Re: Got Stem Cell Research?


"Buzz" <buzzard99@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:ghrgr49f8l726ks3q2dckun4ip1nmp6h0g@xxxxxxxxxx
On Wed, 11 Mar 2009 12:20:54 -0700, "Ernie Jurick"
<invalidexample@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


"Buzz" <buzzard99@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:4l4er49rj346i65c19fbn2mr1gm53k6rp1@xxxxxxxxxx


Oh, and by the
way, comparing costs as a percentage of GDP is a nothing argument.
It's like dividing the number of trees by the number of microwave
ovens and coming up with percentage. How many people are in
France?
What is their productivity (35 hour work week)? What is their GDP?
And, that tricky little question, how much does their plan cost per
patient and is the cost equally distributed or is it mean tested?

Percentage of GDP is the traditional way of leveling the playing field
when
comparing nations' economies. It removes conditions like high and low
earners, difference in pay scales, differences in inflation and other
factors. Do you know of a better one?

Perhaps I'm missing something, but it still seems like
microwaves/trees to me. GDP goes up, health care costs, while staying
the same, appear to have gone down. GDP goes down, health care costs
stay the same and they appear to have gone up. GDP goes up, health
care costs go up but everything looks hunky dorry because it's the
same percentage. It sounds to me like a clever way to make the
figures look like something other than what they are.

It's the standard way of calculating income and expenses between
countries.
I don't know of another one that works as well. If you have a better
process, please let me and the World Bank know about it. :-)
http://www.kff.org/insurance/snapshot/chcm010307oth.cfm

That's great, but my wallet is not between countries. It seems that
your fascination with treating everything as a percentage of GDP has
blinded you to the fact that many of us simply don't care what France
or other countries are doing.

Americans tend to be isolates, since we share only one border with a truly
foreign country and have no bilingual heritage, although that appears to
be
changing. Citizens of the EU can travel to other countries by train and
most
speak at least 2 languages, so visits aren't as traumatic as when an
American travels there.

And Europeans traveling to other countries and speaking at least two
languages has what to do with wanting to socialize our healthcare and
dig deeper into my family's budget

From the EU we learn what works and what doesn't work. Each country, and the
EU itself, represents an experiment we don't have to conduct ourselves. And
the only effect on your wallet will be to decrease the amount of money you
spend on healthcare.

Can we learn from some good things? Of
course. In fact, right now, Australia is cutting business taxes in
order to stimulate their economy. I can convert it all to % of GDP,
too, but that doesn't change the fact that it's simply a good idea.

It's an excellent idea, and one we should put into practice, since we have
the highest corporate tax rate in the OECD. Our export trade would improve
because of lower costs, more jobs would be created, etc. But for that to
happen without cutting off federal and state revenues, personal taxes will
have to increase to European levels.

Poppy***. To use one of your favorite measurements, our Federal tax
receipts hover close to 19.5% of GDP. When taxes are high, GDP drops
along with receipts. When taxes are cut, GDP rises and so do receipts.
But receipts are always around 19.5% of GDP.
Cutting taxes stimulates the economy and it naturally follows that
receipts go up.


Did you miss the OMB chart? Apparently our economic history believes
differently.

You seem to think that every penny the government allows the people
who earn it to keep must be replaced my some other tax.

Not nohow. I just want our tax dollars spent on the common good, not more
military hardware and recreational wars.

But,
stimulating the economy can allow for the whole to grow, as other
nations realize. Hopefully, someone can print some common sense on
P-Bo's teleprompter so he can start working on taking some positive
actions.

I think it's perhaps that you think in collective terms and I think
more in individual terms.

Yes, I do. The role of demographic and statistical research is to find
national averages, not personal anecdotes.


Ahhh, so that would explain your lack of compassion for individuals.

LOL! I have a wonderful compassion for individuals, as my wife will tell
you, but I realize that compassion is a lousy way to track a society's
overall humanity. The African societies I've experienced are wonderfully
compassionate. They are also hopelessly corrupt and because of the
corruption, the people themselves are still living in poverty and misery.
Are you comfortable with the fact that 45,000,000 Americans are without
health care? Whatever happened to that good ol' compassionate Conservatism
we used to hear about?

The common good, the common average.... that's all that matters?

For a nation, yes. Anecdotes are fun to tell around the fire, but they have
no place in determining how a society functions or what goals it should be
planning for. To use a personal anecdote, I worked with a woman who had a
fanatical devotion to crystal healing. She felt that everyone would benefit
from miracle cures if only doctors would use crystals. She had reams of
"evidence" from lunatic fringe publications "proving" it was true. Now,
based on that, should medical science give over a part of medical education
to crystal healing? Or would you rather put your faith in the research that
shows that crystal healing is medically worthless?

And, before you go off on more nonsense
about what Republicans teach, let me just tell you that I pay a
considerable amount ... err a large % of my FDP on taxes. More than
enough. Measure it, slice it, dice it, make percentages out of it to
suit your collective needs. The reality is that it's enough. The
collective does not come before my family. Perhaps that's difficult
to comprehend, but it's simply a fact.

If you lived in Europe you'd pay a much bigger chunk, but you'd get more
in
return. Note in the chart below that the US isn't on the chart, since we,
along with Mexico have personal tax rates below 35%.
http://media.economist.com/images/ga/2007w43/Tax2.jpg

Let me say this one more time. I don't care about what they do or
don't do in Europe. They have as big or bigger problems than us.
People don't generally do well in socialist or collectivist states.
Look at the strikes, protests.... people want to be individuals, not
part of your classroom demographic and statistical research.

Yes, you're a typical American who thinks the world ends at our borders. So
which would you prefer, that we experiment blindly with more equitable and
less costly health care, or that we take a few pages from the European
experiments which have been running for 50 years? People DON'T do well in
socialist or collectivist nations, as I've been saying for decades. Soviet
health "care" was barely better than no care at all. And people can be just
as individual as they want, but as a people they're going to move together
in certain directions, and that's what we need to track. Statistics, like
evolution, has no truck with individuals, any more than the census bureau
cares about the living conditions of the people it measures.

The US is still the most expensive on a per capita basis:
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_exp_per_cap_cur_us-expenditure-per-capita-current-us
Means testing isn't necessary, since good health is a right in France,
not
a
privilege. Every citizen is covered equally. High earners put more
into
the
system and take less out, and low earners vice-versa. Anyone can use a
private physician if they can afford it.

As far as I know, we still have a few old documents around that
specify what our rights are. Health care isn't on it.

We have no right to an interstate highway system either, and there's not
a
single word about air traffic regulation. The Constitution was framed in
the
18th century, and has always been adapted for changing conditions.

Are you now going to clamour for a RIGHT to a highway system? There's
a big difference between the government providing a highway system and
other people claiming they have a RIGHT to healthcare.

Have you ever been prevented from driving on the interstate because you
have
no right to? Or boarding a plane? Those are "rights" you take for granted,
which is why the government maintains the roads and regulates aircraft.
Healthcare should be another. And why is healthcare a right in every other
advanced country but not here? We have no compunction about forcing
democracy on other nations, but we resist a national healthcare program as
strenuously as we resist the metric system, both to our loss.

Oh gheeesch. Listen, this is going downhill fast. I've explained my
view of rights. And the Constitution spells them out. And even for
those of you who want to take it, twist it and pervert it, there's
still no right to healthcare (yet). No, I haven't been denied the
ability to drive on the interstate. But that doesn't make it a right.

What if you were pulled over by a cop on the interstate and told you had no
right to be on that road? Your first words would be "I have every right as
an American licensed driver to be on this road, because I helped build and
maintain it!" The 18th-century Constitution has very little to do with
21st-century life. Rights change with time. Slavery was a right back when
the founding fathers were composing the documents. We even fought a Civil
War over the right to own slaves. The whole civil rights movement was about
restoring the rights of a class of American citizens who had been denied
them for a century. You have many rights which you take for granted that are
not mentioned or even dreamt of in the Constitution.

Are you in the US? You keep referring to "us" as if you are here, but
you don't seem to have even the vaguest notion of the principles our
country was founded on.

Yes, but I have the advantage of having lived overseas, and I still prefer
to read international news rather than see the world through an American
prism.

I view my
rights as ending when it requires the time, talents or money of
another. Perhaps you're comfortable with that notion.

Of course! We all are. You couldn't exist in the US if you had to do
everything yourself. Or rather, you could, but you'd be living in a shack
in
Montana waiting for the black helicopters to arrive. :-)

You're joking, right? Keep in mind, we're talking about rights. I
don't see that I have a right to other's time, talents, or money. That
does not mean that I can not trade with someone who willingly wants to
offer their time, talents or money.

I don't think you can possibly be serious in pretending not to
understand the difference in a right and a "contract" or an agreement.

I have a very clear understanding of it, enough to know that you're
splitting hairs and asking words to be what you want them to mean, like
Alice and Humpty Dumpty. I believe that all American have the right to
equitable healthcare, just as they have a right to clean air, clean water
and uncontaminated food. You may not like that Europe treats its people
better, but they do, and we can learn from them. Fortress America didn't
work for the last 8 years, and it doesn't work now.

Oh gheeesch... if the government doesn't do it for you, then chaos
ensues, right?

No, that's a Slippery Slope Fallacy. Your question was: "what would our
costs be if there were no government intrusion into the health care
arena?"
I simply pointed out the costs of taking the government out of health
care.
The purpose of a government is to provide for the commonweal. Anything
that's a benefit for all citizens is worth funding by all citizens.

Pssssst. There's private industry. Government is not the answer to
every question. In fact, its that kind of helpless thinking that has
allowed it to grow to it's bloated, inefficient, all encompassing
size.

Government is NOT the answer to every question. But only the government can
pass the kinds of legislation that allows us the life we have gotten used to
living. Private industry cares nothing about the welfare of the people
unless it is forced to. The present financial crisis shows what unregulated
commerce can accomplish. I've already showed you what our lives would be
like without laws regulating industries. We'd be back in the world Upton
Sinclair described.


Has the quality of Doctors declined? They make roughly 1/3 what a
Dr
in the US makes... do you think the Dr.s are happy about that and
are
they staying around to practice there knowing that the can earn much
more elsewhere?

There is no shortage of doctors in France as there is in the US. And
there
are many more doctors to treat patients:
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_phy_per_1000_peo-physicians-per-1-000-people

I wonder if it's been determined how the Dr.s must alter their
behavior (from the article linked above) and if they are responding to
the government's dictate regarding their behavior.

What part of "best health care in the world" don't you understand?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/799444.stm

I understand that you take issue with me referring to a 5 year old
report and you keep referring to a 10 year old report by a suspect
organization as some sort of justification..

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3940609.stm

A suspect organization? have you been reading NewsMax again? :-) WHO does
its rankings every decade, as we do our census. Next year they'll conduct
another one. In the meantime, here's a 2006 study that reports the same
thing.
http://www.commonwealthfund.org/Content/Publications/Fund-Reports/2007/May/Mirror--Mirror-on-the-Wall--An-International-Update-on-the-Comparative-Performance-of-American-Healt.aspx

or

http://tinyurl.com/d57wmd

And here's one for you...

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/3000-surgeons-threaten-to-desert-france-in-protest-at-falling-pay-levels-561723.html

3000 surgeons theratening to leave the country in an effort to get the
all encompassing government to improve their working conditions (those
pigs.... they apparently don't know that the demographic and
statistical averages indicate that they should be jubilant!) and to
close the shortfall of new doctors entering the profession - Didn't
the WHO say that ther's no shortage or was that your opinion?

Look at the date. That's ancient history, and no doctors left despite their
bluster, a traditional negotiating tactic.

And another, from the same year that the WHO praised the French health
care...

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1127130

Shortages, rationing, waiting lists, strikes, protests. Well,
according to the WHO, it's the best in the world so we must want the
same thing here.... NOT!

I'm not sure why you keep trying to make the French system out to be
so great when it's obviously got HUGE problems. Even if the WHO ranks
it high again next year, does that mean that we should be rushing to
get waits, rationing, strikes, and protests here?

Yes, nine years ago there was great upset over a variety of issues, all of
which have been fixed. Can you find an article later than 2007? Do you still
worry about the Y2K threat? What do you think about the proposed merger of
AOL and Time Warner? What effect will Vadimir Putin's presidency have on
Russia?

5 years ago, they were facing a 5 bn Euro deficit. Would you have me
believe that it's all fixed now?


It took Bill Clinton only 4 years to fix Ronnie Raygun's record deficit. I
have great faith in Obama's ability to do the same thing with Bush's record
deficit.

No, but they're actively working on it, since France is embarrassed at its
expensitures. But change is every bit as hard to get through the
Parliament
as it is through Congress.

Isn't that unfair? Won't the rich buy the good drugs while the poor are
left only able to
afford generics? How can France treat their collective people like
that?

In France, as in the US, the active ingredients in the brand name drug and
the generic drug have to be identical. (All but 2 of the meds I take are
generic.) The wealthy may choose to buy the brand name for status
purposes,
but they're getting the same thing dispensed at the local free clinic.

Designer prescriptions? Do the French really parade their
prescriptions around to show off their status?

As a matter of fact it is a status symbol to use private doctors and
brand-name medications in countries with a national health care plan. The
wealthy need those little perks to help them appreciate how far above hoi
polloi they are. Wealthy people in America buy many things for their status
value, one of which is exclusive medical care. Do you honestly think a
multi-millionaire gets the same treatment as you get from your GP?

I think we may have to disagree on what constitutes best.

The greatest good for the greatest number, according to Jeremy Bentham.

'scuse me, but this whole "we enhance our citizen's (fill in the
blank)" stuff gives me the willies. This is not France and thinking
that I'm looking to the government to enhance my life is 180 degrees
out of phase. Remember, I'm pulling the wagon, not riding in it.


We are all doing both. That's what a society is.

Look, it's painfully apparent that we have wildly different views of
what we want the government to do to/for us.

Yes. I want the American military to make do with the same percentage of
the
GDP as normal countries do. I want top pay for our troops to keep them the
best in the world, and I want veterans' care to be a model for ideal
health
care. I want some attention paid to the families of Americans serving in a
combat zone. I want the same universal health care as the rest of the
OECD.
I want the 35+ "national security" agencies combined into one or two
efficient forces, like the UK's MI5 and MI6. I want earmarks out of bills
altogether. I want a 21st-century energy network, preferably independent
of
other nations (except Canada). I want us to stop supporting dictatorships
in
nthe name of "national security." I want the US to become part of the
world
again instead of an exception to everything. I want to restore our
nation's
honor and dignity, so we're looked up to again rather than scorned.

And that's just for starters. :-)

Uggggh. That's quite a list of "I wants". My list would be similar
but would include "don't" between the I and the want.

You prefer the status quo? That's why you're a Conservative!

Are/were you in a union?

Yes, in a closed shop of the IBEW. That's where I developed my contempt for
unions and their methods. They were necessary back in the days of sweatshop
labor, but the only purpose they serve now is to prevent change and
manufacture delays. I sincerely hope Biden's attempt to eliminate secret
ballots in union elections fails. Look at all the concessions the UAW made
when they finally realized the handwriting was on the wall. All the frills
they'd built up for themselves over decades suddenly became unimportant.
-- Ernie



.

Loading