have paid for the pump? Yes, now I would. I just went through six sessions of laser eye surgery for PDR. I don't want to do it again. I'll pay for the best control I can get. Note, I've designed medical instrumentation. One product is not too dissimilar to your insulin pump, it took a blood sample from a drip line and tested for lactate acid giving real time results. I am very familiar with the industry. Well, maybe I should interview you for an article I've had in the can for a year. It's about medical-device manufacturing and meeting the FDA and customer requirements. I have eight interviews done, but I'm losing energy for it. And it marches forward because people will pay for it, as an alternative to living in misery or dying. That substantiates my point. Let me give an example: My daughter had her first yeast infection. A simple anti-fungal yeast prescription was all that was required yet the doctor/hospital demanded a pregnancy test (she was/is virgin), blood panels, hormone tests, etc. running the price up to $4,600. Then they wanted to negotiate. Note that not a single curative action was taken. Right, but that's only marginally a "corporate powers" issue. That's mostly a "we don't want to be sued" issue. Take it up with the tort reformers. We can sure use some tort reform. I don't think it is a tort issue but a corporate hospital trying to fleece patients. The outcome was that we paid to prevent a negative credit rating then sued in small claims recovering almost all the charge. The judge read the riot act to the hospital agent. OK, there are some of those. Now, if you want to know what I do when I suspect a doctor/hospital is just running up my costs to keep the cash flowing to their own lab, I tell them "please write a prescription for the test procedure, and I'll check around to see where I want it done." Then I go look up the procedure and see if I really want to have it done at all. Do you have health insurance? Yup. Most people take everything they can get when the price is subsidized by insurance, a different situation arises when cost is out of pocket. I'm not most people. I try to protect my clients' money, or my customers' money -- even the money of my service providers. It's a genetic trait, because I come from a long line of hardboiled New England rock-farming skinflints. Most hospitals, particularly, are in desperate cash-flow situations now. It's not greed that drives it. It's their survival. In Argentina no prescription is required, just a visit to a local pharmacy with a short discussion to an educated pharmacist and a $7 prescription which I mailed to her. Cured the infection in 3 days. So, did she have this infection in the US or in Argentina? In the USA, she's still in college. Health Care is essentially unavailable in the US without insurance. That is hijacking health care holding Americans hostage. Actually, that's not the case. Emergency rooms can't refuse you, and many people use ERs as their primary-care physicians. Then the rest of us pay for it. True but the root cause is that health care insurance is unavailable at rational cost. Kaiser for my wife and I would be $1600/month in the USA and is about $25 in Argentina. So, Argentina has subsidized or government-run insurance. I'm all for it. There's always a ready market for new drugs and new medical technology. True, and sometimes the costs are justified. But recognize that a full 60% of new drugs are governmentally subsidized through university research then turned over to pharmaceuticals for manufacture and distribution with but a bare tithe to the university while Abbott et. al. gains usuary profits on our own tax dollar. sigh I'm well aware of how that works. My last job in a medical communication agency involved a drug on which Sanofi-Aventis had paid something like $135 million in development costs, and $110 million in pre-approval marketing costs (which was paying my salary). Then the FDA decided not to approve the drug. So my company laid half of us off. d8-) The basic research on that drug was not from a university, however. I know that a lot of the basic research is done in universities. What you may not know is that the testing that the pharma companies have to go through after some basic-science lab makes a discovery often costs ten times more than the basic research. I'm familiar with the problem. The FDA should be an advisory, not regulatory, agency. All the special interest groups like, encourage, support, and fund that evil. I completely disagree about having the FDA become an advisory agency, for the same reason we got the FDA in the first place. Those greedy corporate types you're complaining about wouldn't mind killing many more people if they could get away with it. Testing on humans first is the way to make more money. Note that I've actually been through the FDA approval process. Not responsible but as an independent contractor responsible for adhering to the requirements on glucose monitors, inhalation dispensers and patient monitoring systems. Generics, Canadian, and other sources are often 90% cheaper. Of course. Generics just ride on the research, testing, post-marketing studies and marketing that was done for the original drug. All they have to recover is manufacturing costs and quality-control reporting. In Canada, they have price controls and just refuse to allow the drug companies to amortize research and development. The Canadians, and the French, and the Brits, and everyone else knows that they can collect those costs in the US. How long do you think a pharmaceutical should have a monopoly? Is 17 years not enough? It depends on how you structure it. Some kind of regulated, extended and mandatory licensing would reduce prices and keep up enough income to fund big trials. And it's the big clinical trials that cost most of the money in pharma. Patented medicines are too expensive, but generics are too cheap. And do you believe that a patent monopoly gives the right to blackmail public health? Nope, the whole system is fairly broken. Don't jump to the conclusion that I'm a socialist. Neither am I a greedy capitalist extremist. There is a large grey area to discuss. Don't like it? Talk to your congressman. The money has to come from somewhere, or nobody will have any new drugs. Ha! My congressman is John Doolittle. I've tried to consult him previously and been denied because I didn't contribute to his campaign funds. He is now about to be tried for corruption. Placer County, California is about 40% Mor(m)on and they own the political process. Health care insurance is just another facade by those who have plundered our economy. Have you tried to get a doctors appointment without insurance? Ask Larry. Non responsive. Oh, Larry is quite responsive, and he has no insurance. He's the one to ask. I have no US insurance and refuse to bankrupt ourselves paying. It's impossible in California to get a doctors appointment without insurance and it's actually cheaper to live in Argentina and commute back and forth getting my healthcare there. It more than pays for transportation. Do you know our friend Hamei, who used to hang out here? He used to fly to China for his dental work. Now he lives there. I've had insurance without a break for decades, excepting one gap of a few months when my COBRA ran out and I was having trouble getting new insurance. (My doctors knew it, and took me anyway.) So I don't know what it's like now. You are one of the lucky, many cannot get insurance because they are under employed, unemployed, homeless. Yeah, we know. I'm very lucky. The year before last I paid insurance out of my pocket for six months, and it cost me almost $7,000. This transitions into the quality of care issue too. Another factor we've not discussed is the costs caused by AMA monopoly of providers. Midwives and alternative treatments have essentially been banned to create a monopoly. Then there is the FDA making many drugs prescription only. In fact some years ago the FDA stated that they would have made many current over the counter drugs a prescription item if they had it to do over. They are now trying to rectify that by regulating vitamins, minerals and even tobacco. We Americans have an aversion to reading about dead people who took drugs they were told were OK. It's a complex topic. We agree that there is no one cause, unless you agree with me that governmentally mandated monopolies are the root cause. I'd have to see your analysis of that. My own experience in the industry, which lasted only a little over four years, tells me something different. But it's a tangle that needs to be untangled. On that, I'm sure we agree. -- Ed Huntress |
I'm voting republican because...
On Sep 16, 3:32*am, Curly Surmudgeon wrote:
On Mon, 15 Sep 2008 21:29:20 -0700, hot-ham-and-cheese wrote: On Sep 15, 11:40*pm, wf3h wrote: On Sep 15, 9:55*pm, wrote: The truth of your free health care is that I get to pay for mine and I get to pay for yours which you do now. it's just more expensive now than it would be under universal care. I get first dibs at the doctors under the present system. *And why shouldn't I? *I'm paying for it. Under the squirrels and the hawkes system, I pay for theirs and I pay for mine, and some else says who gets dibs on appointments and treatments. of course, if you lose your job and don't want health care, just refuse it...for you and your kids. i won't mind That, in part, is what motivates me to keep working. *If only we could motivate the little squirrel and the little hawke to work... And you continue to make **** up. *What psychedelics do you take? I don't make up ****. The little squirrel and the little hawke are short-sale "investors." What kind of health plan comes with that? None. You guys are waiting for me to pay for your health care. |
I'm voting republican because...
On Sep 16, 8:39*am, wf3h wrote:
On Sep 16, 2:32*am, Curly Surmudgeon wrote: On Mon, 15 Sep 2008 21:29:20 -0700, hot-ham-and-cheese wrote: On Sep 15, 11:40*pm, wf3h wrote: On Sep 15, 9:55*pm, wrote: The truth of your free health care is that I get to pay for mine and I get to pay for yours which you do now. it's just more expensive now than it would be under universal care. I get first dibs at the doctors under the present system. *And why shouldn't I? *I'm paying for it. Under the squirrels and the hawkes system, I pay for theirs and I pay for mine, and some else says who gets dibs on appointments and treatments.. of course, if you lose your job and don't want health care, just refuse it...for you and your kids. i won't mind That, in part, is what motivates me to keep working. *If only we could motivate the little squirrel and the little hawke to work... And you continue to make **** up. *What psychedelics do you take? -- it's part of his health care program...you know...the one he thinks he controls. I can switch plan or go without. I have choices that don't involve your money. The little squirrel's and the little hawke's choices involve my money. Do I add you to that list? |
I'm voting republican because...
On Sep 16, 8:39*am, wf3h wrote:
On Sep 15, 11:29*pm, wrote: On Sep 15, 11:40*pm, wf3h wrote: On Sep 15, 9:55*pm, wrote: The truth of your free health care is that I get to pay for mine and I get to pay for yours which you do now. it's just more expensive now than it would be under universal care. I get first dibs at the doctors under the present system. *And why shouldn't I? *I'm paying for it. so you enjoy having average health care for inflated prices? I enjoy paying my own way. yep sounds republican. Yeh, that whole, ummm, personal responsibility thingy really upsets some folks. Under the squirrels and the hawkes system, I pay for theirs and I pay for mine, and some else says who gets dibs on appointments and treatments. never heard of an HMO did you? they tell you what doctors you'll go to, what treatment they'll pay for, etc. I could have selected the HMO route and paid less. Instead I selected a Preferred Choice plan. Under the plan where I pay for my health care and I pay for your health care, I get less than the HMO. Why would I want that? you really HAVE swallowed the GOP kool aid, haven't you? you don't have control over your health care at all. your boss does. your insurance company does. As it stands now, I can change plans and I can change bosses. Under the plan where I pay for me and I pay for you, I have fare fewer choices because there just isn't enough money to go around. I guess I should work harder, huh? you don't. You don't. of course, if you lose your job and don't want health care, just refuse it...for you and your kids. i won't mind That, in part, is what motivates me to keep working. *If only we could motivate the little squirrel and the little hawke to work... and if your company decides you and 5000 other folks need to get canned? Then I move. There aren't enough jobs in Ohio to soak up another 5,000 unemployed. Or... I could become a short-sale "investor." oh. you're SO valuable your company would NEVER do that....just like they didnt at ATT, TI, HP, etc. Not at all. My neck is on the chopping block right now. I'll probably know by Christmas. I'm planning on moving should my job evaporate. Sayonara Ohio, and Ohio can say sayonara to my tax base, my education, and my earnings capacity. Florida, Texas, or Missouri would like to have me in their work force. |
I'm voting republican because...
On Sep 16, 1:46*pm, Curly Surmudgeon wrote:
On Tue, 16 Sep 2008 05:39:04 -0700, wf3h wrote: On Sep 15, 11:29*pm, wrote: On Sep 15, 11:40*pm, wf3h wrote: On Sep 15, 9:55*pm, wrote: The truth of your free health care is that I get to pay for mine and I get to pay for yours which you do now. it's just more expensive now than it would be under universal care. I get first dibs at the doctors under the present system. *And why shouldn't I? *I'm paying for it. so you enjoy having average health care for inflated prices? You hit the nail on the head, "insurance" isn't the problem. It isn't for me. Is it a problem for you? |
Health Care
On Tue, 16 Sep 2008 17:33:16 -0400, Ed Huntress wrote:
"Curly Surmudgeon" wrote in message . .. On Tue, 16 Sep 2008 15:58:22 -0400, Ed Huntress wrote: "Curly Surmudgeon" wrote in message . .. On Tue, 16 Sep 2008 13:55:31 -0400, Ed Huntress wrote: "Curly Surmudgeon" wrote in message . .. snip Lets not get sidetracked into the health insurance debate for it masks the underlying problem. The fundamental problem is that our health care system has been hijacked by corporate powers making healthcare too expensive. Nonsense. The main thing that makes it so expensive is that medical technology marches forward, not backward, and there's always more stuff to apply to medical problems -- increasingly expensive stuff. That is one factor but there are many others such as malpractice insurance but the overriding component is that a corporate monopoly has seized control of the industry at large. Sure, Curley, malpractice insurance is a factor, and there are many other factors. It's not a single thing that's done all of it. But if you spend some time sorting out where the costs are you'll see that most of it boils down to the fact that doctors can -- and do -- employ more expensive drugs, procedures, and so on. That's what I was attempting to communicate, there are many factors, but the underlying commonality is corporate monopoly of the health care industry. I think this would take more time to sort out than either of us want to give it. Agreed. Technology has brought down the costs of some treatments but it's increased the cost of many more, and added hundreds, or thousands, of completely new ones. Couple that with the malpractice insurance mess, which leads to excessive testing and so on, and all of the technology is simply employed more. Just amortizing an MRI machine results in incredible costs for an MRI. I think my last one was $880, and took maybe 30 minutes of machine time and the time of two technicians. It's a multi-million-dollar machine and they charge shop time on amortization, just like in a machine shop. g In the old days, they'd just apply an educated guess to what's wrong in that joint or brain. Not my point. But it's *my* point, in response to your point. d8-) We do more in medicine because we can. Ok, we were speaking to different vectors. Meantime, here's another one: I have a nice new insulin pump with feedback sitting in a box next to me, to be stuck into/onto me tomorrow. It cost $6,000. 35 years ago I had a 25-cent syringe and a $10/month bottle of insulin, and that was it, pard'. Pumps didn't exist. Neither did home blood-glucose monitoring. I just took a stab at it -- literally. g I got lucky and survived it with my limbs, kidneys, and eyes. Good luck for me. And if you weren't forced to have health care would you have paid for the pump? Yes, now I would. I just went through six sessions of laser eye surgery for PDR. I don't want to do it again. I'll pay for the best control I can get. Physicians Desk Reference? Dunno "PDR." Most diabetics would opt for injections when the pump is out of pocket, except for those in extreme distress. Note, I've designed medical instrumentation. One product is not too dissimilar to your insulin pump, it took a blood sample from a drip line and tested for lactate acid giving real time results. I am very familiar with the industry. Well, maybe I should interview you for an article I've had in the can for a year. It's about medical-device manufacturing and meeting the FDA and customer requirements. I have eight interviews done, but I'm losing energy for it. Use my email in the header. And it marches forward because people will pay for it, as an alternative to living in misery or dying. That substantiates my point. Let me give an example: My daughter had her first yeast infection. A simple anti-fungal yeast prescription was all that was required yet the doctor/hospital demanded a pregnancy test (she was/is virgin), blood panels, hormone tests, etc. running the price up to $4,600. Then they wanted to negotiate. Note that not a single curative action was taken. Right, but that's only marginally a "corporate powers" issue. That's mostly a "we don't want to be sued" issue. Take it up with the tort reformers. We can sure use some tort reform. I don't think it is a tort issue but a corporate hospital trying to fleece patients. The outcome was that we paid to prevent a negative credit rating then sued in small claims recovering almost all the charge. The judge read the riot act to the hospital agent. OK, there are some of those. Now, if you want to know what I do when I suspect a doctor/hospital is just running up my costs to keep the cash flowing to their own lab, I tell them "please write a prescription for the test procedure, and I'll check around to see where I want it done." Then I go look up the procedure and see if I really want to have it done at all. Do you have health insurance? Yup. Most people take everything they can get when the price is subsidized by insurance, a different situation arises when cost is out of pocket. I'm not most people. I try to protect my clients' money, or my customers' money -- even the money of my service providers. It's a genetic trait, because I come from a long line of hardboiled New England rock-farming skinflints. Not too different here, Scottish ancestry raised by Hoosier grandparents. Most hospitals, particularly, are in desperate cash-flow situations now. It's not greed that drives it. It's their survival. In Argentina no prescription is required, just a visit to a local pharmacy with a short discussion to an educated pharmacist and a $7 prescription which I mailed to her. Cured the infection in 3 days. So, did she have this infection in the US or in Argentina? In the USA, she's still in college. Health Care is essentially unavailable in the US without insurance. That is hijacking health care holding Americans hostage. Actually, that's not the case. Emergency rooms can't refuse you, and many people use ERs as their primary-care physicians. Then the rest of us pay for it. True but the root cause is that health care insurance is unavailable at rational cost. Kaiser for my wife and I would be $1600/month in the USA and is about $25 in Argentina. So, Argentina has subsidized or government-run insurance. I'm all for it. Kinda, sorta both. Immigrants can buy into the state system but each municipality has an open clinic where the costs are very cheap. A front/side chest x-ray cost about $13, dental extraction of molar with abscess cost a friend $6.70, etc. I've bought into private health care at a local hospital chain. Ambulance service is free, I used it two nights running when semi-conscious and unable to drive. Heh, I had _chicken_pox_ at my age... Never knew it could be life threatening... There's always a ready market for new drugs and new medical technology. True, and sometimes the costs are justified. But recognize that a full 60% of new drugs are governmentally subsidized through university research then turned over to pharmaceuticals for manufacture and distribution with but a bare tithe to the university while Abbott et. al. gains usuary profits on our own tax dollar. sigh I'm well aware of how that works. My last job in a medical communication agency involved a drug on which Sanofi-Aventis had paid something like $135 million in development costs, and $110 million in pre-approval marketing costs (which was paying my salary). Then the FDA decided not to approve the drug. So my company laid half of us off. d8-) The basic research on that drug was not from a university, however. I know that a lot of the basic research is done in universities. What you may not know is that the testing that the pharma companies have to go through after some basic-science lab makes a discovery often costs ten times more than the basic research. I'm familiar with the problem. The FDA should be an advisory, not regulatory, agency. All the special interest groups like, encourage, support, and fund that evil. I completely disagree about having the FDA become an advisory agency, We disagree then. I see the FDA as a self-serving bureaucracy controlled by special interests. I do not like the idea of a governmental agency telling me what medicines or treatments I can, and can't, have. for the same reason we got the FDA in the first place. Those greedy corporate types you're complaining about wouldn't mind killing many more people if they could get away with it. Testing on humans first is the way to make more money. That is not what I propose. Let the FDA provide online, honest, data on drugs and let the buyer comment and beware. Note that I've actually been through the FDA approval process. Not responsible but as an independent contractor responsible for adhering to the requirements on glucose monitors, inhalation dispensers and patient monitoring systems. Generics, Canadian, and other sources are often 90% cheaper. Of course. Generics just ride on the research, testing, post-marketing studies and marketing that was done for the original drug. All they have to recover is manufacturing costs and quality-control reporting. In Canada, they have price controls and just refuse to allow the drug companies to amortize research and development. The Canadians, and the French, and the Brits, and everyone else knows that they can collect those costs in the US. How long do you think a pharmaceutical should have a monopoly? Is 17 years not enough? It depends on how you structure it. Some kind of regulated, extended and mandatory licensing would reduce prices and keep up enough income to fund big trials. And it's the big clinical trials that cost most of the money in pharma. Patented medicines are too expensive, but generics are too cheap. Precisely why I want to change the FDA to an advisory agency. Today it costs roughly half a billion dollars to bring a drug to market, that is irrational and runs the prices up so that the general tax fund must subsidize use. And do you believe that a patent monopoly gives the right to blackmail public health? Nope, the whole system is fairly broken. Good. Don't jump to the conclusion that I'm a socialist. Neither am I a greedy capitalist extremist. There is a large grey area to discuss. Don't like it? Talk to your congressman. The money has to come from somewhere, or nobody will have any new drugs. Ha! My congressman is John Doolittle. I've tried to consult him previously and been denied because I didn't contribute to his campaign funds. He is now about to be tried for corruption. Placer County, California is about 40% Mor(m)on and they own the political process. Health care insurance is just another facade by those who have plundered our economy. Have you tried to get a doctors appointment without insurance? Ask Larry. Non responsive. Oh, Larry is quite responsive, and he has no insurance. He's the one to ask. I have no US insurance and refuse to bankrupt ourselves paying. It's impossible in California to get a doctors appointment without insurance and it's actually cheaper to live in Argentina and commute back and forth getting my healthcare there. It more than pays for transportation. Do you know our friend Hamei, who used to hang out here? He used to fly to China for his dental work. Now he lives there. No, I've only been in this newsgroup for a couple of years and then sporadically. I've had insurance without a break for decades, excepting one gap of a few months when my COBRA ran out and I was having trouble getting new insurance. (My doctors knew it, and took me anyway.) So I don't know what it's like now. You are one of the lucky, many cannot get insurance because they are under employed, unemployed, homeless. Yeah, we know. I'm very lucky. The year before last I paid insurance out of my pocket for six months, and it cost me almost $7,000. How would you change that inequity? This transitions into the quality of care issue too. Another factor we've not discussed is the costs caused by AMA monopoly of providers. Midwives and alternative treatments have essentially been banned to create a monopoly. Then there is the FDA making many drugs prescription only. In fact some years ago the FDA stated that they would have made many current over the counter drugs a prescription item if they had it to do over. They are now trying to rectify that by regulating vitamins, minerals and even tobacco. We Americans have an aversion to reading about dead people who took drugs they were told were OK. **** happens. Life is not guaranteed safe. The government is only permitted to regulate fraud and crime, not what we ingest. It's a complex topic. We agree that there is no one cause, unless you agree with me that governmentally mandated monopolies are the root cause. I'd have to see your analysis of that. My own experience in the industry, which lasted only a little over four years, tells me something different. But it's a tangle that needs to be untangled. On that, I'm sure we agree. Yup. -- Regards, Curly ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ I Love Republicans, They Taste Just Like Chickenhawks ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ .................................................. ............... Posted via TITANnews - Uncensored Newsgroups Access at http://www.TitanNews.com -=Every Newsgroup - Anonymous, UNCENSORED, BROADBAND Downloads=- |
I'm voting republican because...
On Tue, 16 Sep 2008 18:15:55 -0700, hot-ham-and-cheese wrote:
On Sep 16, 1:46*pm, Curly Surmudgeon wrote: On Tue, 16 Sep 2008 05:39:04 -0700, wf3h wrote: On Sep 15, 11:29*pm, wrote: On Sep 15, 11:40*pm, wf3h wrote: On Sep 15, 9:55*pm, wrote: The truth of your free health care is that I get to pay for mine and I get to pay for yours which you do now. it's just more expensive now than it would be under universal care. I get first dibs at the doctors under the present system. *And why shouldn't I? *I'm paying for it. so you enjoy having average health care for inflated prices? You hit the nail on the head, "insurance" isn't the problem. It isn't for me. Is it a problem for you? Tell us how you use science every day. -- Regards, Curly ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ I Love Republicans, They Taste Just Like Chickenhawks ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ .................................................. ............... Posted via TITANnews - Uncensored Newsgroups Access at http://www.TitanNews.com -=Every Newsgroup - Anonymous, UNCENSORED, BROADBAND Downloads=- |
I'm voting republican because...
On Sep 16, 1:40*pm, "Lamont Cranston"
wrote: John R. Carroll wrote: wrote: On Sep 12, 5:14 pm, "Hawke" wrote: CLINTON dropped the ball on this one. snip How come you don't address the fact that Clinton could have gotten OBL a number of times but didn't? Was it above his pay grade? (Good thing OBL didn't change his name to "Vince Foster") Don't confuse Ms Carrol with the ugly truth. Your "truth" is a lie told originally by NewsMax. Read the 9/11 Commission Report for the truth. http://www.9-11commission.gov/staff_...tatement_5.pdf (bottom of page 3): If you think that by informing our right wingers of the truth about the subject it will have any effect on their beliefs you are out of your mind. The point is those guys don't care about the truth so informing them won't do any good. They believe what they want to believe and even if you show them they are wrong they still won't change their minds. That's just the way they are. Hawke The truth of your free health care is that I get to pay for mine and I get to pay for yours. A study coming out Tuesday from scholars at Columbia, Harvard, Purdue and Michigan projects that 20 million Americans who have employment-based health insurance would lose it under the McCain plan. There is nothing secret about Senator McCain's far-reaching proposals, but they haven't gotten much attention because the chatter in this campaign has mostly been about nonsense - lipstick, celebrities and "Drill, baby, drill!" For starters, the McCain health plan would treat employer-paid health benefits as income that employees would have to pay taxes on. "It means your employer is going to have to make an estimate on how much the employer is paying for health insurance on your behalf, and you are going to have to pay taxes on that money," said Sherry Glied, an economist who chairs the Department of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. Ms. Glied is one of the four scholars who have just completed an independent joint study of the plan. Their findings are being published on the Web site of the policy journal, Health Affairs. http://healthaffairs.org/blog/2008/0...ninsured-cheap... According to the study: "The McCain plan will force millions of Americans into the weakest segment of the private insurance system - the nongroup market - where cost-sharing is high, covered services are limited and people will lose access to benefits they have now." The net effect of the plan, the study said, "almost certainly will be to increase family costs for medical care." Under the McCain plan (now the McCain-Palin plan) employees who continue to receive employer-paid health benefits would look at their pay stubs each week or each month and find that additional money had been withheld to cover the taxes on the value of their benefits. The amount that would be withheld could be as much as $300 to $400 a month. This is, quite simply, a McCain-Palin regressive tax increase.- Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text - ================ You had bettered stay away from that liberal Kool-Aid, your starting to act like peewee herman. |
I'm voting republican because...
wrote:
On Sep 16, 8:39*am, wf3h wrote: On Sep 15, 11:29*pm, wrote: On Sep 15, 11:40*pm, wf3h wrote: On Sep 15, 9:55*pm, wrote: The truth of your free health care is that I get to pay for mine and I get to pay for yours which you do now. it's just more expensive now than it would be under universal care. I get first dibs at the doctors under the present system. *And why shouldn't I? *I'm paying for it. so you enjoy having average health care for inflated prices? I enjoy paying my own way. Even if it costs you half again as much. Sucker. yep sounds republican. Yeh, that whole, ummm, personal responsibility thingy really upsets some folks. If you're so in favor of "personal responsibility" then why don't you insist on higher taxes? Under the squirrels and the hawkes system, I pay for theirs and I pay for mine, and some else says who gets dibs on appointments and treatments. never heard of an HMO did you? they tell you what doctors you'll go to, what treatment they'll pay for, etc. I could have selected the HMO route and paid less. Instead I selected a Preferred Choice plan. As opposed to paying your own way? you really HAVE swallowed the GOP kool aid, haven't you? you don't have control over your health care at all. your boss does. your insurance company does. As it stands now, I can change plans and I can change bosses. And if you get sick or injured and can't work, you can't get any plan, you can't get any job, and you and your family go broke. The leading cause of personal bankruptcies is medical emergencies. -- Ray Fischer |
Health Care
Ed Huntress wrote:
"Curly Surmudgeon" wrote in message Lets not get sidetracked into the health insurance debate for it masks the underlying problem. The fundamental problem is that our health care system has been hijacked by corporate powers making healthcare too expensive. Nonsense. The main thing that makes it so expensive is that medical technology marches forward, not backward, and there's always more stuff to apply to medical problems -- increasingly expensive stuff. That would be a better argument if not for the fact that US healthcare is the most expensive in the world. Americans pay 50% more then the next most expensive industrial nation. And it marches forward because people will pay for it, as an alternative to living in misery or dying. There's always a ready market for new drugs and new medical technology. Meanwhile Americans have shorter lifespans and higher infant mortality. -- Ray Fischer |
I'm voting republican because...
wrote in message ... On Sep 16, 8:39 am, wf3h wrote: On Sep 15, 11:29 pm, wrote: On Sep 15, 11:40 pm, wf3h wrote: On Sep 15, 9:55 pm, wrote: The truth of your free health care is that I get to pay for mine and I get to pay for yours which you do now. it's just more expensive now than it would be under universal care. I get first dibs at the doctors under the present system. And why shouldn't I? I'm paying for it. so you enjoy having average health care for inflated prices? I enjoy paying my own way. yep sounds republican. Yeh, that whole, ummm, personal responsibility thingy really upsets some folks. Under the squirrels and the hawkes system, I pay for theirs and I pay for mine, and some else says who gets dibs on appointments and treatments. never heard of an HMO did you? they tell you what doctors you'll go to, what treatment they'll pay for, etc. I could have selected the HMO route and paid less. Instead I selected a Preferred Choice plan. Under the plan where I pay for my health care and I pay for your health care, I get less than the HMO. Why would I want that? you really HAVE swallowed the GOP kool aid, haven't you? you don't have control over your health care at all. your boss does. your insurance company does. As it stands now, I can change plans and I can change bosses. Under the plan where I pay for me and I pay for you, I have fare fewer choices because there just isn't enough money to go around. I guess I should work harder, huh? you don't. You don't. of course, if you lose your job and don't want health care, just refuse it...for you and your kids. i won't mind That, in part, is what motivates me to keep working. If only we could motivate the little squirrel and the little hawke to work... and if your company decides you and 5000 other folks need to get canned? Then I move. There aren't enough jobs in Ohio to soak up another 5,000 unemployed. Or... I could become a short-sale "investor." oh. you're SO valuable your company would NEVER do that....just like they didnt at ATT, TI, HP, etc. Not at all. My neck is on the chopping block right now. I'll probably know by Christmas. I'm planning on moving should my job evaporate. Sayonara Ohio, and Ohio can say sayonara to my tax base, my education, and my earnings capacity. Florida, Texas, or Missouri would like to have me in their work force. Come to Illinois, where making money off the brain dead liberals is easy. Just use words like "green" on your resume. If you print "100% SOY INK" on the back, this will usually get you hired. |
Health Care
"Ray Fischer" wrote in message ... Ed Huntress wrote: "Curly Surmudgeon" wrote in message Lets not get sidetracked into the health insurance debate for it masks the underlying problem. The fundamental problem is that our health care system has been hijacked by corporate powers making healthcare too expensive. Nonsense. The main thing that makes it so expensive is that medical technology marches forward, not backward, and there's always more stuff to apply to medical problems -- increasingly expensive stuff. That would be a better argument if not for the fact that US healthcare is the most expensive in the world. Americans pay 50% more then the next most expensive industrial nation. Right. It's the most expensive, and, for those who can afford it, the most effective. The reason it doesn't look very effective in the statistics is that a lot of people can't afford it. And it marches forward because people will pay for it, as an alternative to living in misery or dying. There's always a ready market for new drugs and new medical technology. Meanwhile Americans have shorter lifespans and higher infant mortality. See above. Things are pretty ducky if you have a few million or more. That's why even heads of state and foreign corporations come here to get some of their operations. We're especially good at neurosurgery and plastic surgery. Our nose jobs can't be beat. -- Ed Huntress |
Health Care
Ed Huntress wrote:
"Ray Fischer" wrote in message .. . Ed Huntress wrote: "Curly Surmudgeon" wrote in message Lets not get sidetracked into the health insurance debate for it masks the underlying problem. The fundamental problem is that our health care system has been hijacked by corporate powers making healthcare too expensive. Nonsense. The main thing that makes it so expensive is that medical technology marches forward, not backward, and there's always more stuff to apply to medical problems -- increasingly expensive stuff. That would be a better argument if not for the fact that US healthcare is the most expensive in the world. Americans pay 50% more then the next most expensive industrial nation. Right. It's the most expensive, and, for those who can afford it, the most effective. The reason it doesn't look very effective in the statistics is that a lot of people can't afford it. Is that an example of right-wing doublethink? And it marches forward because people will pay for it, as an alternative to living in misery or dying. There's always a ready market for new drugs and new medical technology. Meanwhile Americans have shorter lifespans and higher infant mortality. See above. Things are pretty ducky if you have a few million or more. That's why even heads of state and foreign corporations come here to get some of their operations. We're especially good at neurosurgery and plastic surgery. Our nose jobs can't be beat. Ah. Social darwinism. Eliminate the poor. -- Ray Fischer |
I'm voting republican because...
wrote in message ... On Sep 16, 3:32 am, Curly Surmudgeon wrote: On Mon, 15 Sep 2008 21:29:20 -0700, hot-ham-and-cheese wrote: On Sep 15, 11:40 pm, wf3h wrote: On Sep 15, 9:55 pm, wrote: The truth of your free health care is that I get to pay for mine and I get to pay for yours which you do now. it's just more expensive now than it would be under universal care. I get first dibs at the doctors under the present system. And why shouldn't I? I'm paying for it. Under the squirrels and the hawkes system, I pay for theirs and I pay for mine, and some else says who gets dibs on appointments and treatments. of course, if you lose your job and don't want health care, just refuse it...for you and your kids. i won't mind That, in part, is what motivates me to keep working. If only we could motivate the little squirrel and the little hawke to work... And you continue to make **** up. What psychedelics do you take? I don't make up ****. The little squirrel and the little hawke are short-sale "investors." What kind of health plan comes with that? None. You guys are waiting for me to pay for your health care. See, this guy is just plain dumb. I've told him myself numerous times that under a universal care program he will only have to pay the same or less than he's paying now. He can't grasp the concept that we are spending more than enough to cover everybody but we are doing it so badly and so wastefully that we don't cover everyone. With all the dough going into health care there is plenty to cover everyone. Unfortunately, this guy is willfully ignorant. No matter how many times you correct him he never understands what's going on. He learned something like an old dog and he can't learn anything new. Hell, that's a typical republican for you. He probably still thinks Bush is going to have a budget surplus before his term in office is over. Hawke |
I'm voting republican because...
"wf3h" wrote in message ... On Sep 15, 11:29 pm, wrote: On Sep 15, 11:40 pm, wf3h wrote: On Sep 15, 9:55 pm, wrote: The truth of your free health care is that I get to pay for mine and I get to pay for yours which you do now. it's just more expensive now than it would be under universal care. I get first dibs at the doctors under the present system. And why shouldn't I? I'm paying for it. so you enjoy having average health care for inflated prices? yep sounds republican. Under the squirrels and the hawkes system, I pay for theirs and I pay for mine, and some else says who gets dibs on appointments and treatments. never heard of an HMO did you? they tell you what doctors you'll go to, what treatment they'll pay for, etc. you really HAVE swallowed the GOP kool aid, haven't you? you don't have control over your health care at all. your boss does. your insurance company does. you don't. of course, if you lose your job and don't want health care, just refuse it...for you and your kids. i won't mind That, in part, is what motivates me to keep working. If only we could motivate the little squirrel and the little hawke to work... and if your company decides you and 5000 other folks need to get canned? oh. you're SO valuable your company would NEVER do that....just like they didnt at ATT, TI, HP, etc. He's just inexperienced. So far he's not had a bad health care problem and had to deal with health care companies jerking him around, telling him he's not covered for what he needs, or that they won't pay for this or that procedure. Just wait. When the day comes that he has a major problem or someone in his family has cancer and they tell him they won't pay for it or that they are raising his premium to five grand a month you'll see him change his tune in a New York minute. So far he's been lucky. Don't worry, it won't hold and he'll find out how ****ed our system is first hand. Until then he'll not change his erroneous ideas. Hawke |
Health Care
"Curly Surmudgeon" wrote in message . .. On Tue, 16 Sep 2008 17:33:16 -0400, Ed Huntress wrote: snip Yes, now I would. I just went through six sessions of laser eye surgery for PDR. I don't want to do it again. I'll pay for the best control I can get. Physicians Desk Reference? Dunno "PDR." Most diabetics would opt for injections when the pump is out of pocket, except for those in extreme distress. Sorry, you seemed to know about diabetes so I used the abbreviation for proliferative diabetic retinopathy. As for opting for injections, that's fine if you're lucky enough to have A1c readings of less than 7.0. Some people's systems just won't allow it, even if they do multiple blood-glucose tests and inject ten times a day. I test 5 times a day and inject 6 or more separate doses, but my A1c runs around 7.2. The newest pumps should get someone like me down to something under 6.8. 7.0 will carry you if you have good genes and haven't been diabetic for more than 10 or 15 years. I have the right genes, but it's 35 years for me. Until the eye problem I was the only Type 1 (juvenile) diabetic I knew with more than 30 years on the clock who had no major problems. Now I have one, but, thanks to advanced medical technology (laser surgery) I may not have the problem again. Maybe. Note, I've designed medical instrumentation. One product is not too dissimilar to your insulin pump, it took a blood sample from a drip line and tested for lactate acid giving real time results. I am very familiar with the industry. Well, maybe I should interview you for an article I've had in the can for a year. It's about medical-device manufacturing and meeting the FDA and customer requirements. I have eight interviews done, but I'm losing energy for it. Use my email in the header. Thanks. I've put this message into the file in case I revive that article. I have around 50 hours invested in it so I do want to finish it. snip True but the root cause is that health care insurance is unavailable at rational cost. Kaiser for my wife and I would be $1600/month in the USA and is about $25 in Argentina. So, Argentina has subsidized or government-run insurance. I'm all for it. Kinda, sorta both. Immigrants can buy into the state system but each municipality has an open clinic where the costs are very cheap. A front/side chest x-ray cost about $13, dental extraction of molar with abscess cost a friend $6.70, etc. I've bought into private health care at a local hospital chain. Ambulance service is free, I used it two nights running when semi-conscious and unable to drive. Heh, I had _chicken_pox_ at my age... Never knew it could be life threatening... Being in the seond or third economic tier can produce some wonderful benefits for a country. For example, you don't have to invent or develop much of anything. You just use the same stuff that was developed in the leading countries. You'll find that the companies selling that stuff can be very compliant to your political needs. They'll set up an entirely separate accounting system for dealing with you, one that doesn't have to account for any upfront costs, because those are all paid for in the leading country. Since your market is basically a gift to those companies, providing unanticipated sales on otherwise idle production capacity, they'll be happy to treat you as a source of marginal sales, and all that their books will show as expense against their selling price in your country is the marginal manufacturing costs and shipping. Something that costs $100 in the leading country, where they're amortizing all of the upfront costs, might cost $2 in your country. And it will appear on their books as a profitable sale -- because it's a marginal sale. Accounting can be a very creative thing. d8-) The problem with being a second- or third-tier country in those circumstances is that your economy basically don't exist outside of the orbit of the leading countries. It creates quite a web of dependencies over which you have no control. But it sure saves a hell of a lot of money. There's always a ready market for new drugs and new medical technology. True, and sometimes the costs are justified. But recognize that a full 60% of new drugs are governmentally subsidized through university research then turned over to pharmaceuticals for manufacture and distribution with but a bare tithe to the university while Abbott et. al. gains usuary profits on our own tax dollar. sigh I'm well aware of how that works. My last job in a medical communication agency involved a drug on which Sanofi-Aventis had paid something like $135 million in development costs, and $110 million in pre-approval marketing costs (which was paying my salary). Then the FDA decided not to approve the drug. So my company laid half of us off. d8-) The basic research on that drug was not from a university, however. I know that a lot of the basic research is done in universities. What you may not know is that the testing that the pharma companies have to go through after some basic-science lab makes a discovery often costs ten times more than the basic research. I'm familiar with the problem. The FDA should be an advisory, not regulatory, agency. All the special interest groups like, encourage, support, and fund that evil. I completely disagree about having the FDA become an advisory agency, We disagree then. I see the FDA as a self-serving bureaucracy controlled by special interests. I do not like the idea of a governmental agency telling me what medicines or treatments I can, and can't, have. The thing is, Curly, that you have no experience of buying or using drugs in an environment that isn't dictated by the FDA and similar agencies in other highly developed countries. So you're speculating about how it would work out. Those lower-tier economies have an office that sounds like FDA, but it's usually an empty shell full of rubber stamps, giving supposed approval to drugs and procedures that have gone through the approval process of the FDA or the British, French, or German equivalents. And the drugs they sell over-the-counter are mostly ones that have been vetted, for prescription sale or otherwise, by the leading countries. The only direct comparison you can make is to the US before there was an FDA. It was much harder to get a centralized, reliable count in those days of how many people were winding up dead from taking the drugs then available. But the number was substantial. We can tell now, in a lot of cases, because those drugs have since been run through large clinical trials in which the results have been measured. for the same reason we got the FDA in the first place. Those greedy corporate types you're complaining about wouldn't mind killing many more people if they could get away with it. Testing on humans first is the way to make more money. That is not what I propose. Let the FDA provide online, honest, data on drugs and let the buyer comment and beware. You're proposing a system by which smart people save a few bucks, and not-so-smart people make minor mistakes and drop dead. I don't really like the sound of it. Note that I've actually been through the FDA approval process. Not responsible but as an independent contractor responsible for adhering to the requirements on glucose monitors, inhalation dispensers and patient monitoring systems. I should point out here that testing a medical device is NOTHING like testing a drug. It's much simpler, and it's done with much smaller cohorts, so it's vastly cheaper. You don't see $50 million studies for devices, as you often do for drugs. Generics, Canadian, and other sources are often 90% cheaper. Of course. Generics just ride on the research, testing, post-marketing studies and marketing that was done for the original drug. All they have to recover is manufacturing costs and quality-control reporting. In Canada, they have price controls and just refuse to allow the drug companies to amortize research and development. The Canadians, and the French, and the Brits, and everyone else knows that they can collect those costs in the US. How long do you think a pharmaceutical should have a monopoly? Is 17 years not enough? It depends on how you structure it. Some kind of regulated, extended and mandatory licensing would reduce prices and keep up enough income to fund big trials. And it's the big clinical trials that cost most of the money in pharma. Patented medicines are too expensive, but generics are too cheap. Precisely why I want to change the FDA to an advisory agency. Today it costs roughly half a billion dollars to bring a drug to market, that is irrational and runs the prices up so that the general tax fund must subsidize use. But what's the basis on which the FDA would "advise"? The last drug I worked on as an employee (rimonabant) was being sold in France, Germany, the UK, and parts of South America before three long-term studies ordered by the FDA turned up the problems with it. The Europeans got egg on their faces -- and some dead citizens -- because they didn't require the long-term studies. Now they're pulling back and black-boxing those drugs. But they never would have known the problems without those huge studies, which cost something like $100 million in total to run. Who pays for that if the FDA doesn't impose it as a requirement for approval? You're talking about going back to the dark ages of the drug business, when people died from taking drugs and no one knew the drug was involved in the deaths. Hell, no one even knew that the people who died had been taking the drugs. snip You are one of the lucky, many cannot get insurance because they are under employed, unemployed, homeless. Yeah, we know. I'm very lucky. The year before last I paid insurance out of my pocket for six months, and it cost me almost $7,000. How would you change that inequity? Universal health care, with a single-payer system and optional supplemental insurance. Take the European and Canadian systems, analyze the good and the bad in each, and design a better one based on those experiences. You'll have to re-engineer a lot of the health care business to do it. Tort reform, reducing redundancies in testing facilities, etc. Very socialist-sounding. Very politically incorrect. But the only way to reduce costs and provide health care for everyone at the same time. The danger with it is not so much a case of limiting coverage (that will happen no matter what system you use, including our present free-for-all system), but rather limiting innovation. That part will require very careful work. Since the US is the last country of any substance without universal health care, this is where most of the innovation happens. The Europeans and others are tuned to our drum; they adjust their systems so they don't look too bad in the innovation department, given our example. It's hard to say how that would work if there was no free-for-all system like the US against which to compare oneself. It is a concern, if every major country has a controlled system. It's easy to become complacent if there is nothing against which to compare your results. I don't expect a universal system to work really well. I just expect it to produce a better result than we have now, in terms of health statistics. There is no way that it will produce as much innovation. You pay your money and take your choice. My choice is universal coverage. This transitions into the quality of care issue too. Another factor we've not discussed is the costs caused by AMA monopoly of providers. Midwives and alternative treatments have essentially been banned to create a monopoly. Then there is the FDA making many drugs prescription only. In fact some years ago the FDA stated that they would have made many current over the counter drugs a prescription item if they had it to do over. They are now trying to rectify that by regulating vitamins, minerals and even tobacco. We Americans have an aversion to reading about dead people who took drugs they were told were OK. **** happens. Life is not guaranteed safe. The government is only permitted to regulate fraud and crime, not what we ingest. I think the law disagrees with you on that. g Your ideas concerning pharma are ideological, abstract, and unreal based on what we know about drugs, Curly. You're laying out a prescription for ignorance and death. No one would know what drugs are causing what side effects and adverse outcomes; all you'd have is a collection of rumors, marketing claims, and guesswork. We've gone beyond that and hardly anyone who knows the issues would want to go back. Your reactionary approach would result in a meaner and riskier health care system for everyone. It would be cheap, but it would leave a lot of bodies and maimed lives in its wake. -- Ed Huntress |
I'm voting republican because...
On Sep 17, 2:04*am, "Hawke" wrote:
wrote in message ... On Sep 16, 3:32 am, Curly Surmudgeon wrote: On Mon, 15 Sep 2008 21:29:20 -0700, hot-ham-and-cheese wrote: On Sep 15, 11:40 pm, wf3h wrote: On Sep 15, 9:55 pm, wrote: The truth of your free health care is that I get to pay for mine and I get to pay for yours which you do now. it's just more expensive now than it would be under universal care. I get first dibs at the doctors under the present system. And why shouldn't I? I'm paying for it. Under the squirrels and the hawkes system, I pay for theirs and I pay for mine, and some else says who gets dibs on appointments and treatments.. of course, if you lose your job and don't want health care, just refuse it...for you and your kids. i won't mind That, in part, is what motivates me to keep working. If only we could motivate the little squirrel and the little hawke to work... And you continue to make **** up. What psychedelics do you take? I don't make up ****. *The little squirrel and the little hawke are short-sale "investors." What kind of health plan comes with that? *None. *You guys are waiting for me to pay for your health care. See, this guy is just plain dumb. I've told him myself numerous times that under a universal care program he will only have to pay the same or less than he's paying now. And I'll get less health care. And the presently happy and motivated health care workers will have to do more and be paid less. What is the upside for me? What is the upside for happy and motivated health care workers to do twice the work for the same or lower pay? He can't grasp the concept that we are spending more than enough to cover everybody but we are doing it so badly and so wastefully that we don't cover everyone. Why can't you grasp the concept of getting your own health care and quit mooching off of me? With all the dough going into health care there is plenty to cover everyone. Unfortunately, this guy is willfully ignorant. Not at all. You wish to force force the health care workers to service twice as many people for the same money just because you don't want to pay for your own health care. No matter how many times you correct him he never understands what's going on. He learned something like an old dog and he can't learn anything new. Hell, that's a typical republican for you. He probably still thinks Bush is going to have a budget surplus before his term in office is over. Hawke "Investors" and the unemployed have all the time in the world to visit their doctors and the specialists their doctors refer them to. Working people who will be paying for all of the free health care for miscreant "investors" and unemployed don't have the luxury of sitting in the doctors office all day. Health care workers will have to see you far more often once I'm paying for your health care and tehy'll do it with a smile on their face because they know they are servicing twice as many people as before for the same or less pay. |
I'm voting republican because...
On Sep 16, 11:24*pm, (Ray Fischer) wrote:
wrote: On Sep 16, 8:39*am, wf3h wrote: On Sep 15, 11:29*pm, wrote: On Sep 15, 11:40*pm, wf3h wrote: On Sep 15, 9:55*pm, wrote: The truth of your free health care is that I get to pay for mine and I get to pay for yours which you do now. it's just more expensive now than it would be under universal care. I get first dibs at the doctors under the present system. *And why shouldn't I? *I'm paying for it. so you enjoy having average health care for inflated prices? I enjoy paying my own way. Even if it costs you half again as much. Sucker. Just like when I buy a car. I could purchase a hundai or a lexus. Is anyone driving anything other than a hundai a sucker? yep sounds republican. Yeh, that whole, ummm, personal responsibility thingy really upsets some folks. If you're so in favor of "personal responsibility" then why don't you insist on higher taxes? Why don't you pay your taxes? Under the squirrels and the hawkes system, I pay for theirs and I pay for mine, and some else says who gets dibs on appointments and treatments. never heard of an HMO did you? they tell you what doctors you'll go to, what treatment they'll pay for, etc. I could have selected the HMO route and paid less. *Instead I selected a Preferred Choice plan. As opposed to paying your own way? It is part of my compensation package. There will always be an additional "co-pay" to keep malingerers from overtaxing the system. you really HAVE swallowed the GOP kool aid, haven't you? you don't have control over your health care at all. your boss does. your insurance company does. As it stands now, I can change plans and I can change bosses. And if you get sick or injured and can't work, you can't get any plan, you can't get any job, and you and your family go broke. Me? I keep myself employed. I make it a point to do so. I consider it my "responsibility" to provide for myself and my family. So should I have a catastrophic injury or health event, I'm covered. The leading cause of personal bankruptcies is medical emergencies. And making health care free to everyone who doesn't work is going to make it better for me who is paying the bills? How? -- Ray Fischer * * * * |
I'm voting republican because...
On Sep 16, 11:54*pm, "Jerry" wrote:
wrote in message ... On Sep 16, 8:39 am, wf3h wrote: On Sep 15, 11:29 pm, wrote: On Sep 15, 11:40 pm, wf3h wrote: On Sep 15, 9:55 pm, wrote: The truth of your free health care is that I get to pay for mine and I get to pay for yours which you do now. it's just more expensive now than it would be under universal care. I get first dibs at the doctors under the present system. And why shouldn't I? I'm paying for it. so you enjoy having average health care for inflated prices? I enjoy paying my own way. yep sounds republican. Yeh, that whole, ummm, personal responsibility thingy really upsets some folks. Under the squirrels and the hawkes system, I pay for theirs and I pay for mine, and some else says who gets dibs on appointments and treatments. never heard of an HMO did you? they tell you what doctors you'll go to, what treatment they'll pay for, etc. I could have selected the HMO route and paid less. *Instead I selected a Preferred Choice plan. Under the plan where I pay for my health care and I pay for your health care, I get less than the HMO. *Why would I want that? you really HAVE swallowed the GOP kool aid, haven't you? you don't have control over your health care at all. your boss does. your insurance company does. As it stands now, I can change plans and I can change bosses. Under the plan where I pay for me and I pay for you, I have fare fewer choices because there just isn't enough money to go around. I guess I should work harder, huh? you don't. You don't. of course, if you lose your job and don't want health care, just refuse it...for you and your kids. i won't mind That, in part, is what motivates me to keep working. If only we could motivate the little squirrel and the little hawke to work... and if your company decides you and 5000 other folks need to get canned? Then I move. *There aren't enough jobs in Ohio to soak up another 5,000 unemployed. *Or... I could become a short-sale "investor." oh. you're SO valuable your company would NEVER do that....just like they didnt at ATT, TI, HP, etc. Not at all. *My neck is on the chopping block right now. *I'll probably know by Christmas. *I'm planning on moving should my job evaporate. *Sayonara Ohio, and Ohio can say sayonara to my tax base, my education, and my earnings capacity. *Florida, Texas, or Missouri would like to have me in their work force. Come to Illinois, where making money off the brain dead liberals is easy. Just use words like "green" on your resume. If you print "100% SOY INK" on the back, this will usually get you hired. I moved from the Illinois side of St Louis to Ohio in 2000. I recall writing letters to Carol Mosley Braun on standard dead-tree paper and carbon based ink. |
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