I'MMA LET YOU FINISH
Ha!!
Uh, Eli? When I refreshed, your post was nowhere to be seen. Besides, haloscan ate most of my post, which was,
FRIST and others like him who profit from the fucked-up for-profit system is why we keep putting Band-Aids on a sucking chest wound.
So HA back at ya, bro!
I would have been first but I was saying goodbye to Joe dirt in the last thread. So there!
You moonbats are just too quick on the draw.I coulda been ....Naa.
Healthcare bumperstick--Don't get sick.
I guess I'll go read the link. This topic is as depressing as Iraq.
Let's have an Ozzie and Harriet thread. I'll start.
Behold, the Lord is a judgemental tanning booth without doors!
"
# If you don't repent, God will make your skin even darker than that of the Lamanites (Native Americans). Jacob 3:8
"
from the Skeptic's Annotated series of religious texts!
I'm a 45-year-old with a form of leukemia that's been put into remission by a "miracle drug" called Gleevec (http://www.newcmldrug.com). I say "remission" versus "cure", because if I stop taking the drug, the leukemia will come back. With the insurance that I have through my job, I pay $40 for a 90-day supply of this drug that would cost $11000 (yes, that's > $40K per year) without insurance. There are people right now in the U.S. and worldwide who are dying simply because they don't have the money to pay for this drug, and there are other people whose fortunes are being wiped out by the company that sells the drug (Novartis) because they won't lower the price until people truly cannot pay. Finally, Medicare does not cover this drug, so retirees who get this disease (median age of diagnosis is in the mid-60's) have to use their retirement savings to pay for the drug. Again, this drug is wonderful (my blood looks like yours now), but if I ever lose my job and can't find another one with insurance, I'm screwed.
I offer this as just one anecdote that I think illustrates the inhumanity of the present situation and why some sort of universal healthcare would be just.
Peace.
Speaking of intolerance -
From Frist's McBible™:
"And the uncircumcised man child whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from his people; he hath broken my covenant."
I'm safe. How 'bout you?
Christ on a stick, look at what comes a few entries later at the same site:
"
# The rest of the dissenters were forced to live in freedom (just like the Iraqis!). [Alma]51:20
"
David M., thank you for your comment. I'm at a loss for words right now.
You know, I've been first a few times and it's no big deal, really. Sort of like the first time you have sex with a supermodel--you think it's going to be this amazing supernatural thing and then, well, it is -- don't get me wrong, but you know two, two and a half hours later and you half to take a break, drink some water, and it kind of breaks the mood and all and --- where was I?
My pee pee hurts.
|< § ב'| :
Quit your whining. It's no big thing.
Health care
--greatest single cause of non-competitiveness for American business.
Greatest single cause of state budget problems in all 50 states.
Greatest inequity of opportunity for health care of any industrialized nation.
And Bush does nothing.
We should look at the health care delivery system of our "peace time" military as a potential model for first-rate universal coverage. I'm serious - it works wonderfully. Those affected are largely silent (servicemembers and families) because they're sitting fat, dumb, and happy.
http://asilentcacophony.blogspot.com/
That wasn't us at 9:56 pm.
Profit over People...
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/use...p?
story_id=2852
"The Price of Life"
To summarize: Suprise! The pharmaceutical industry is more likely to allocate resources to rich markets than in poor markets.
Example: Malaria ($15) versus breast cancer ($58,000) per annum.
And quotes! I got quotes: "Africa, for example, generates less than than one half of one percent of sales by global pharmaceutical firms but accounts for nearly 25 percent of the world's disease burden, as measured by years of healthy life lost to disease."
David M. - That's pretty much why I'm starting to pack up and head back north. It's too common a story - it's too vicious and hostile a situation. Too many times I've had friends in Canada with ghastly illnesses who, simply because they were in Canada, were allowed to recover and be well. Too many times I've had friends in the States who, simply because they were in the States, suffered, declined and died for no better reason than that they'd lost a job, or couldn't work hard enough or weren't - something.
Daver,
$122 a pill? That's obscene. Pharma is clearly one of the villains in the piece.
Another is the insane placement of expensive diagnostic machines in each doctor's office with several in each hospital. How many times does a neurosurgeon really have to run a PET scan in his office instead of running it at a centrally located site available to all neuros?
I agree with Mahablog: the time for bandaids is over.
|< § ב'| :
Quit your whining. It's no big thing.
SteveLG |
*guffaw*
David M. - may your employment be long and profitable, so your life can be long and enjoyable.
But it's not only the expensive drugs people can't afford. A couple of summers ago I did a project reviewing medical records for one of the lawyers I work for. Our client's OTC medicine was alleged to cause strokes. My job was to search for mentions of itthe medicine in the records that would confirm the plaintiff had taken it.
The bulk of the plaintiffs ir reviewed were from Louisiana, and most were unemployed or working poor.
Not too surprisingly I found few mentions of it - even if the plaintiff had taken it, it was unlikely it would come to mind in the ER.
What I did find was scores of mentions of "patient was non-compliant with blood pressure meds." Some people, of course, may have just blown off taking it. But if you read between the lines, you could see the likely cause for many - they couldn't afford to refill their prescription, or the scrip had run out and they couldn't afford to see the doctor to renew it.
I take blood pressure meds myself, and they're the least expensive among the ones I take. I couuld probably handle the cost without insurance (though I'm glad I have it).
So what does it say that so many people died or were disabled for lack of a relatively cheap drug?
|< § ב'| :
Quit your whining. It's no big thing.
SteveLG
Even if it wasn't |< § ב'|, and ofcourse it wasn't 
What's with the cursor again.
And I would have been 1st, but I was watching TV!
.
One of the reasons I do not support Hillary Clinton in 2008 is because she overlearned the lesson of 1994. We can go for it in one fell swoop. It is not so much a take over of the health care system as a bail out. Everyone is hurting.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!
My pee pee hurts.
|< § ב'| | Email | Homepage | 05.28.05 - 9:56 pm | #
That wasn't us at 9:56 pm.
|< § ב'| | Email | Homepage | 05.28.05 - 10:00 pm
we knew that...
First clue: 'my's a singular posessive, of which you neither are either, as far as can be determined...
.
I was quite rudely woken up the other morning by a question from the other half.
She wanted to know if it was alright for our daughter to go camping.
My first question was is it a religious outing?A legitimate question,she however got offended because she thought I was critising her beliefs.Whatever.
My next question was does she actually want to go?Her answer was i dunno.
Next question was what happens if she gets hurt?
We have no insurance and have to pay cash for every doctor visit.We are living on borrowed time.
We started talking about this and she was telling me we need to do something.I dindnt bother telling her she is the one who is working for a big outfit that wont give her insurance because she only works thiry hours a week.I didnt tell her if Kerry had become president this might not be a problem in the future.
I dont know what the answer is.I do know i fear for our health and saftey.I fear that my daughter may not be able to participate in many functions as a child because we have no insurance.
ELI!
Monsieur is adamant that he get to watch "Pretty Woman." I'm mortally upset.
Can you liveblog 'Dinocroc'?
As for healthcare, many cost-effective, single payer, nationally based systems have been placed on the table for many years now. Monsieur has always said insurance companies were the first against the wall when the revolution came.
The time is now.
I like to tell my story because a lot of folks on the right think welfare is all about being lazy and cheating the average, hard-working Joe out of tax money.
I am a small businessman, with two stores and a staff of six employees in an S-Corporation with my business partner and I as owners. Three years ago, we were forced to drop employee heath insurance due to it's high cost. A year and a half ago, when my second child was six months old, my wife slipped into a serious bout of Post-Partum Depression and Psychosis. She went from managing a local businessman's luncheon club in a large hotel to sitting in a room at home going through hallucinations and paranoid delusions that she was in a "Truman Show"-type of existence. Well, without health insurance, we turned to the local public clinic. They have provided her with the four separate medications she needs for a very nominal fee. Sure, there is some waiting around in grim surroundings and no real personal one-on-one care, but at least THIS safety net is there for us. ALL of the medications that the clinic issues her are SAMPLES from the pharma companies. Whatever, it certainly works for us.
Someday in the hopefully not-too-distant future, I would love to see our tiny company once more extend health care to ALL of our employees... but that just isn't gonna happen until it gets less expensive.
I AM the American Dream, a seventeen-year business that employs eight people... we SHOULD be able to afford health care for all. This country should make it happen. How can that be a bad thing?
The good news: MissusX has been weaned off the anti-psychotic as of this Wednesday, and all is good. Looks like it's gonna be a great year.
-
And Monty - the pharmaceutical industry of the US/EU is using the Busheviks to push restrictions on locally-manufactured generics of their drugs in Asia/Africa/Australia via intellectual property clauses in "free trade agreements".
This of course makes it nearly impossible for locals to deal with health issues like AIDS without paying large amounts of ransom to US/EU Big Pharma.
If you restrict a man to fish and force him to buy his fish from you instead, you can be assured of a steady stream of income to boost your profit margins.
We should be so way past the time when CEOs - especially those of big Pharma - get to make literally obscene profits. They utilize clin trials, using human beings as guinea pigs. Yeah, it costs them, but, jeez, pay the researchers who developed the drug, not the goddamned CEOs. They are parasites.
And STOP the fucking advertising, already.
If something actually works, as Gleevec does, it will sell itself.
Drug companies are evil bastards. No matter how many bagels they buy, they will never be okay.
At the end of Clinton’s run the incremental approach looked promising to me. Pushing through SCHIP was really an act of political genius by Clinton and its backers in Congress. In 2000 we had a nice surplus and health care leaders in Congress like Kennedy and Dingell were looking to expand SCHIP into insuring adults of children on the program. I thought that could be used as a stepping stone towards universal health care. Bush ruined all that. Now thanks to the tax cuts and shitty economy not only are SCHIP programs being cut, even safer programs (federally mandated programs) like Medicaid are getting picked at. Even though Waxman was able to incrementally grow public insurance in a time of Republican control of the WH, these are different times, Dems have a lot less power to push their (smaller) pet agendas. I think the SCHIP and Medicaid cuts the last 4+ years are a ‘good’ example of the flaws of the incremental approach. Now not only do we have employers imposing more and more cost sharing on employees but the public health insurance safety net is fraying.
I don’t think we should stop trying to improve programs at the margins but I do not see that as a means to get to universal health care as I once did. In addition, I think those looking to close holes in the safety net should look more to foundation and local stakeholder groups to provide the funds to start them up. Then work to get local or state interested in funding them. Groups in California have been expanding health care in quite a few of their counties this way with their Children Health Initiative programs. I believe the hope for those groups is to get the Cali govt to step in and absorb the programs.
I talked a little about a review by Steffi Woolhandler and David Himmelstein of a new book "Uninsured in America: Life and Death in the Land of Opportunity," by Susan Starr Sered and Rushika Fernandopulle. Has a lot of stories like smallfish and others tell.
Click the homepage if you're interested (second post down).
health care is a racket in this country called america.
Don't for a moment believe Big Pharma when it says it needs to support its research. The vast majority of pharma research is done in public hospitals and universities, on the taxpayer dime. You've already paid for it.
Bush is like a wolverine. Craps on and destroys everything he encounters. And I demean the wolverine.
Monsieur is adamant that he get to watch "Pretty Woman." I'm mortally upset.
Can you liveblog 'Dinocroc'?
No can do, I'm afraid. I'm a bit otherwise occupied - getting back up to speed with the gf and all.
Bush is like a wolverine. Craps on and destroys everything he encounters. And I demean the wolverine.
And is impervious to permanent harm, just like the X-Men one.
Just in case my last comment was unclear, I meant - what does it say about our society, that the working poor are so on the edge that even the less expensive drugs are beyond their reach, and that we are too cheap to find it in our hearts to find a way to supply it to them.
O, Canada...
GWPDA:
back when i was in the professor bidness, i had a bunch of Canadian acquaintances, because Canada is in respect to its curriculum also degrees more 'liberal' than the US, and a lot of us USers envied the freedom to teach that Canadian teachers seemed to have, which we knew about because Canadian teachers got money, and other forms of encouragement, from their govt to travel and talk about their 'best practices.' so i got to meet a lot of Canadians who were in my (rather small) field, and they were uniformly cool--talented, articulate, thoughtful--folks...
anyway, i hear you've gotta have character references from a handful of folks before the Govt will consider a plea to immigrate...so i think i'll have to see if i can track any of 'em down...
dang i hate to think about leaving...
.
Mister X--thanks for sharing your story of PPD and PPP. I did suffer PPD (fortunately not with accompanying psychosis) and it was a harrowing experience. (One of the reasons I did not have more children.)
That you, as a working person, with a healthy small business, are not able to insure your family and employees, points to deep systemic ills in this system.
We seriously need national single payer health coverage.
Old people should die
MisterX
I was gonna write something like, "Why all the long posts?"
Then I read yours.
Best of luck.
I've been there in a way, and it's scary and ..., well, you know how it is.
Sometimes I wish I was religous so I could pray, and believe it would do any good.
.
Gannon Takes a Wife!!
Which one? He kidnap the Polygrapher's wife for insurance?
That really sucks! I posted the following, on the last thread... I didn't know there was a new one opened!
All we need is for someone to start putting little hearts or asterisks over every "i".
Christ.
Sarah Deere | Email | Homepage | 05.28.05 - 10:02 pm | #
♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
That can probably be arranged:0
The message still stands
"If something actually works, as Gleevec does, it will sell itself."
Gleevec was developed in a collaboration of several university med schools, not in house at the company where it's marketed. So their claim that it's expensive to develop is crap.
Old people should die
Attack Xoloitzcuintle -10:20 pm
usually they do...
i've seen a couple of 'em go through it...
or the die before they get old...
but how old is 'old'?
and who gets to say?
just askin
On second thought, maybe I *can* liveblog Dinocroc... Need something worthwhile to happen first, tho.
Our Glorious Leader (of course)
Once there is some control over the "doctor's money trough" > aka Medicare, your system will always be broken.
Single Payer Universal Health Care
Now
Ask Sallyh (or any other statistician or anyone who can actually do probabilities) why
A law like they have somewhere in the EU (Germany?) that the CEO can't make more than 20 times (I think it is) the pay of the lowest paid employee would be moral, too
Eli--i have to be nice to Monsieur. He helped me fix a flat tire today, and right now, the daughter has one in the same spot where I had mine. The city of LA has received a very irate call on their street repair line.
That you, as a working person, with a healthy small business, are not able to insure your family and employees, points to deep systemic ills in this system.
Sallyh, La Poissonier
The good thing is that both MasterX (age 6) and MissyX (age 2) are automatically covered by State law (federal?) for any illness, injury and I think even dental care.
The bad news: We tried to get life insurance on me and unfortunatly due to MissusX's condition, that went from the initial quote of $948/year to $1600 or some such shit.
Can't die this year...
-
I'm not sure I saw the whole kid-under-siege-by-the-dinocroc scene - do we know for sure that the kid was killed and didn't just escape and go into hiding somewhere?
And is Costas Mandylor playing an Australian?
Sis of ye: Thanks for the good wishes, and thanks for the interesting story. In answer to your question at the end, I call it "the cold dark heart of capitalism": For corporations (Novartis), it's not about helping people (the words in their slick glossy prospectii notwithstanding), it's about money. Even before I was diagnosed with my illness, I believed in universal healthcare for these exact reasons.
Smalfish: Sounds like you and I are in the same boat.
GWPDA: How can you just “pack up and move north”? I wish I could do that.
Diane: $122 per day, not per pill. I take six per day. And re: the expensive machines, it would seem that a sort of pooling of resources would be useful in such situations.
MisterX: Just another reason for more fairness in pharma.
Sallyh: So true: Big Pharma is in it for the profits. In 2001, I listened to a talk by Dr. Brian Druker, the main investigator of Gleevec, describing why he did the reasearch for the drug, and this wonderful human being was not in it for the money at all; he just hated seeing people waste away on chemo. No mention of potential fame or fortune, just good humanity. But then big pharma entered the picture…
((((Mister X)))))
I AM the American Dream, a seventeen-year business that employs eight people... we SHOULD be able to afford health care for all.
What a sad tale your's is about where we are in America. *The culture of life* crowd in Washington doesn't give a shit about your wife who deserves the most tender loving care we can muster. I feel sick to think that she and you and your employees are left to suffer so some fucking mega millionare can stuff some more bucks into an off shore account.
Prior--not that complex to understand. Government programs such as MediCare and SS have a great track record of low admin costs. If everyone in the nation is in the pool of risk, it's spread out. When you spread the risk, it's a great bargain for everyone.
Average cost of administration for Medicare= >2 percent.
Average cost of administration for private plans = >15 percent.
Do the math! It's easy!
There were some interesting op-eds in NYT along the lines of, "Why aren't Bush's corporate buddies pushing for universal healthcare to get themselves out from under their own huge healthcare burden?"
Seemed like a pretty good question to me...
David--another of the coinvestigators, Judy Gaston, didn't look to get rich either. She was just tired of all her cancer patients dying on her. (She is a specialist in non-Burkett lymphomas.)
A good thing, because she didn't.
Sallyh,
Easy for you, sistah, you are a math wiz. Folks like me just get that glazed look and wonder who is telling the truth. Thanks for making it simple.
MediCare and SS have a great track record of low admin costs
The problem isn't involved with the low administration costs.
It is very much affected by the fact that Dr's know that they are going to get paid > 90 year-olds get 4 vessel CABG's despite the fact that their probable outcomes are not that great.
Have to control it in some manner...
MisterX sounds like the type of small businessman that Bush is always babbling about. I bet MisterX never gets to sit on the stage at one of the Bush staged performances. MisterX and MissusX are also lucky that there was a public clinic that they could go to. Such services are not always available
Best of luck.
I've been there in a way, and it's scary and ..., well, you know how it is.
Sometimes I wish I was religous so I could pray, and believe it would do any good.- agave, on hangover
Thanks for the kind words. I am in NO way a religious person, having actually been INSIDE of a chuch only about 7-8 times in my life (weddings), and all I learned from this is that I am the strength in my world. Most friends and family were afraid to come around, even though they consider themselves religious.
I would have thought that it would have been a good time to show just how much you learned from the teachings of Jesus, but there you go.
-
Hi folks,
I could tell some personal healthcare horror stories. But I could also tell some stories about staunch conservatives who sneer at "Hilarycare," despite having suckled at the teat of publicly funded drug-treatment programs...
I've also heard, in the last month, a person who incessantly complains about "socialized medicine" bemoaning the fact that his insurance plan doesn't cover home healthcare personnel. He makes at least $300,000 a year, but still seems to think it's unjust that he'd have to pay extra for a month worth of live-in nursing.
Off topic......
Here is a scenario.
I've long since advocated that we eliminate the issue of the continued Fidel Castro pressence in Cooba.
My reasoning was two-fold.
1. I was getting tired of Cuba constantly being used by wingnuts as some sort of weapon to be used aganst democrats who have absolutely no links whatsoever to Cooba. The fact that we haven't invaded and or assasinated Castro seems bizarre to say the least.
2. My family is going to fly to Tampa, Florida in a week and we are going to have to mingle yet again with my wife's cousin's husband and his family who are Coobans. My wife and her family are Puerto Rican. Every time we get together with these people they act like somehow Puerto Ricans have somehow betrayed their latin american brothers by not being as militant as they are about getting rid of castro and liberating Cooba. In each case we start out on their side of the issue but once it gets to them and their inability to handle thier own failures in overthrowing Castro themselves, they turn around and blame the rest of the peoples of the island nations. My father in law is getting sick of it.
My mother in law is getting sick of it.
My brother in law is getting sick of it.
My sister in law is getting sick of it.
When their cousin isn't around they usually praise Castro for the sole purpose of spiting her husband's family who they are really getting sick of. What's worse is that they spit everytime the name Kennedy comes up. On at least two occasions this ended up being a 'spraying' kind of spit which got on several people. They claim that an uncle was at the Bay of Pigs and was killed. I have no way of confirming this but it's always a nice story they tend to tell, and tell, and tell, and tell some more. This means that the name Kennedy comes up a lot and thus the sprinkler system comes on. Thank god we're always outside when this happens. My wife's aunt is always quick to change the subject should they all be inside her home.
Are there any other Puerto Rican's out there with similar misgivings about Coobans?
MYOB'
.
And is impervious to permanent harm, just like the X-Men one.
Eli |
Eli, I refuse to give W Hugh Jackman status.....
I had anal sex with my dog. Now it has herpes, too.
Sallyh --
I know -- the bigger the pole, the more the risk is equalized -- even someone as mathematically challenged as I can grasp that
But it would cost the insurance companies $, & they are going to keep stealing as long as they can -- I am waiting for businesses & doctors to realize that they are on the wrong (i.e., $ losing) side of the game
Eli, I refuse to give W Hugh Jackman status.....
Huge jackass, then.
Phila,
I see that all the time too...it is amazing!
He makes at least $300,000 a year, but still seems to think it's unjust that he'd have to pay extra for a month worth of live-in nursing.
Phila |
Phila, this is what we're dealing with. People who just don't get it.
Remember during the debates when Kerry starting talking about reforming the health care system and w got all excited, "How you gonna pay for it?" etc, etc?
And a couple of years ago he said something to the effect "If people want health insurance they should just go buy it."
He's a fucking sociopath.
He doesn't give a fuck who lives or dies so long as it's not him.
"Why aren't Bush's corporate buddies pushing for universal healthcare to get themselves out from under their own huge healthcare burden?"<
cuz they need it as a weapon with which to 'discipline' their workers, mostly...
but i'm just an old marxian...waddafukdeweyegno...
Huge jackass, then.
Eli |
That'll work.
It's not just Pharma, on average managed care companies' profits were up 82% last year. Aetna and CIGNAs' profits were %136 and %128 respectively at the same time that real wages were falling.
This is a perfect example of why Free Marketeers can all go fuck themselves.
I thought W was Horse Jack-Man.
Another medical travesty here is injury from a car accident. Even when the other driver is at fault, you must pay for treatment upfront yourself, and you cannot collect until you are stabilized and there is a definite estimate of how much your future treatment will cost. PIP helps some, but only pays you about 2500 - which is eaten up easily by your ambulance cost and emergency room visit after the accident.
Even if you have regular health insurance, they won't pay if it's from a car accident.
If you are hurt enough to keep you away from work, if you don't have good disability insurance you will not only have no income, but have to scrape up the money for your treatments for your injuries. This happened to me, and I learned the hard way about car accidents and injuries/insurance. People have literally had their lives and finances ruined because of car accidents and the unfair way that the health care is paid for. If you don't have the money to pay for your treatments, you are stuck not getting the care you need - and since reimbursement/settlement depends on what is paid out for medical, if you can't afford to get the care, you can't get a decent medical settlement for treatment you need.
I had to settle for an amount that barely covered my initial medical bills and lost wages- and couldn't get all the treatment because I didn't have the money. I am now stuck needing 20 dollar per pill migraine medication that I will probably have to buy for life - migraines that I never had before hitting my head in the accident caused by someone else.
Since I take from 5 to 20 a month - think about how much that will add up to over the course of say, 20 years.
And that doesn't count the back up pain medication and nausea meds - or the physical therapy I cannot afford for my neck injury.
***So - on your car insurance - make sure you sign up for what is called "Schedule C" PIP - it only costs a few dollars more, but has larger health and lost wage dollar benefits and a longer benefit period available for lost income and immediate medical expenses. (they will eventually reimburse themselves by taking it out of your settlement with the other company whose driver was at fault)
A, B, and C are available in most states as standardized plans on PIP - but most people don't know the benefit of paying a few dollars more.
GET SCHEDULE C!
And the govt is already turning over much of Medicare to "managed Medicare" companies run by BCBS and United...
The first time around with Oxford and Met weren't that successful > but the changes will come and with it the higher costs > sort of like using mercinaries in eyerack for military ops
He's a fucking sociopath.
He doesn't give a fuck who lives or dies so long as it's not him.
Central Scrutinizer
that's it in a nutshell.
I feel sick to think that she and you and your employees are left to suffer so some fucking mega millionare can stuff some more bucks into an off shore account.
bigvic
Thanks for the kindness... yeah, I consider us fairly productive members of society and all that. My business partner and I LITERALLY started out with about $1800 in 1988 and built from there. We didn't actually PAY ourselves for the first two years... we worked other jobs, so it's not like I'm some kind of giant leech sucking off the public tit...
-
Drug companies are evil bastards. No matter how many bagels they buy, they will never be okay.
Sarah Deere
I second that.
This isn't like selling SUVs or shoes.
It's about health, life and death!
Fucking vultures!
Hoping you get sick so the can make money, not just a fair profit...
Fuck I can't even type it!!
If there was ever a case for the government taking control of an industry, This Is It.
And jail all the execs of all the drug companies!
Damn this has been pissing me off for years!
.
Krugman's Reply To Okrent
"In Daniel Okrent's parting shot as public editor of The New York Times, he levied a harsh charge against me: he said that I have "a disturbing habit of shaping, slicing and selectively citing numbers in a fashion that pleases his acolytes but leaves him open to substantive assaults."
He offered no examples of my "disturbing habit," and maybe I should stop there: surely it's inappropriate for the public editor to attack the ethics of one of the paper's writers without providing any supporting evidence. He responded to my request for examples with criticisms of specific columns. Those criticisms were simply wrong: in each of those columns I played entirely fair with my readers, using the standard data in the standard way.
That should be the end of the story.
I want to go back to doing what I have been doing all along: using economic data to inform my readers."
Phila, this is what we're dealing with. People who just don't get it.
Sarah Deere
Well, they get it in one sense. The people I'm talking about have lightning-quick reactions to certain kinds of information, or certain kinds of news stories. I'll bring something up that seems innocuous to me, and suddenly I'm in this weird, off-the-wall conversation about some peripheral issue that never even occurred to me. And then I realize that acknowldeging any truth is such a slippery slope that they've got to be on the defensive against reality all the time. It's like those cartoons where if you remove a pebble from a cliff the whole mountainside comes down on you.
agave,
why don't you just buy their stocks or the vanguard health care fund > averages 19.9%/yr for the last 15 years...
Same reason why i have energy stocks > might as well make money from them
Hey, look into alternative medicine.
Blood pressure, its a shortage of potassium and magnesium.
PostPartum Depression- a shortage of omega-3 oil (fish oil or flaxseed oil.
But Big Pharma and the M.D.s don't get rich if you don't pay.
He's a fucking sociopath.
He doesn't give a fuck who lives or dies so long as it's not him.
Sounds like someone who is often discussed here.
Life's like a firework
You're only lit once
And you must stand and radiate correctly.
.
I bet MisterX never gets to sit on the stage at one of the Bush staged performances.
It would probably not be wise for MisterX to get within 50 feet of the Crass Monkey... MisterX knows where he can lay his hands on some rotten tomatoes.
MisterX and MissusX are also lucky that there was a public clinic that they could go to. Such services are not always available
____league
You know, before this happened, I always assumed there was a place for all to go... now I know better.
-
You know, they only time we really had progressives in leadership positions in this country was in the New Deal & FDR was no socialist!
FDR just wanted to help average Americans (okay, if you were black & in the South, it wasn't good enough, but he had a lot on his plate -- Eleanor dealt with that question [among others])
I don't know the way forward -- just hoping the Repukes turn on each other & self destruct before they cause next Great Depression -- & I know it might already be too late & I don't know where the next FDR might be
why don't you just buy their stocks or the vanguard health care fund > averages 19.9%/yr for the last 15 years...
Same reason why i have energy stocks > might as well make money from them
Is there an "Industries that have paid off the ruling party" fund? I'd sink a lot of money into that one and just let it roll until they're voted out...
"Industries that have paid off the ruling party"
Defense stocks > can't get anymore paid off than that
Resveratrol, Coq10, green tea extract, garlic oil - these (and more) are all great preventatives.
Ah, preventing dis-ease, what a concept.....
Gleevec was developed in a collaboration of several university med schools, not in house at the company where it's marketed. So their claim that it's expensive to develop is crap.
Sallyh, La Poissoniere
sallyh, well I know, being at one of those schools.
And watching docs here translate that discovery into treatments for other types of cancers. These men/women are NOT getting rich, but they work lone. hard hours to do the "bench to bedside" stuff that makes reall differences in peoples' lilves. I apologize for sounding like a commercial for clinical investigators, but, dammit, they rule!! It's the most difficult of roads to choose in medicine, already pretty tough!!
Phila,
But I could also tell some stories about staunch conservatives who sneer at "Hilarycare," despite having suckled at the teat of publicly funded drug-treatment programs...
I have some friends since childhood who were born with silver spoons in their yapping pieholes who bitch and moan about how hard they work and crack on welfare queens. I want to punch them. One couple I know have a severely brain damaged son who gets a whopping load of free "school" services, with handicaped accessible busses picking him up, free diapers (he's 16) a personal minder at "school" and free social services. The kid is deaf, dumb and blind. Literally. They find nothing wrong with collecting these goodies even though they could afford private care. They also think nothing of transfering their parent's wealth into sheltered assets so the *government* takes care of their parents. Fuck these greedy bastards.
I posted this the other day
It is very muvch on topic,yet slightly on a different track.
It starts here
HMO Sued over Woman's Death
Very intresting whats happening here.It could spell out the future of health care.
What's good for getting past an EMIT screen?
.
My dad who was doing well financially, had health insurance, but was taking so much meds, from arthritis and heart problems, that he would still go to Mexico to buy his drugs.
He died suddenly, after a check up that was AOK, considering.
He was taking Vioxx.
.
Free enterprise isn't broken, it is the fact a segment of society has broken the spirit of free enterprise. Prior Aelred pointed out the issue of capping CEO salaries. If you look at any large corp, the Officers and upper level executives have all the reason to maximize profit at the detriment of their customer. They are beholden to the shareholder and also to their contracts and compensation agreements. In one respect these people are playing a very stacked deck of poker, they win them all before they ever begin work. They have the golden parachute, the guaranteed bonus based not on real performance but stock value and so forth. Considering how some of these people are compensated, they can screw up badly and still come out very well to do. So who cares if the customer is screwed, it will take a couple of years for that to catch up to the exec and in the meantime the bank account is getting bigger, if they get terminated, the end up with a nice deal already pre-arranged. So they really don't give a rats ass unless they really are concientious souls.
If free enterprise is ever tossed, it will not be the people in general at fault, it will fall firmly on this segment I talk about.
It's like those cartoons where if you remove a pebble from a cliff the whole mountainside comes down on you.
Phila |
I hear that. One would think it would be pretty awful to live where they live, but, in the end, it only seems to bother you and me and like-minded folks.
Oops, I forgot the best for the heart, Omega 3-6-9, and least we forget, a baby aspirin.
Just lurking all the best to my friends on-line... Had a few beers and feel the urge....
"Hey, look into alternative medicine.
Blood pressure, its a shortage of potassium and magnesium.
PostPartum Depression- a shortage of omega-3 oil (fish oil or flaxseed oil.
But Big Pharma and the M.D.s don't get rich if you don't pay.
Get Going | Email | Homepage | 05.28.05 - 10:43 pm | #"
Is this true? How easily available are potasium & magnesium supplements? Practically everyone I know over 50 is on some kind of pills for BP -- some of them very pricey!
I posted a little diary at dKos about this some time back
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonl...2/24/165958/
590
The upshot is, to cover the indigent and working poor in a large southern county costs the county taxpayer 26 cents per $100 of propoerty value.
It's worth it, and the system works.
America should do this all over the country.
Coobanos
i am ambivalent about what will happen when Castro dies.
i've had acquaintances among Coobans in Baton rouge and New Orleans. Volver is a matter of faith, and almost Divine Right.
mainly 'european' Coobanos, they're a freaky bunch of people who are not in the least interested in reconciliation...
certainly, there will be a flood of returning, revenge-minded psychopaths ready, willing, even eager to wreak havoc to 'reclaim' what was stolen from them.
there was an article in harper's a couple of months ago about how, i n the face of collapsing Soviet support, and increasing pressure from Congress, Cooba re-invented sustainable agriculture...
which will become a casualty of the re-technologization of Cooba, and the concommitant disempowering of the folks who made Cooba actually work...
i do not expect it will be a peaceful transition...
The moonie times is reporting the king of saudi arabia dead - says the mahablog
Have to consider the source - it's clear something is afoot over there.
as for healthcare, in spite of all the horrors you may have heard about the Canadian medicare system, we have no more snafus than private health care -
Over all it's pretty good - My 2 kids came into the world happy and healthy and well cared for - didn't cost us all that money - now that's an anti-family tax!
I'm 48 - all is good - mom's a breast cancer survivor ('95) - treatments were effective and on time and humane and they cost us the price of gas to go to the clinic -
I'm just saying...
agave, my condolences re: your dad.
SD
He offered no examples of my "disturbing habit," and maybe I should stop there: surely it's inappropriate for the public editor to attack the ethics of one of the paper's writers without providing any supporting evidence. He responded to my request for examples with criticisms of specific columns. Those criticisms were simply wrong: in each of those columns I played entirely fair with my readers, using the standard data in the standard way.
What planet are you on, Paul? You have been nailed to the wall.
Krugman = ZERO CREDIBILITY
How easily available are potasium & magnesium supplements?
CVS, Rite-Aid, Walgreens
Whatever is close to you where you live
Prior Aelred, do a search on COQ10 for HBP.
FDR just wanted to help average Americans (okay, if you were black & in the South, it wasn't good enough, but he had a lot on his plate
FDR and his wife were wealthy folks I can admire. They both wanted to give back to the forgotten and neglected in their country. They showed true Christian values.
So now just saying someone has no credibility for wingnuts makes it so? They can't even back that claim with evidence.
Fuck these greedy bastards.
bigvic
amen.
Can they say "entitlement".....???
Shorter fake-Brad (aka Gollum Luskin):
"I got nothing."
Brad DeLong = ZERO CREDIBILITY
Hey, why not....
Same reason why i have energy stocks > might as well make money from them
Attack Xoloitzcuintle
Hmmm,
My GF gets Volero (sp?) stock,
an energy (oil/Gas) co. based in TX.
Never heard of them before but they are huge. They've been buying up refineries that the others had shut down (to drive up prices?) and modernizing them.
If I remember right, they have 30% of the refinery capacity in the US.
.
He's a fucking sociopath.
He doesn't give a fuck who lives or dies so long as it's not him.
Central Scrutinizer
Worth repeating.
Free Enterprise
Primarily, there is no such thing.
Every segment of the marketplace imposes costs of entry and participation upon the players, and extracts a percentage of the take...
Free enterprise is as much a myth as free beer, and just about as appealing. But it is just another way to rationalize the terrible rarity of the success of ANY new enterprise. The system is designed to promote failure, because the real money's in the turnover of properties...
.
Krugman = ZERO CREDIBILITY
Brad DeLong | Email | Homepage | 05.28.05 - 10:52 pm |
Hahahahah - This guy's good! Brad, maybe you should try to get on the improv, hey?
Get going,
Alternative medicine? That's fascinating stuff.
What dietary supplement do you take to treat diabetes?
What dietary supplement do you take if you break your femur?
What dietary supplement do you take if you have an MI?
What dietary supplement do you take if you develop colon cancer?
Didn't Huge Jackass play Wolverine?
.
i am an employer.
the current health insurance situation in the USA is a scam.
the position that i am coming to is let's draft all the doctors, all the nurses, and nationalise all the hospitals. and stop going all around the world and killing wogs.
perhaps then we could raise our levels of infant mortality to cuba's level of excellence. imagine, cuba, the victim of our embargo, achieves a higher level of infant survivability. all the fascists in the congress should be skulking when this feature of amerikan life is considered.
i had an expat friend in france, he developed a kidney stone. it could have been operated upon in france for less than $5,000. but my friend didn't want that operation, he thought that lithotripsy could solve the problem. the french physicians told him that lithotripsy was out of the question, that the stone was too large.
my friend ignored the french docs. flew back to the USA for lithotripsy. no mention here of stone size problems..
well, should have lost the kidney. returned to france, and though the french physicians chattered and remonstrated my friend for having ignored their advice, they operated and saved the kidney.
dollars spent in USA for stupid and life-threatening medical procedures: $100k.
dollars spend in france for intelligent and kidney-saving procedures, less than $10k.
i could continue this. the USA and its medicos are jokes. the best press-agentry in the world makes most amerikans think otherwise.
is a bush the prexy of the ama?
I remember reading some years ago an article about health insurance companies. One of the CEOs told the reporter that sometimes they covered treatment that they could have refused to cover based on the fine print in the policies because they thought it was the right thing to do. The CEO also said that the reporter better not mention the name of the company because then everybody with a serious medical condition would try to get coverage with his company. There are some parts of the economy for which 'competition' does not work. Health insurance is one of these areas.
My shoe = ZERO CREDIBILITY
For what it's worth --
I'm no longer on BP medication myself -- but I do run -- usually 5 days a week -- minimum of 18 miles in the course of a week -- furthest in a single day so far is 11 miles -- I like it, but I still monitor my BP & worry about it spiking form time to time (it varies a lot)
Would K &Mg also stabilize?
And how do we convince people that Universal Health care (like all civilized nations have) is a fairness issue?
Toadvine, how about preventing these diseases before the get to these points? That's the smart thing to do. Follow the research....
What dietary supplement do you take to treat diabetes?
What dietary supplement do you take if you break your femur?
What dietary supplement do you take if you have an MI?
What dietary supplement do you take if you develop colon cancer?
I have no doubt that before there was medicine these problems came up,and were solved,or you died.
I also have no doubt that modern medicine can cure them better.
There should be a balance between the two.
I think thats the point he was trying to make.
Fake Brad DeLong is a liar.
Brad Delong?
The stinkiest turd Krugman's deposited into the Princeton septic system in the last 5 years has more credibility than the best thing to which you've ever aspired, cully.
My stapler = ZERO CREDIBILITY
Prior:
Want to drop your BP ten points???
Stop watching the news.
The Roosevelts were real human beings with real flaws, but they really were interested in helping people -- they really were
I would love to see them both added to the calendar of the Episcopal Church, but I'm afraid that it is unlikely to happen (also Fiorello LaGuardia -- another Episcopalian who served as a congressman as the candidate of both the Republicans & the Socialists -- times have changed)
My GF gets Volero (sp?) stock,
Valerio
My dad complained about gas prices 15 years ago, so I said, "why not just go by some oil stocks and use the dividends for pay for your gas" > well, let's just say he doesn't worry about paying for gas anymore...
Hooh boy! I heart Krugman. Farking Okrent was the worst, most thin-skinned punk possible for that job.He is and was an unthoughtful man. Wrong for the job.
ƒu?ctio?( )
I stopped watching the news after Fredo's handlers stole the 2000 election
If you people would just stop telling the truth, I could be insulated!
Awright, I need to go home and pet the cat, I reckon.
.
I saw video of the Big Dog and he didn't look good. I'm worried he has aids from all the cheating he's done. Poor Hillary. Well, on second thought, she was probably the only woman safe from him.
Anyone seen the commercials lately for the big pharma plan that supposedly provides 40% off drugs to poor people?
I think it's just a ploy to stop us from getting real health care and prescription medicine reform.
Evil asshats.
Awright, I need to go home and pet the cat, I reckon
That good for HBP too....
Wolf-man,
How could my daughter have "prevented" her diabetes? What "alternative medicine" treatment would have worked?
What "prevention" will stop the tens of thousands of deaths and injuries the USA sees each year from trauma?
Smalfish, if you want a balance between modern medicine and what passed for medicine before the modern era, go live in the third world and see how it goes.
Let's hear it again, because hoyt is absolutely Right On:
He's a fucking sociopath.
He doesn't give a fuck who lives or dies so long as it's not him.
Central Scrutinizer
Worth repeating.
Hoyt C. | Email | Homepage | 05.28.05 - 10:57 pm | #
We are "ruled", or maybe I mean *ruled* by a FUCKING SOCIOPATH. WHAT THE FUCK IS THE MATTER WITH US????? We're, at least some of us, gonna have to end up in the dangerous, deadly streets, eventually, so why shirk away now from naming him, our enemy?
Fuck. All I want is to be a grandmother and live out the rest of my days in peace. My conscience and George W FUCKING Bush ain't gonna let me.
Goddamn goddamn goddamn.
Fucking coward namestealers,you suck shit.
Do you have no balls?Or did your mom cut them off when you were hatched?
One of the problems with modern medicine, is that there are so many medications. My father has a handful he has to take through out the day.
My mother has HBP and has to take med for that as well as other meds. Her BP med stops working after awhile and she has to try something new. Once, she was on some that worked when Medicare sent the doctor a letter saying she should be on something else. She tried the one Medicare told the doc, and ended up having hallucinations. Now, that is not a good thing when she has to do the driving.
My father is 85 and no longer drives. The doc turned around and wrote a nasty letter to Medicare and put her back on the med that worked.
Too many times, the insurances dictate what should be given, instead of allowing the docs to do their job. Also, too many medicines get prescribed at the same time to cover the nasty side effects of some other medicines the patient is taking.
Re: "Alternative Medicine"
Beats the shit out of prayer.
Maybe.
-
I saw video of the Big Dog and he didn't look good. I'm worried he has aids from all the cheating he's done. Poor Hillary. Well, on second thought, she was probably the only woman safe from him.
WoodyGuthriesGuitar (aka...) |
WGG, this can't POSSIBLY be you.
SD
Sarah Deere
Evening Moonbats, I would add my two-cent's worth, but this is a question that really does not need much debate, does it? We should have free and equitable health care for everyone. {period}
The Roosevelts were real human beings with real flaws, but they really were interested in helping people -- they really were
Bless you, brother, they were. We all have our difficulties. At least they tried. And they have a lasting legacy.
WGG
I would agree with that, I may be generalizing cost of entry, but simply for health insurance many people never step up and become business owners themselves.
The other aspect is the competition sending jobs overseas and making products at slave wage costs means a small business guy has a less than bad chance of competing. Heck even the middle range business owner has that problem if a large corp suddenly changes the rules by offshoring.
I would favor a national program for catastrophic illness and pay for my sniffles either directly or by private insurance, but I suppose they will only find a way to advance the costs so that would be unlikely.
It would be amazing what would happen if people did not fear the medical spectre knocking on their door.
I'm worried he has aids from all the cheating he's done.
Interesting. Repukes have a tendency to accuse the Dems of the very things they're having issues with at the time.
Wonder if some Repuke politico...?
Nah, that would just be wild speculation.
OT, but, damn! I hope I win the powerball tonite! Come on, moonbats, group thoughts for me to win... yeah!
How could my daughter have "prevented" her diabetes? What "alternative medicine" treatment would have worked?
JD is different than AD, but there are still things that she can take or do that could help lessen her need for insulin (if that's her treatment). You might want to check into it, it could help her. In any case, there are many things that can help prevent disease.
oldwhitelady is certainly right about the meds people have to take becaue of the effect of other meds & the snowball effect that can happen
Basic health care in this country is totally screwed up (but we all agree on that)
But how do we go about changing things -- IIRC in the days of the "Hilarycare" proposal, Jim McDermot was the ONLY person in Congress who supported single payer -- has that changed? How do we change it?
oops! try again!
Sarah Deere -- Did we ever determine if your only DVD player was inside your computer?
Re: Diabetes & altmed: I damn near shit myself laughing when an online chiropractor said he could probably cure my sleep apnea.
.
I'm able to keep my head in my ass 24 hrs a day.
Can they say "entitlement".....???
Sarah Deere
More Rightwing/UpperCrustacean projection. No one screams "entitlement!" like those who have it all, and their enablers. No matter how much they have, they feel entitled to more, even--especially?--if someone else has it. These fools believe at heart it really is a Zero Sum Game, and, yup, project that on everyone else, too.
Hey, Projectionists! Aint the cartoon about over? Fuckin' Looney Toons...
dollars spent in USA for stupid and life-threatening medical procedures: $100k.
dollars spend in france for intelligent and kidney-saving procedures, less than $10k.
i could continue this. the USA and its medicos are jokes. the best press-agentry in the world makes most amerikans think otherwise.
is a bush the prexy of the ama?
albertchampion |
albert, Bush, the "compassionate".
Bullcrap.
Smalfish, if you want a balance between modern medicine and what passed for medicine before the modern era, go live in the third world and see how it goes.
Are you fucking ignorant?I never said anything of the sort,What I was saying was that medicine has a way of distorting what we should and should not be doing.DIctors are ruled by big pharma and the NIH.Both outfits are political in nature due to the high instances of litigation.
WHat doctors should be doing is telling the truth about everything instead they are forced into treating disese and trauma with coerced treatment scenarios.This is bullshit.If codfish oil works as well as a pill,doctors should be alloweed to recomend the cheaper method,instead they are twisted into compliance and have to make up bullshit perscriptions.
Why does that sound like I should move to third world countries?If yuou had read the entire thread you would have figured that out,instead you come off making accusations you have no business making.
Practicing Free Enterprise
OWL, depends, what's it worth for me to send good vibes at your lottery ticket?
(Jes kidding) Hope ya get it.
Jeffraham Prestonian - Some Chiropractors believe they can send cancer into remission with a bit of spinal adjustment... go directly from their offices to a REAL doctor.
-
Wow, that $300 billion we're spending on what? fighting terra? nation building? fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them here? (have I mentioned yet, how much I hate these people?) would have been a real nice investment in universal healthcare.
Thanks EkCenTriK - doubtful, though, isn't it. Oh, well.
I am a raving lunatic. Pay me no mind.
MisterX: Jeffraham Prestonian - Some Chiropractors believe they can send cancer into remission with a bit of spinal adjustment... go directly from their offices to a REAL doctor.
Never been to one, m'sef. I figure they're somewhere between a charlatan and a real M.D., with some variation on the scale, but I've never had anything with which I would trust a chiro to treat.
.
Wolf-man,
"...there are still things that she can take or do that could help lessen her need for insulin..."
Like what? Exercise? Dietary modification? Ginseng?
Give me a freaking break.
Alternative medicine is for non-illnesses that pass for illness in mall shoppers who want to buy something at the GNC store so they can feel better.
Can prevention prevent injury or illness? Of course. But not ALL of it, and for the injury or illness that DOES occur I'll stick with the good ol' scientific method.
The only difference between the huge corporations that sell "alternative" meds and the huge corporations that sell real meds is that the FDA polices one and not the other.
Healthcare reference from the latest issue of Extra, the mag of FAIR:
"
Behind the Maple Curtain
Bashing Canadian healthcare is a popular sport in the US press, but an Associated Press article (3/19/05) by Beth Duff-Brown had more than its share of patently dubious claims. For example, it asserted that "the average Canadian family pays about 48 percent of its income in taxes each year." According to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, however, the total tax revenue of Canada is only 33.9 percent of Canadian GDP. The article went on to claim that "according to experts on both sides of the debate, Canada and North Korea are the only countries with laws banning the purchase of insurance for hospitalization or surgery." A few minutes searching online turned up a Canadian insurance company (Manulife Financial) offering supplementary hospitalization coverage, and other scofflaws offering to give sick Canadians money to spend however they please. Somebody should inform the Canadian secret police.
"
Now I'm jealous. The Moronic Namestealing Useless Timewaster™ must have good health insurance if it's trolling a healthcare thread and not actually offering a personal opinion...
-
Atrios
you should give props to Kevin Drum he has been beating the errr "drum" on this issue all year.
WGG, this can't POSSIBLY be you.
SD
Sarah Deere
Of course it isn't.
And whatever Clinton's improprieties, at least he wasn't fucking kids. Unlike these GOP child-rapers.
I note, too, that Clinton's daughter doesn't seem to have turned out to be a dumb-as-dirt, drunk-ass hosebag. Unlike...well, you know.
I am a raving lunatic. Pay me no mind.
smallfish | Email | Homepage | 05.28.05 - 11:15 pm | #
YYYEEEE fucking Haaaw!
Phila -- What's wrong with dumb-as-dirt, drunk-ass hosebags?
.
Jeepers H. Christmas. Nothing gets the WH trolls out in force better than pointing out their fatal flaws, such as hating their fellow Americans. Hoo, Boy! They really need to stick with the dumbasses who can't think for themselves. Really.
Tax cuts cure disease.
FWIW
A number of years ago I threw my back out -- I waited for it to get better, but it just got worse until it reached the point that I could hardly move -- the chiropractor fixed it
Our insurance does copay for chiropractic & they wouldn't do that if they didn't think it was cost effective
I'm not a powerball winner....*sob* Out of 2 tickets with 6 numbers on each, I had 1 matching number. $2.00 down the drain.
Smalfish,
"WHat doctors should be doing is telling the truth about everything instead they are forced into treating disese and trauma with coerced treatment scenarios."
What?
I treated an open elbow dislocation last night, with an I&D, a splint and admission for IV abx.
My patient was a drunk, indigent construction worker who speaks no english. He got state of the art care from a team that was there for him immediately upon presentation at the hospital, after being picked up minutes afer injury by a dedicated team of paramedics.
What "coerced" scenario is that?
Where did the NIH come into play while I was working?
You really shouldn't talk out of your ass that way...
Fucking coward.Have you nothing to say for yourself,other than to make foolish kid prank jokes?
Your mother beat you one too many times I see.
BTW, one of the main benefits of being a public school teacher is that we have super excellent health care - covers office visits, $2.00 prescriptions, all tests, all hospital expenses et al) and I am still in favor of limiting my health care to something that is workable for all.
One of the "things" that my district provides is the mobile dentist. Most of my children have never seen a dentist - except at school. This is provided by the state. But if you are not dirt poor, this is not given. We need to provide for EVERYONE.
Interesting. Repukes have a tendency to accuse the Dems of the very things they're having issues with at the time.
Yep. Every criticism is a confession.
I've got to do some work now. Have a nice night, everyone!
You too, namestealer. Have a popsicle, and pretend it's Cheney's dick.
[Canadian secret police, St John's office: under an enormous multicolored sign that says ROYAL CANADIAN SECRET POLICE, PLEASE DO NOT NOTICE UNLESS YOU NEED US, next to a Tim Horton's with two drive-throughs]
Universal health care simply isn't economically feasible. Equal justice for all simply isn't economically feasible. The feasibility of the rights of man is simply contradicted by a 19th century supply and demand diagram. We know this now, scholars have proven it.
Jeez - I sure would hate to be known as "dumb-as-dirt, drunk-ass hosebag?". You'd think they would change their ways while in the spotlight. Yes, Chelsea is a well brought up daughter. Well turned out, too.
And how do we convince people that Universal Health care (like all civilized nations have) is a fairness issue?
Prior Aelred
Fairness?!
What may, seems like must, happen, is the CEO fat cats see their profits impacted to the point they can't take it anymore because of health insurance costs. They can't just jettison it and stay competitive
Then it will happen.
After all who runs this country?
It is starting to happen.
.
Toadvine
You miss my point by miles and miles.
But thats ok.You go on doing your fine work.I commend you on being a doctor,I have no ill feelings toward you.I mean that.
You are but a pawn in this game.
Phila -- What's wrong with dumb-as-dirt, drunk-ass hosebags?
IMO? Nothing, really. As long as they don't frighten the horses, as the saying is.
But in the opinion of the self-righteous prigs and alleged moral high-grounders who are obsessed with the Clenis? Everything, supposedly.
'Night, moonbats!
Hahahahhaha. I guess GOP nitwits think they can change the conversation here. Off the mark as always. Use your schroll key liberally.
The feasibility of the rights of man is simply contradicted by a 19th century supply and demand diagram
What a genius, I've seen the light.
We're the only major industrialized nation without some type of universal healt care, neocon scrotum licker.
richard posner is a parody troll, right? I guess I'll have to believe that the CIA & the mob took out JFK (BTW, the most realistic thing about Oliver Stone's movie [BTW --Stone just got busted for DWI & drugs] was that EVERYONE was smoking all the time -- I had forgotten it was like that)
"The feasibility of the rights of man is simply contradicted by a 19th century supply and demand diagram."
Time to break up the public water and sewage systems, buy our own stop signs and put in our own individual road systems. While we are at it, we can contract privately with fire, ems and police. Oh and when we take a flight, well, be sure to tip the ATC's before you board.
Nite, Phila. Peace.
agave -- you may well be right -- at the moment I am more concenred about solving the problem than the moving force in the solution
Smalfish,
It's no game, and it drives me nuts to see people who should know better assume that corporations that crank out "alternative" meds are better somehow than the ones that produce legit meds
...to see people who'll argue for weeks that evolution exists go on to claim that faith healing/pyramids/works better than modern medicine.
...to see people who support wholeheartedly the beauracracy that runs the social welfare net, then turn around and bash the beauracracy that runs our medical research system.
Yes, Chelsea is a well brought up daughter. Well turned out, too.
oldwhitelady
Unlike the drunken Ho's Jenna and not Jenna. Snotty little punks, just like Daddy.
What's the latest on an Eschaton conference, party, or whatever you call it, later this year????
Geez Toadvine, I'm not the enemy. Since you are a doctor I might suggest checking into alternative treaments though. It could help SOME of your patients. That's all I'm saying. Things like COQ10, Omega 3 and Reseratrol are showing great promise with low side effects. And yes, excercize. But I never attacked modern medicine in any of my posts.
Universal health care simply isn't economically feasible.
We seem to be the only "civilised" country that believes that. My husband recently was offered a temp job at a company in southwest England at what seemed to be an outrageous salary. He made the comment that it would have to cover health insurance (having heard all the horror stories). They just laughed, as did most of the people in our informal, ale fueled survey. We did meet some people up in the midlands who were frustrated, but most others seemed pretty happy.
Nite Phila.
My thesis at the University of Chicago is on 'the economic costs of good moods.'
I thought W was Horse Jack-Man.
Toonscribe
The problem with the insurance industry is that it's an unregulated monopoly, or oligopoly at best.
That's right, boys and girls. Every since the McCarran Ferguson Act of 1945, insurers have enjoyed protection against federal antitrust laws. Oversight is left to individual states.
The gabfest that the cost of litigation hikes insurance premiums is as usual, a red herring.
Remember, if Republicans say anything that remotely sounds reasonable, check your wallets and car keys, they're about to be stolen.
Part-time part legislators as is the case in most states, are hardly a match for behemoth corporate conglomerates with their army of lawyers and lobbyists.
Ultimate authority should rest with the federal government who has resources equal to insurers. Otherwise, policyholders will continue to be gouged; and blame will continue to be rendered to the usual suspects: greedy lawyers and greedy doctors.
Much as Ahab's hunt for the Albino Whale, Republicans' single-minded greed will ultimately destroy them. Just not quickly enough for me.
"Wonder ye then at the fiery hunt" in the current war between Democrats and Republicans for cash and power...?
Oh, where are my manners? Two snaps and some high fives to avedon, blogwhore par excellence, Attaturk and all the others who kicked in great threads in Mr. Atrios's absense. WOOO HOOO!
Jeffraham Prestonian, I am too lazy tonight to deal. Will check in tomorrow re: cd.
apologies for being techno wuss.
Ah, well... I'm having a better convo with Zogby's latest poll, I fear, so... I'm-a outta heah!
Lay-tar, tay-tars!
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Sarah Deere: apologies for being techno wuss.
Sarah, dearheart -- you're not being a technowuss. I asked one question: Do you have a DVD player other than the one in your computer?
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What dietary supplement do you take to treat diabetes?
Chromium picolinate and cinnamon. Low magnesium is also a factor.
What dietary supplement do you take if you break your femur?
Take folate and vitamin C so it doesn't break.
Get it set, then see a hypnotherapist. It will heal 25% to 33% faster.
See: Ginandes CS, Rosenthal DI. Using hypnosis to accelerate the healing of bone fractures. Altern Ther Health Med. 1999 Mar, 5(2) 67-75
What dietary supplement do you take if you have an MI?
Take vitamin C and E, and folate so it doesn't happen. There was no such thing before 1900. The first medical paper written on the subject was Dec. 1912.
What dietary supplement do you take if you develop colon cancer?
I don't do much with cancer, but is a a snip from one paper: "cesium chloride with magnesium chloride had the most effect on tumor cells"
You can do searches for yourself at PubMed
assume that corporations that crank out "alternative" meds are better somehow than the ones that produce legit meds
No,I did not say that.Yes there are many crank alternative meds.Yes there are many crank docs willing to dish out that shit.
But there are legiitimate alternatives out there that can certainly take the place of "traditional" modern meds.
FOr instance,on the last thread a discussion ensued about a perscription for some toe fungus.SOmeone pointed out that vinager would be just as effective.
My point rests here.
Why cannot doctors make a recommendation of trying vineager (or whatever may be the case where prudent) instead of going to the more costly perscription if indeed vinegar would be just as effective?
Another example would be,the treatment of depression,perscriptions are written in the millions,when some other alternative would be more prudent.Like finding the real cause instead of trying to cover up the problem.
Look,I have many freinds who are addicted to perscription meds.These meds are dished out liberally by the doctors as a remedy for ailments that could be dealt with by lesser means.
I dont have the vocabulary to further elicit my thoughts,so I'll leave it there.
Chromium picolinate and cinnamon.
Exactly. Check into them Doc, you might be pleasently surprised. Also, CoQ10 for high blood pressure, garlic for high cholestrol, resveratrol for the heart.
Cool stuff, all highly researched....
Universal health care simply isn't economically feasible. Equal justice for all simply isn't economically feasible. The feasibility of the rights of man is simply contradicted by a 19th century supply and demand diagram. We know this now, scholars have proven it.
richard posner
oh, richard, eat a bug. Eat several, they're small.
Actually,
My doctor is the one who told me to mix 50% vinegar & 50% alcohol for ear drops that will prevent bateria from forming -- also has me on vitamin E (to reduce the risk of early onset Alzheimer's), a mini-aspirin (heart) & triple strength chondroitin & glucosamine (I run)
He was eager to get me off the BP meds & furious that they were charging $1.00 a pill
Sarah, my dear:
dollars spent in USA for stupid and life-threatening medical procedures: $100k.
dollars spend in france for intelligent and kidney-saving procedures, less than $10k.
Well, there you have it. Let's just re-name french fries *freedom fries* and be done with it. Appeals to the wingnut dumbasses, so it must be good, eh?
I'm crashing out. Nite sweet moonbats. Peace.
Mr posner: Please explain these three conflicting facts.
1. The United States is the only industrialized nation that does not guarantee access to health care as a right of citizenship. 28 industrialized nations have single payer universal health care systems
2. The United States spends at least 40% more per capita on health care than any other industrialized country with universal health care.
3. The United States ranks 20st in life expectancy.
Untill we get campaign finance reform,there will not be a satisfactory healthcare reform package passed.
Some Chiropractors believe they can send cancer into remission with a bit of spinal adjustment... go directly from their offices to a REAL doctor.
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MisterX
Some Chiropractors aren't worth a shit. Some are very good. Most are in-between, kinda like the AMA. To which they now belong, incidentally. The one I have now is in the second category, and also does....horses. "Equine Chiropractic". I had my right arm in a sling for a week once, thinking I had ripped a tendon in my wrist, and praying I hadn't, because I don't have insurance. For the hell of it, I asked him "you do arms?", and described the symptoms. He was nodding, and manuvering me into position, trying to get me to shut up, because he already knew what was wrong. He took my wrist, pressed my shoulder, turned me away from him, and bent the arm the wrong way entirely. No fun at all. And again the next day. And all was well. A "subluxated" medial nerve at the elbow--caught between a bone and one of the big muscles--caused excruciating pain in my wrist.
A good friend recently had surgery for the very same thing. The surgeon's cure? Slice open the arm, take loose the "offending" muscle, stuff the nerve up under it, and re-attach the muscle. Several months later, the guy still has pain, stiffness, numbness, and can't pick up a full cup of coffee with that hand. And scars Frankenstein woiuld be proud of.
Just one story, there are many others. Moral; Alternative Medicine can be your friend, but use your head. There aint no freakin' herb for a broken leg, but surgery should always be a last resort.
Acupuncture? Older than Western medicine by a long shot. Even the Chinese don't understand how it works, but it does. Cheap, too (like Chiro).
Hypnosis; More "Witchdoctors, shamans, and Voodoo priests", according to the reactionary Right, which is an endorsement right there. Not cheap, though, and it aint gonna help if you don't want it to. But the right combination of patient and therapist (I'm not talking about the stage hypnotists, here) can do wonders. Hint; a good hypnotist will not use a watch, dangling before your eyes, and tell you to sleep. The one I went to said "Hell, if you're asleep, how are you going to hear me?", and used a candle in a little blue bowl, but only the first time, because people expect something.
I used to smoke 5 packs a day...
I asked one question: Do you have a DVD player other than the one in your computer?
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Jeffraham Prestonian |
Jeff, no.
SD
Alec Baldwin must have been playing a Republican - that SNL skit ended with him kissing a dog (it was fake, but still).
And don't forget about marijuana for nausea and glaucoma...
Sarah Deere -- Do you know if your computer has the Windows XP operating system, or is it something else, maybe...?
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wolf-man: And don't forget about marijuana for nausea and glaucoma...
... and for failing EMIT screens... yipes! I may have to take one next week, and have been exposed to the demon smoke in the last 30-60 days, I am sure.
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There's Jeffro. Hey dude, clean tea at GNC will help you pass.
I may have to take one next week, and have been exposed to the demon smoke in the last 30-60 days, I am sure.
There are herbs for that, too Jeff....
And don't forget about marijuana for nausea and glaucoma...
....and vitamin c to treat infection, viral or bacterial.
agave -- you may well be right -- at the moment I am more concenred about solving the problem than the moving force in the solution
Prior Aelred
Yes, but I can't see any solving the problem. Too much money at stake for Big Pharma, and the whole health care industry. Everthing is inflated beyond belief.
If you've ever been in a hospital and looked at an itemized bill, WTF!
They are making money hand over fist, maybe not the hospitals, but all the suppliers and makers or the shit they use.
Only The other industries getting pissed off about it will make a difference, and they will resist on principal (spit) till the can't take it anymore.
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Sally knows, listen to her....
"And don't forget about marijuana for nausea and glaucoma..."
Cannabinoids offer fantastic promise for pain and nausea control in cancer patients. We don't really have good treatments for chronic pain; opioids are very beneficial in such instances, but they have a lot of side effects that can be intolerable for patients. By not being able to research cannabinoids, we're denying a lot of people a chance at a pain-free life.
Clean sheets above, and I was second!! ha ha
Sally - pain-free, mellow lives. 
...and have been exposed to the demon smoke in the last 30-60 days..
Unless you are a heavy smoker, you're clean in 30 days. Drink lotsa water before you have to piss in the bottle.
Wolfman--Marinol, hardly a terrific derivative of THC, works wonders in many cancer patients, allowing them to eat and gain weight.
Sallyh, wolf-man -- My research leads me to believe that none of the herbals actually work, nor the magic potions -- that they all depend on the "dilute sample" method, which usually results in a re-test, in cases where one is permitted. In a pre-employment screen, I'm not sure if that would be the case, so I'm actually thinking of the substitution method, instead... if only I didn't know so goddamned potsmokers!
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The nation is not at the tipping point on universal health care quite yet; but we're getting damn close.
Another 2-3 years?
Of course we'll all be in the poorhouse by then, unless you benefitted from the GOP tax giveaways.
So much for the "Christian" nation.
rove worried-sends trolls-good omen
Central Scrutinizer: Unless you are a heavy smoker, you're clean in 30 days. Drink lotsa water before you have to piss in the bottle.
Not necessarily. Folx of my BMI are known to fail EMIT at 70+ days. Also, "dliute sample" equals retest at best, fail at worst.
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Usually the real jeffraham uses better language.
Jeff, XP.
SD
Jeffraham,
Is that a no positive test, as in not taking into consideration passive inhalation?
I passed one once on 7 days notice, and I was hitting it pretty hard at the time.
The mahablog entry wasn't bad, but even it had the standard slur about health care in Canada, that you have to put up with long waiting times.
Don't believe the crap the far right noise machine tells you about health care in Canada. Canadians have superior health care in every way. It's cheaper and faster and with more emphasis on preventive medicine. You call up your doctor, go in the same day (often immediately), and pick up your prescription, which will also be half the price of what you pay in the USA, in the same building you see the doctor. There are no delays filling your prescription, either. Then you walk out and get well. And the HMO middleman, second-guessing your doctor, simply doesn't exist.
My American ex-wife says that, even as an alien with no health coverage, she can still see a doctor here cheaper than she can in the USA. The fee she pays as a non-resident alien is actually lower than the co-pay she'd pay to see an American doctor under a full medical plan offered at her job.
Of course the right wing has to lie continuously about health care in Canada because the way we do things up here is a direct, unanswerable proof that everything Americans believe about universal health care is total bullshit.
And before you tell me "but it's not free, you pay more in taxes!", don't bother. On average Canadians pay about 50% less of their GDP on health care than Americans do for their system. Yeah, you're reading that right. Canadians pay less money to get superior health care for 100% of their citizens and permanent residents from cradle to grave than Americans do to for health care that is either denied entirely or interfered with by insurance companies. You're being screwed horribly and it's sad that almost none of you realize just how badly.
There's also the labour issue. I can tell my boss to go fuck himself and not worry about my son losing his health care. And I think this is the real reason the powers that be are so dead set against providing universal health care in the USA, they know they'll lose one of their best leashes on their employees. Can't have workers getting uppity, that's not the American way.
magnolia's propaganda ministry: Usually the real jeffraham uses better language.
What did I screw up now...?
Sarah Deere -- XP -- excellent!
Have you seen Windows Media Player anywhere on your computer? If not, let me know, and I'll see if I can help you find it.
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How could my daughter have "prevented" her diabetes? What "alternative medicine" treatment would have worked?
If it is Type 1, then sufficient selenium wold have done it.
If it was Type 2, then relieving the stress would have done it. And stay away from "white carbs".
every politician who is not dedicating a substantial portion of his/her workweek is, in my opinion, guilty of accomplice to the murder of the 18000 Americans who die every year because they cannot get healthcare that they would be getting otherwise in countries in Canada, Australia, France, etc. I want to see all these politicians on trial in a court of law for murder of these Americans.
Central Scrutinizer: Is that a no positive test, as in not taking into consideration passive inhalation?
I don't really know, so I'm making a lot of worst-case assumptions -- that they will be using EMIT; that a dilution/re-test may automatically disqualify me, etc. Since the company provides a company truck, which stays with the employee 24/7/365, they claim they have to do this for their liability coverage, which, I suppose makes sense in GOP world (not that exposure to secondhand smoke makes someone more likely to have an aquto accident, of course...).
I passed one once on 7 days notice, and I was hitting it pretty hard at the time.
One of two things in play, there, I can deduce: 1.) They didn't test the sample -- your test was "will you pee in a cup?"; this is more common than many realize, because of the expense! or; 2.) False negative. Not sure what the rate for false negs is for MIT, but false positives are 34%!
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I used to smoke 5 packs a day...
Doozer
Doozer, no shit??????? Jesus Gawd!!! Unimaginable!!!
How would you find the time? That's 1oo cigs within a 24 hr day, and, one presumes, you would sleep at least 6 of them, so you got 18 hrs, minimum, and you're smoking 100 cigarettes in 18 hours?????
there is nothing to say really. most americans have no idea how bad off we are as far as health care goes. our system of health care delivery is simply worthless. it needs to be destroyed and replaced with a european style system. that's all there is to it.
bigvic, sweet dreams, sugarpie.
Von Rex
yeah, we United Statesians are majorly fucked.
Jeffraham Prestonian, yep, I got me some Wndows Media Player.
Jeffraham,
The doc asked me why my urine was diluted, so I'm sure they tested. I told him that I had been drinking alot of water that day because I'd been engaged in physical activity. (Working out)
That was the end of that, and even if they had asked to retest it would have given me another week to get it out of my system.
Oh, and the classic "Schweaty Balls" is on SNL.
There's also the labour issue. I can tell my boss to go fuck himself and not worry about my son losing his health care. And I think this is the real reason the powers that be are so dead set against providing universal health care in the USA, they know they'll lose one of their best leashes on their employees. Can't have workers getting uppity, that's not the American way.
Von Rex
I think you're on to something there... I know folks who live with the job they have/stay married/whatever to keep health benefits.
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Later 'gators...
You guys are harshing the troll's point. The dude proved in the 19th century that health care for all will ruin the economy. Now, if you were good citizens, you'd take him at his word. Which is what too large a percentage of Americans is doing right now. Those greedy, selfish worshippers of Mammon that run the show here have no morals or manners or compassion. This means that they are stupid, because they are creating enemies of the people, not unlike the US forces in the ME that are poorly led and badly prepared by the same group of shortsighted thugs that bought the presidency and congress. And they know that many of us are like our doctor friend on this thread...sure that they are right because that's easier to believe than the true fact that thousands of citizens are dieing needlessly, here and abroad, for the almighty dollar. The love of money is the root of all evil, at least here in the early part of the 21st century.
Sarah Deere: Jeffraham Prestonian, yep, I got me some Wndows Media Player.
<Monty Burns>Excellent!</Monty Burns>
Put the DVD in your DVD drive, open Windows Media Player, and go to
File > CDs and Devices
or
Play > DVD, VCD or CD Audio
If neither of these menu options are available, go to
Help > Check For Player Updates
... and get the latest version.
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Ha...........We Merkins take a placebo pill for everything that ails us.Since placebo pills are only 50% effective,we take two.............Ha.
Of all the many differences between the national psyches of Canada and the US, health care is one of the most glaring.
The large majority of Canadians believe health care is a basic human right; one that comes with simple
citizenship. It seems to me the prevailing American thinking is that health care - like everything else - is a commodity, for sale and profit.
The idea that someone cannot receive proper health care due to lack of money or some serious medical condition is incomprehensible. And the fact the large majority of Americans receive their main (if any) health care through their employer is a concept I still can't wrap my head around. Having to work in order to have access to adequate health care has got to be one of the most draconian, Charles Dickens-like realities in any modern, advanced society. C'mon guys, it's 2005.
FYI:
Medicare in Canada is a federally mandated program. The federal government sets standards and rules that need to be met in each province. How these are met is generally left up to each province itself.
The federal governemnt gives "transfer payments" to each province for use in delivering medicare. Provinces contribute their share, determine priorities, how the money will be spent, and how services will be delivered. But, whatever the province, federal standards must be met or financial penalties are levied.
The big argument curently raging (it never stops) is the percentage of the total cost being picked up by the federal government. Over the past 15 years the federal share has dropped significantly, and the provinces (rich and poor)want the previous share levels to be reinstated. A couple of months ago a new medicare financing agreement was signed by the two levels of government - a lot more federal money was promised - but we'll see.
Your fight for a universal national health care program won't be easy. Canada had its big fight in the late 1940's and early fifties. Originally introduced by Premier Tommy Douglas in the province of Saskatchewan in 1947, it had to withstand a three week doctors' strike (he brought doctors in from Europe), massive street protests organized by Canada's medical elite, and the all too expected branding of him and his government as "bloody commies".
Lester Pearson and the Liberals (together with the NDP)began the initial phase of a natioanl medicare system in 1957 and expanded it to a more comprehensive program in 1966.
Since then, Canadian governments(Liberal AND Conservative)have continued to develop, fine tune(?) and redesign the program to meet changing circumstances and needs. And while there is always talk from right wing politicians and reactionary "think" tanks, an overwhelming majority of Canada's people and politicians firmly believe in the fundamental truth, value and justice found in a system of national universal health care.
My point with the above is to say the argument in Canada is not about HAVING universal health care. It's about how to best DELIVER it. No politician wanting to see tomorrow would ever consider gutting medicare.
Who will do it in the US? I don't know. But I'm pretty confident the psyche differences will come into play.
While Tommy Douglas devised medicare because of his belief proper medical care was a basic human right (before becoming premier he was a Baptist minister) the US will probably adopt something simliar because of business/finance necessity.
Large companied like GM, Ford, and United Airlines simply cannot afford to pay their workers health insurance any more. It's killing their bottom line, taking them to the brink of bankruptcy. A GM plant in Ontario, Canada pays approximately $660.00 per year per employee for complete health coverage. Similar coverage in the US is over $3,500.00. Big business won't stand for it too much longer. And, as we've all heard before: "What's good for General Motors is good for America".
But hey, whatever it takes.
Good luck. And a hearty wish for good health to my American cousins.
Incidently - Tommy Douglas is Keifer Sutherland's grandfather.
Go figure.
We don't need none of that thar healthcare.
God will keep ya healthy.
Besides, the rapture's a-comin'.
David M. - That's pretty much why I'm starting to pack up and head back north. It's too common a story - it's too vicious and hostile a situation. Too many times I've had friends in Canada with ghastly illnesses who, simply because they were in Canada, were allowed to recover and be well. Too many times I've had friends in the States who, simply because they were in the States, suffered, declined and died for no better reason than that they'd lost a job, or couldn't work hard enough or weren't - something.
GWPDA, Irate Scholar
The Repugnicans' attitude has always been "Fuck anyone who's not rich!"
These are the same creeps who think fetuses and the braindead are more important than those of us already here.
Old people should die
Attack Xoloitzcuintle
No, stupid people should!
The sooner the better!
Remember during the debates when Kerry starting talking about reforming the health care system and w got all excited, "How you gonna pay for it?" etc, etc?
(Well, let's see - make your rich asshole buddies pay their fair share of taxes. Cut out corporate welfare and, oh yes, end your fucking ego trip of a war in Iraq)
And a couple of years ago he said something to the effect "If people want health insurance they should just go buy it."
(During one of the debates, when Big John mentioned all the uninsured Americans, that asshole smirked and laughed.)
He's a fucking sociopath.
He doesn't give a fuck who lives or dies so long as it's not him.
Central Scrutinizer
I wish Bush would contract a disease that only stem cell research could find the cure for....only it would be too late to save him.
I hope he gets the worst kind of incurable cancer and suffers a long, agonizing death.
Like Lee Atwater! THERE was karma.
"...leaders representing the health care industry, corporations and unions, and conservative and liberal groups have been meeting secretly for months..."
Is it just me or does it seem beyond pathetic that people have to meet secretly to discuss fixing the obviously broken health care system?
WOW!
This thread is still alive?
That's amazing -- must be a genuine topic!
Word on Lee Atwater -- he was an Episcopalian -- got all weepy & repentant at the end -- made his confession to a priest & was forgiven -- so he didn't go to hell as he deserved (there are times when this forgiveness stuff really sucks)!
Well, this is too stupid to go un-contested.
When I asked, "What dietary supplement do you take if you break your femur?", Get Going wrote:
"Take folate and vitamin C so it doesn't break."
This is pure and simple bat-shit craziness. A human can take folate and Vit C til it comes out of her ears and it won't prevent a femur fracture.
Femur fractures are caused, in adults, by high energy trauma. Auto crash, motor-cycle crash, fall from a height, pedestrian struck by car gunshot wound, etc.
Take as much folate as you like - if you get hit by a car, your bones are gonna break.
Get Going then wrote:
"Get it set, then see a hypnotherapist. It will heal 25% to 33% faster."
More craziness. You cannot "set" a femur fracture.
Prior to surgical treatments, femur fractures were treated with bedrest +/- skeletal traction. This treatment is associated with a high mortality rate, (usually due to pneumonia or pulmonary embolism), deconditioning (since it takes months for the bone to unite - you have to lie in bed waiting for it to heal), and malunion of the fracture (since the muscles of the hip and thigh ddeform the bone as it heals - it heals crooked and short).
The gold standard for treatment of a femoral shaft fracture is an intramedullary nail. A steel or titanium rod placed inside the middle of the bone, locked at each end with screws to maintain length and rotation.
The nail costs anywhere from $300 to $1000, they're manufactured by many corporations, and they can be placed thru a 2cm incision at the hip.
After IM nailing of a femur, the patient can expect to be up with crutches the next day, bearing weight as tolerated. The fractures usually heal solidly within 8-10 weeks, and no bedrest is required or recommended.
The surgical team that repairs the fracture is trained, in part, using state and federal funds. Your tax dollars at work.
See a hypnotherapist? Why? To spend more money than is necessary?
There are absolutely ZERO double blind randomized placebo controlled trials published in reputable journals showing hypnotherapy hastens fracture healing.
If you want to prove that a treatment works, you do a controlled trial using equivalent patient groups. That has not been done with hypnosis and femur fractures - or ANY specific fracture - no matter how much the hypnotists wish it had.
Get going, when you flippantly write "get it set and see a hypnotherapist", you're simultaneously blowing off centuries of medical progress and promoting questionable therapies that have little, if any, benefit for the patient.
It's faith-based medicine. Alternative therapies may act to supplement modern medicine - prayer may make people recover better after heart attack, for example - but those alternative treatments will never replace modern medicine.
Our society may choose to use them IN ADDITION to standard treatments, but, remember, that will certainly add costs to medical care.
Toadvine,
I applaud your efforts, but I suspect that this is one of those things where the patient knows that these things work. A bit like the patient who knows that the shot of penicillin, or whatever antibiotic du jour, "cured" the cold 'cause the symptoms started getting better in 3 days...just the way they would have without the antibiotic.
Remember Laetrile? Two tax-dollar funded double-blinds confirming worthlessness (some more-than-usually-stupid Congresscritters got involved) later, and the stuff is still around, although not in the mainstream tabloids, garnering glowing testimonials on the web.
The desire to deny mortality and wish for magical protection is not susceptible to reason.
Toadvine,
You are a believer, just as much as a Muslim fundamentalist. Facts just do not matter.
Bone is 80% collagen, and its brittleness is governed by vit C and folate. Read the literature!
There can be no "double-blind" studies of hypnosis, because it requires the person's attention.
But go read the results of the many studies in England on hypnosis with Irritable Bowel. It is the ONLY thing that works well.
Medicine is not about science it is about religion. You must believe the Pope, not your own investigation.
There is no valid double-blind study of cancer drugs, but that doesn't keep Big Pharma from selling them. More people die from side effects of NSAIDS in the U.S. than from AIDS, but they are still recommmended by medical deities.
Study biochemistry a bit more before you keep repeating what you learned in med school.
Get going,
You're dodging, because you're losing the argument.
Let's take that femur fracture patient as an example.
Let's say you're an expert at alternative medicinal therapy, and I'm an expert at regular ol' western orthopaedic trauma care.
Mr. Jones, a 55 year old accountant, is out on a weekend riding his Harley. He smacks it into an oncoming ccar and sustains a closed, midshaft femur fracture.
The discussion of folate and vitamin c is moot - Mr. Jones has what he has. To paraphrase a nut, we have to treat the patient we have, not the one we want.
So, what are you gonna do for Mr. Jones?
Describe your treatment, and offer me some "facts" to back it up.
By the way, a friend broke her arm, and had it set. Then she went to a hypnotherapist who gave suggestions for healing.
When she went in for a follow-up xray, the technitian was astounded. He had never seen a bone mend that fast. She did not tell him about the hypnotherapy.
When I say cancer and double-blind, I mean double-blind against placebo, not against another cancer drug.
Nicotine patches do worse than placebo, but better than placebo patches that have 25% nicotine. That is the way most are tested, because that gives the excuse to sell them. You know that they don't work, because the "person has to be motivated" for it to work. If it had real effect, it would work for people who don't want to quit smoking.
Toadvine,
You are right, we have to deal with the patient we've got. You do your stuff, because it is all that can be done.
Then, put him on supplements so he has the raw materials to rebuild the bone, and get him some hypnotherapy. Here is a link to that Ginnandes article on bone healing. I got the whole article and it is interesting.
Bone
Well, the link doesn't work, but here is the URL.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entr...1&
dopt=Abstract
That one friend story is an anecdote. It doesn't mean anything.
The study linked to was underpowered, included only 11 patients, and there was no statistical difference between the study and control groups.
The study showed no difference - hypnosis did nothing. Reporting a "trend" is what you do when your p value is greater than .05. It doesn't mean squat.
That's the crumy thing about research - it demands rigor, or it's not worth much.
Objective radiographic outcome data revealed a notable difference in fracture edge healing at 6 weeks. Orthopedic assessments showing trends toward better healing for hypnosis subjects through week 9 included improved ankle mobility; greater functional ability to descend stairs; lower use of analgesics in weeks 1, 3, and 9; and trends toward lower self-reported pain through 6 weeks.
"Objective radiographic outcome data" is not important? What planet do you live on?
I live on planet Earth, not planet "it occurs because I wish it so".
These investigators would've done a power analysis to determine sample size prior to beginning their study. The sample size is how many patients they had to enroll to show that their conclusions would not be due to simple chance.
They would've selected an endpoint to measure - say, radiographic union on the 4 week films (best determined by an independent radiologist blinded as to which treatment group the patient was in).
They could've selected ANY outcome variable to base sample size upon - walking speed at 4 weeks, Xrays findings, narcotic use, whatever. I would've picked union at 4 weeks, as iit can be assessed fairly objectively by a radiologist not directly involved in the study.
They would've made a decision as to how much difference they were trying to spot. If they wanted to be able to spot it if the hypnosis group was 50% more likely to be healed at 4 weeks, then their statistician would tell them, you need X number of patients, based on the power they selected, the alpha and beta.
The calculation to determine sample size is based upon these factors:
"Power" is the probability that the test will reject the hypothesis tested when a specific alternative hypothesis is true.
"Alpha" is the probability of rejecting the statistical hypothesis tested when in fact, that hypothesis is true.
Most medical researchers set alpha at .05, which means we're accepting a 5% chance that our findings may be wrong.
Power for such studies is usually in the range of 80-90%.
There is no way a sample size of 11 is sufficient to answer the question, does hypnosis make fractures heal faster? They did an inadequate test. Their study is equivalent to your anecdote about your friend.
These hypnosis researchers used an ankle fracture model. I'm currrently doing a prospective randomized controlled trial using an ankle fracture model. I have to enroll 120 patients to show the treatment we're studying makes a difference - 10 times the number the hypnosis folks enrolled.
So, I am certain their study is underpowered. They say so themselves.
That's why their abstract mentions "trends" and states, "Despite a small sample size and limited statistical power, these data suggest that hypnosis may be capable of enhancing both anatomical and functional fracture healing, and that further investigation of hypnosis to accelerate healing is warranted."
They haven't proven a thing, and they know it. They say it is suggestive - they know their sample is too small - and call for further research, which is EXACTLY the appropriate response.
What you're doing, on the other hand, claiming that hypnosis works, is based on no conclusive research at all. It's based solely on your bias.
Bias, like faith, is something that is often resistant to evidence.
Now, there are many treatments that CAN be reasonably applied based on widely accepted experience - treatments that everybody knows work, and that it would be crazy to stop. Like insulin for type 1 diabetes. Calling to substitute some vitamin for insulin would be tantamount to murder, and nobody would do it.
Calling to "set" femur fractures and use hypnosis as a treatment would lead to horrible deformity and outcome, and nobody would do it. Thank God.
Hypnosis isn't that type of widely accepted treatment. To prove efficacy, it'll have to be subjected to a suitably powered randomized controlled trial. Without such proof, nobody will accept it, except for people who accept it based on faith alone.
If you won't read the literature, you will continue to be blind.
In the paper itself, they intended to work with 40 people. But the weather was not as bad as most winters, so there were fewer fractures.
The radiologist was "blinded" to the treatment.
No one suggested vitamins to treat Type 1 diabetes. But Dr. Bernstein showed that you do not need insulin if you restrict carbs enough. Doctors are always saying restrict fat, eat carbs, and that is exactly backwards to what works.
I know the education that doctors receive, and that they don't have time to learn after they are out of med school. So, let's just call this off. You won't listen, or go learn.
Toadvine,
By the way, don't you know that femur is the technical term for the thigh bone. You may want to refer to the neck of the femur, but the femur is a long bone. And you do set it when it is broken.
Toadvine,
What's wrong with anecdotal? If it works, why not give it a try? Helping someone is not a crime, except in doctors' eyes.
Is it only real if Authority endows it? Would it be true if George Bush said it?
Get Going,
The radiologist only got to review 5 study group patients. The study was underpowered, so it is unable to demonstrate any benefit of hypnosis. It's that simple. Even the authors realize as much.
What's wrong with anecdotal is that it may not be true. That's why we do experiments and statistical testing in the first place.
The femur...I'll tell you what, why don't you got down to your local orthopaedic surgeon's offfice and ask him for his copy of Rockwood Green & Bucholz, published by Lippincott Williams and Wilkins. It's the leading fracture textbook in the USA. He or she will likely have the latest edition, the 5th. Look up the chapter on fractures of the shaft of the femur. Find the lead author's name and email him, or call him.
I'll reply, or answer the phone.
You cannot "set" the femur after fracture. It's a long tubular bone that is markedly deformed after fracture by the forces of its muscular attachments. Immediate treatment consists of traction, either skeletal or with a Thomas-type split, followed by IM nailing.
Call this off? Why? You're losing the argument at every turn.
"Is it only real if Authority endows it?"
That's just it - nobody relies on authority to determine if a treatment works while conducting a RCT. You rely on the scientific method.
"Helping someone is not a crime, except in doctors' eyes."
This just makes you sound like a fool.
Here's an even better idea. Maybe if it comes from somebody other than me you'll accept it.
Email the lead author of the hypnosis study and ask him if his study showed proof that hypnosis makes ankle fractures heal faster.
Tell him you're in an online argument with some jerk who's claiming that the study wasn't sufficiently powered to show a benefit.
See what he says.
It isn't a he, it's Carol S. Ginandes, an instructor at Harvard Medical School. I've got the paper. I've read it several times. The co-author is professor of radiology at Harvard.
Radiologist’s Data. The radiologist read radiographs of all subjects at week 0, 3, 6, 9, and 12 after injury, with no knowledge of subject assignment.
[break]
Given the small sample size, significance tests are insensitive to small or moderate differences between the treatment groups. Consequently, a significant result indicated that there was a very large difference between the treatment groups. Such findings and the fact that they are statistically significant are worth reporting.
[break]
The significant difference at week 6 for fracture edge (P=.17) showed the fracture edges of the treatment group more closely resembling 8 ½ weeks of healing, whereas the controls’ radiographs approximated slightly less than 6 weeks of healing.
The authors do not claim to have proven anything beyond a doubt.
Notice your defensiveness. I share with you information you do not have, and all you can do is attack me. This is not a surprise; nurses have this experience every day of their lives. I did not have any higher expectation, once you said you were a doctor.
why are medicinal plants recommmended for treatin an illness?
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