Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: blackhole on August 14, 2009, 10:25:43 pm
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The author of Bunny, a nonsensical comic, lives in the UK, and has the following to say about the U.S. healthcare debate:
(http://www.bunny-comic.com/strips/130809.jpg)
Anyone following me on twitter might be aware that I have become a touch enraged about the US Healthcare debate recently, especially the diversion tactic where my countries healthcare system has been held up as a nightmare scenario of Comrade Obama's Master Plan to Destroy America's Healthtm.
In fact, I suspect we would have been happy to ignore this were it not for the little "Public Healthcare Will Kill Your Granny" spiel.
I'm sorry, I'll just adjust my soapbox a little here.
The problem with this is our health care system is actually generally pretty good (could be improved, could be better funded, lots of things could happen that would make it better, but the fundamental principle is serving us well).
As is the system in Canada. And France. And Germany. And Australia. And Israel. I mean, I could go on.
Each one of those countries appears to have a functioning, responsible, well-run health care system. And they're either wholly or partially publicly funded. Which apparently is some sort of contradiction in terms to some people.
Here's a list to compare (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_system). via the Wiki. Will do a better job of describing the pros and cons.
Any combination of those solutions for bridging the gap between people with access to healthcare and people without is viable.
There are social, economic and ethical reasons why healthcare reform needs to happen. You owe it to yourselves, to your neighbour and people who will probably never meet.
But that's really not what's at stake here.
People are out there wilfully lying to get you on board. Mostly because I figure they think you're morons.
For example, the UK Government doesn't runs the NHS any more than it is involved in the day-to-day running of public schools, hospitals, police forces or the fire brigade.
Why would an American Universal System suddenly place have a dollar value on your life and will withhold care if you're too expensive to treat when, US Insurance Companies do this already? If anything, that sort of practice needs to be examined and regulated.
Stephen Hawking is not American and has not been killed by the NHS no matter how much they treat him for life-threatening conditions.
The NHS being a "terrorist breeding ground"? I know it's Fox News, but that's a pretty determined attempt at reconfiguring reality.
Finally some figures to round this off from the World Health Organisation. They're easy enough to find.
UK
Total expenditure on health per capita (Intl $, 2006): 2,784
Total expenditure on health as % of GDP (2006): 8.4
USA
Total expenditure on health per capita (Intl $, 2006): 6,714
Total expenditure on health as % of GDP (2006): 15.3
What does the US currently get for that extra outlay per capita at present?
Lower average life expectancy, lower average healthy life expectancy, higher average infant mortality rate. Surely something is wrong? Surely that needs fixing?
Our way is by no means the best way, and it probably wouldn't work in the US for a variety of reasons, but ideology (and probably a fair amount of cash) is overriding serious, reasoned debate about public funded healthcare options and what should be made available.
And I'm done.
I keep trying to be reasonable with Republicans, but they are starting to make it difficult for me to think they have IQ's above the 30 mark. We just pissed off another country because our politicians are so f*cking stupid they say "LOOK AT ALL THE HORRIBLE THINGS TAHT HAPPEN IN THE UK!" and the UK is like "What?" Wow, awesome job with the international relations here.
U.S. political debates are now so stupid, we piss other people off just by talking about ourselves.
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The Brits are getting a skewed view of things, however, because stuff that gets major play on BBC isn't showing up on CNN or in newspapers here.
Crossposting from my reply to aldo's comments on SG.
I don't think anyone actually takes Sarah Palin seriously and is allowed to vote.
If they do, they shouldn't be. To be honest the Republican Party is on a path totally retrograde. They grow ever shriller, ever more right-wing, and have ever fewer constituents. They seem to want to "get back to their roots" or something, not realizing that this is losing strategy. I've said it before, but it bears repeating: when Obama got elected, they straight up lost their ****, and they've just gotten worse. Even at the end of their rope in the Clinton years, pegging all their hopes on Kenneth Starr, they had never degenerated like this.
A lot of legitimate media isn't covering them here I suspect because even for the right-leaning ones (the local paper is definitely right-wing at times, publishing editorials I've found infuriatingly stupid) it is simply too embaressing. They don't want to show these people off as part of their cause.
There actually isn't a counterpoint (to the attack ads or town hall insanity or ragging on the NHS) for the most part. Most people, at least as far as I can detect, are actually only peripherally aware of it, in much the same way they are peripherally aware that a few people think the Apollo landings were fake. It's simply not something anyone gives a damn about.
CNN cracked down on one of their people who was spouting off about the birth certificate. I think that neatly summarizes the issue. Yes, they're stupid. Yes, they're immature. We're not going to bother legitimizing them by giving them airtime or anything else. The Republican party exists in the minds of the sane electorate as a carciature, and it, like those who believe we never landed on the moon, isn't aware of its own insanity
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Based on what I've been reading in the paper, seeing on TV and web (both US, Canadian, and UK sources), and generally hearing about whats going on down there...I have to wonder. Has a somewhat significant portion of the US population lost their marbles? Universal health care not something reasonably worth fighting for? Fox News seems to have totally gone bonkers...they called the NHS (the UK healthcare system) a breeding ground for terrorists and compared Obama to Hitler! They were bonkers before...now its a total disconnect from reality.
I worry... I really do.
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Has a somewhat significant portion of the US population lost their marbles? Universal health care not something reasonably worth fighting for? Fox News seems to have totally gone bonkers...they called the NHS (the UK healthcare system) a breeding ground for terrorists and compared Obama to Hitler! They were bonkers before...now its a total disconnect from reality.
I worry... I really do.
Fox was always bat**** insane. They hired Sean Hannity after all. You confuse most vocal with actual majority, a problem that usually comes up in democratic Presidencies with the influence of Jewish interests, but in this case the Republican Party is in the midst of a Failure Cascade and so acting out wildly.
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It really does worry me as someone who considers himself a conservative, at least in the traditional sense of that word. (I'll leave my views on the healthcare issue to the other big thread.) I look at what the Republican Party is right now, at what sort of "leaders" it's attempting to embrace, and I want to curl up into the fetal position. Palin is a ****ing idiotic *****, Limbaugh is completely off his rocker, Fox News spouts whatever bull**** comes to mind first (though to be fair, there are one or two notables on MSNBC who aren't all that much better)...and these are the sorts of people that the party establishment feels it has to tiptoe around. This is the party that's supposed to represent "conservatism" (though hasn't in many respects for a long time). This is the party that's nominally closest to my own belief set. It's ****ing depressing, is what it is, and it genuinely scares me at times. And in some small way, I think it should scare those who identify themselves as Democrats, too. Our democracy always seemed to function best with two parties engaged in legitimate intercourse and compromise...and now that one has, at least for the time being, seemingly jumped the shark on that concept, lord knows what the future will bring.
(And just to air things out, I am registered as a Republican, but that's largely because my state has closed primaries that require one to be registered as either that or Democrat to vote in them. Never really understood how that system came about.)
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We need more smart people.
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I don't know why we even went with the party system to begin with. George Washington didn't believe in them, so he didn't belong to any of them, and so I guess he was the only independant president we ever had.
lord knows what the future will bring.
Heard that. I'm not really a fan of the Democrats, not after they let the Republicans run roughshod over the country (and to a lesser extent the world) over the last 8 years. American politics at this point is like pro wrestling, it's staged. They may say they hate eachother and act out on camera, but many of their policies are very similair. Once in a while they will bring out a select few wedge issues (like abortion, gay rights, whatever) to divide and conquer the electorate while they continue to pass around earmarks and serve their corporate masters. Often times they will also protect eachother, such as Dennis Hastert protecting corrupt Democrats in addition to corrupt Republicans when he was speaker of the house or Obama blocking investigations into the Bush administrations shady dealings (especially Cheney's).
This new healthcare reform is the first time in years that either party is attempting to really do something that would truly benefit tens of millions of people, and even then many democrats don't even want it and the republican propaganda machine is busy convincing people who would stand to benefit from this that it is the most diabolical scheme since the Final Solution.
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Has a somewhat significant portion of the US population lost their marbles? Universal health care not something reasonably worth fighting for? Fox News seems to have totally gone bonkers...they called the NHS (the UK healthcare system) a breeding ground for terrorists and compared Obama to Hitler! They were bonkers before...now its a total disconnect from reality.
I worry... I really do.
Fox was always bat**** insane. They hired Sean Hannity after all. You confuse most vocal with actual majority, a problem that usually comes up in democratic Presidencies with the influence of Jewish interests, but in this case the Republican Party is in the midst of a Failure Cascade and so acting out wildly.
Don't worry...I'm not confusing Fox News with the majority but its a minority that is often most vocal and have a major and sometimes negative influence on how events play out. I always remember the adage that "a person is smart but people are stupid". My concern is a group of crazies influence a larger group of people who act badly... Just hoping for things to play out well and regular good people get some sort of benefit from the giant debate going on down there.
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I don't know why we even went with the party system to begin with. George Washington didn't believe in them, so he didn't belong to any of them, and so I guess he was the only independant president we ever had.
There have been times I've daydreamed about the Zombie Founders rising from the grave, being horrified at what they see, kicking the **** out of most of the current political establishment, restoring some sanity to proceedings, and then going back to sleep, knowing that they'll probably have to do the same thing in two hundred more years when we've managed to **** things up again.
If only...
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Hmm, I kind of like the way things are playing out. :D
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I'm just happy............
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Aww, **** politics. I couldn't care less who ran the system, not really. People need to just stop *****ing about it. If you don't like the president's policies, don't vote for him. Simple as that.
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Aww, **** politics. I couldn't care less who ran the system, not really. People need to just stop *****ing about it. If you don't like the president's policies, don't vote for him. Simple as that.
:wtf:
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Admittedly, I could have phrased that better.
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I don't know why we even went with the party system to begin with. George Washington didn't believe in them, so he didn't belong to any of them, and so I guess he was the only independant president we ever had.
There have been times I've daydreamed about the Zombie Founders rising from the grave, being horrified at what they see, kicking the **** out of most of the current political establishment, restoring some sanity to proceedings, and then going back to sleep, knowing that they'll probably have to do the same thing in two hundred more years when we've managed to **** things up again.
If only...
We need two things:
1.) To break the stranglehold that lobbying has on our political system. As of 2005 there are 34,750 (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/21/AR2005062101632.html) lobbysts in washington, and for comparison we have 535 members of congress. WTF is wrong with this?
2.) To break the two party stranglehold. Yes there are third parties, but they are crowded out since they don't have the kind of funding the Republicrats have, part of this is definately because of the lobbying in washington.
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consider lobbying as bribery.
execute everyone involved for treason.
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Do you want to reduce the number of lobbyists in Washington? There's a simple solution to that if you want to: reduce the incentive to lobby the federal government. If there's less incentive to lobby for changes to bills, fewer special-interests will have lobbyists.
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Do you want to reduce the number of lobbyists in Washington? There's a simple solution to that if you want to: reduce the incentive to lobby the federal government. If there's less incentive to lobby for changes to bills, fewer special-interests will have lobbyists.
how do we do that without punishment?
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noooo you're using your parents' parenting methods again. :[
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You want to reduce the incentive to lobby the government? Reduce the power of the government. If government can interfere less, there will be less of a reason to lobby for special preferences. Influence-peddling and big government go hand-in-hand.
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You want to reduce the incentive to lobby the government? Reduce the power of the government. If government can interfere less, there will be less of a reason to lobby for special preferences. Influence-peddling and big government go hand-in-hand.
But that means no gov power in health care, so those who are against lobbying and support gov health are in a pretty dumb situation now, at least when it comes to deciding on whether the gov should get larger or smaller...
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What it really comes down to is that they are against lobbying that contradicts them, and for lobbying that is in line with their aims. Me, I don't mind lobbying that much, since I believe it falls under the heading of petitioning the government for a redress of grievances.
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Definitely falls under the heading of only the rich can influence the government. It stops being a representative democracy and becomes an oligarchy
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the only way to remove lobbying is to have a 100% state funded political and election campaigning system with publicly set limits on what can be spent and where you can do so. only then will the the private pound, dollar, yen, euro, or whatever other currency you can think of have no political value
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But that's highly restrictive. What if someone wants to donate to a candidate because they like his views? Rich corporations aren't the only ones who donate to political campaigns.
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You want to reduce the incentive to lobby the government? Reduce the power of the government. If government can interfere less, there will be less of a reason to lobby for special preferences. Influence-peddling and big government go hand-in-hand.
:yes:
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Getting back on the topic of health care reform...
The thing that stuck out at me the most was that whole diatribe on "granny killing" and whether it was false or not.
It didn't come out of nowhere. There are people in office right(including the President sadly) who are now or have been in the recent past a part of or leader of organizations who advocate the removal of the elderly from society because they are a drain on resources or for any number of asinine reasons. I mean the President said that if a persons grandmother was facing a Cancer diagnosis, that it might be better to just dose her on pain pills and ease her suffering in the last months of her life rather than providing her with whatever therapies or surgeries that would save her life, simply because she's past the point in her life where she can provide a benefit to society by holding a job. This indicates to a lot of outside observers a disturbing lack of empathy with others at the very least to a sickening lack of connection to the sanctity of human life.
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Getting back on the topic of health care reform...
The thing that stuck out at me the most was that whole diatribe on "granny killing" and whether it was false or not.
It didn't come out of nowhere. There are people in office right(including the President sadly) who are now or have been in the recent past a part of or leader of organizations who advocate the removal of the elderly from society because they are a drain on resources or for any number of asinine reasons. I mean the President said that if a persons grandmother was facing a Cancer diagnosis, that it might be better to just dose her on pain pills and ease her suffering in the last months of her life rather than providing her with whatever therapies or surgeries that would save her life, simply because she's past the point in her life where she can provide a benefit to society by holding a job. This indicates to a lot of outside observers a disturbing lack of empathy with others at the very least to a sickening lack of connection to the sanctity of human life.
And of course, nowhere in here do you mention the words "Blown out of proportion."
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Well, it is a little, but, and it's a big but, you can't let people with that perspective become anything approaching the mainstream. The next step down that path is lowering the age until there's no one over 50 allowed to live, then maybe they start governing who can have children and who can't or who gets an education and who goes to work in the factories or on the fishing boats or whatever, it's a very slippery slope with a very bad end that everyone seems more than happy to not just walk down, but run at full speed with a tail wind.
Seems like I saw that on a Star Trek or Star Wars or somewhere...
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Methinks certain talking heads have been watching too much Logans' Run to be honest ;)
There isn't a society in the world that has enforced euthenasia for the old, and such a law would never be passed, because most politicians are only about 10-20 years from that sort of age by the time they reach a position where they can make a decision on such matters, they aren't going to consign themselves and their families to the 'happy chambers'.
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Do you want to reduce the number of lobbyists in Washington? There's a simple solution to that if you want to: reduce the incentive to lobby the federal government. If there's less incentive to lobby for changes to bills, fewer special-interests will have lobbyists.
Why not just ban lobbying all together like many other developed democracies do? In fact doesn't Germany have a system of limited public funds and no lobbying?
But that's highly restrictive. What if someone wants to donate to a candidate because they like his views? Rich corporations aren't the only ones who donate to political campaigns.
There wouldn't be a need to donate, since all donations would be banned. How the person would show his or her support is where it should matter: the voting booth, otherwise it isn't a republic, it's a plutocracy.
It didn't come out of nowhere. There are people in office right(including the President sadly) who are now or have been in the recent past a part of or leader of organizations who advocate the removal of the elderly from society because they are a drain on resources or for any number of asinine reasons. I mean the President said that if a persons grandmother was facing a Cancer diagnosis, that it might be better to just dose her on pain pills and ease her suffering in the last months of her life rather than providing her with whatever therapies or surgeries that would save her life, simply because she's past the point in her life where she can provide a benefit to society by holding a job. This indicates to a lot of outside observers a disturbing lack of empathy with others at the very least to a sickening lack of connection to the sanctity of human life.
:wtf: Where do you get this stuff from?
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Part of freedom is the freedom to do what you want with your money. If that includes giving it to a political candidate, that's your choice, and the government shouldn't be able to stop you.
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I think personal donations are ok, it's just when corporate or political entities get in on the act, and start donating as groups seeking political advantage, rather than individuals stating support of a position, that the system all goes wonky. Donations are not a system that scale well.
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On campaign finance reform: limits need to be set. A limit of 3000 per donor would seriously limit the influence of corporations and large entities over a particular candidate. Right-wing commentators and pundits scream "ATTACK ON FREEDOM!!!", but the fact is campaign finance reform would do more good for the republic as a whole than sacrificing the power of the rich to buy candidates would hurt it. Anyone who claims reform is an attack on freedom, whether they know it or not, are tools of the rich and corporate America.
On healthcare:
Liberator, I have no ****ing clue where you're getting your information, but I might be able to guess: Sarah Palin, 60 Plus, Michelle Bachmann, or any other of the lying shameless GOP anti-reform morons.
There is, never will be, and never has been plans to institute a program to kill off the elderly. The fact hasn't been "blown out of proportion", because that implies it actually exists.
What Sarah Palin and the rest of the lying, backwards nutwings in the GOP have done is entirely misinterpret a section of the bill and use it as a scare tactic. There's a section that allows for family members of the elderly to consult with a physician to discuss end-of-life options, a consultation which will be covered by the new health insurance.
Nowhere in the bill does it say we will purge the elderly from society.
Nowhere in there does it say healthcare will be rationed.
Even if you haven't read the bill, or listened to any of the right-wing pundits you're clearing your informaton from, just take a little bit of common sense and think: would any elected leader in Congress seriously implement a death panel for the elderly? Would one of the most popularly-elected leaders of the last quarter century actually sign a bill into action?
The only mention that such a horrible thing exists is coming from the mouths of the GOP and the right-wing. It has sunk to a level of bigotry, obstructionism, and deceit not witnessed in this country for a long while. They'll take whatever measures necessary to serve insurance companies, and they'll lie and terrorize the American people into believing outlandish claims of mandatory euthanasia or a freely-elected government actively denying treatment to the sick.
Whether or not you think you are, the fact that you simply echo and repeat GOP and ultra-right talking points nicely-wrapped up by Fox Noise or Glenn Beck means you ARE a tool of the Republican Party and their cronies.
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Part of freedom is the freedom to do what you want with your money. If that includes giving it to a political candidate, that's your choice, and the government shouldn't be able to stop you.
But no one can do anything they want with their money. I can't, for example, hire a hitman to assasinate you, I can't buy cocaine, and there is plenty of other stuff I can't do with my money.
I think personal donations are ok
There actually are well defined limits for personal donations, but there's pretty much no limit to "soft money".
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Let me clarify myself. I should be able to do what I want with my money, as long as I don't interfere with your rights, rights such as life, liberty, and property. If my usage of money interferes with one of those rights, then I have no right to use my money in such a way. However, my giving money to a political candidate interferes in no way to you living your life free of interference, as you still have your money and are free to spend it how you choose.
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However, my giving money to a political candidate interferes in no way to you living your life free of interference,
It can if that candidate is in favor of something that is harmful to me.
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I could say the same thing about people donating to Obama, since he plans to get government involved in my life. How do you feel about that?
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Yeah, because Obama implementing universal health care and raising taxes on a tax bracket I'm almost certain you don't belong to is the exact same thing as insurance companies maintaining a dangerous status quo, defense contractors contributing to the waste of tens of billions of dollars in unnecessary military buildup, or energy companies blocking progress in developing newer, cleaner fuels.
The EXACT same thing.
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Maybe I don't want Obama dinging the rich to pay for my medical care, ever consider that? Maybe I think I should be the one paying for my medical care. And I happen to think a strong military is essential to freedom, as a military can be useful for protecting the citizens of a free nation. Nations with weak militaries haven't lasted that long traditionally. Remember the saying "If you want peace, prepare for war."? Despite what Obama says, we really are engaged in a War on Terror. While I may not happen to approve of the way Bush prosecuted it through his warrantless spying, I do think the U.S. military needs to be prepared to deal with outside threats of any kind. And those newer, cleaner fuels aren't all that clean. Ethanol takes more energy to produce than it provides, is just as polluting, and requires vast tracts of land, land that could instead go towards growing food for consumption. Since ethanol production in the U.S. requires corn, all that corn used for ethanol isn't used for feeding people. Supply of food is reduced, and prices go up. Wind doesn't provide all that much power for the space it takes, it is only available in certain areas, birds can hit the turbine blades and get maimed, and solar is only effective during the day. Geothermal energy is rare. Fission power is extremely effective, is extremely clean, yet the environmental lobby is opposed to it. I hate to say it, but fossil fuels are the best choice we have for power in the near future. Solar, wind, and geothermal just aren't that effective, and fission power is widely opposed.
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Healthcare: well, that's your opinion. But when we have thousands of Americans who can't pay for their healthcare themselves, it's a sign that we need reform. I'm not going to let another person die because they couldn't afford a vital organ transplant just because you think "we should all pay for our own healthcare! oh, they can't? well then they didn't try hard enough to make money to pay for it! screw the poor!" Don't deny it, because I don't see you meaning anything else by supporting an outdated system that screws the poor.
Military: yes, we need a strong military. We DON'T need to be spending billions of dollars all by our lonesomes developing weapons we don't necessarily need right this minute. We have military alliances for a reason: so that multiple countries can bear the burden of defending each other. Stop believing that if we don't build 20 more F-22s the Chinese, Communists, and terrorists will overthrow our democracy. That simply is not true. I'm sure it was a US president and a general that warned a permanent arms industry was detrimental to the safety of the republic, and we're simply proving him right.
As I'm not particularly knowledgable in energy, I'm not going to address that.
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Corn ethanol is inefficient to produce, mostly because of transport costs. Brazil uses sugar cane ethanol IIRC, but we don't grow that here and we've got tariffs on imported sugar. Oh, also, corn for ethanol isn't the same corn people eat. It's not the corn that's not feeding people, it's the land that the corn is growing on. If it's growing on land that would be used for tobacco, well, then there's no food shortage, just a tobacco shortage, and **** tobacco.
Anyway, Liberator, there are no death panels. The rumor did, in fact, come from nowhere. Insurance companies and Medicare already do what's in the bill that people are misinterpreting, and that's covering a consultation on end-of-life care. That's not about euthanasia, that's about things like DNRs. Euthanasia for the elderly won't be mandated while it's still illegal in 48(?) states for a doctor to assist a patient with a terminal illness in suicide. Death panels have been screamed to death, and it makes me nauseous to see how many people really believe this bull****. It just makes no logical sense.
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Maybe I don't want Obama dinging the rich to pay for my medical care, ever consider that? Maybe I think I should be the one paying for my medical care. And I happen to think a strong military is essential to freedom, as a military can be useful for protecting the citizens of a free nation.
Dance, puppet, dance!
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SpardaSon, if you don't want the rich getting dinged to pay for health care, then, um, why are you worried? Obama hasn't touched taxes for the rich, except to roll back the Bush tax cuts (at least last I heard.) And the Bush cuts were irresponsible, coming as they did just as Mr. Bush decided to throw the country into huge debt.
As for the military: spend smarter, not harder. If you were really worried about the War on Terror you'd be all for current military cuts; we need armored jeeps, not Raptors, and simple prop planes and drones, not next-generation destroyers.
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Fission power is extremely effective, is extremely clean, yet the environmental lobby is opposed to it. I hate to say it, but fossil fuels are the best choice we have for power in the near future. Solar, wind, and geothermal just aren't that effective, and fission power is widely opposed.
Ever heard of Hydro buddy?
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And those newer, cleaner fuels aren't all that clean. Ethanol takes more energy to produce than it provides, is just as polluting, and requires vast tracts of land, land that could instead go towards growing food for consumption. Since ethanol production in the U.S. requires corn, all that corn used for ethanol isn't used for feeding people. Supply of food is reduced, and prices go up. Wind doesn't provide all that much power for the space it takes, it is only available in certain areas, birds can hit the turbine blades and get maimed, and solar is only effective during the day. Geothermal energy is rare. Fission power is extremely effective, is extremely clean, yet the environmental lobby is opposed to it. I hate to say it, but fossil fuels are the best choice we have for power in the near future. Solar, wind, and geothermal just aren't that effective, and fission power is widely opposed.
Headdie on energy
Ethanol - Dead end tech for many of the reasons listed
Wind Turbines- True about it being limited in application, don't know about US but in the UK we are starting to stick them in the North Sea which is proving promising
Solar- the bulk of human energy demands is daytime so no biggie there
Geothermal - but provides significant energy when set up
Fission - Is not clean, though it don't produce greenhouse it leaves a highly toxic and radioactive byproduct that takes thousands of years to decay to safe levels. Also after about 5 percent of the rod has reacted the rod is no longer able to be used. - Source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fission_power#High-level_radioactive_waste
Fossil Fuels - are almost spent - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_fuel#Levels_and_flows and are changing the planet
Fusion - the famous box has finally been constructed and small scale tests have been successful so now it is a matter of learning how to control industrial scale applications and as a plus to fission the only radioactive byproduct is the reactor when its burned out and its anticipated to be much smaller making Fusion power the tech I am watching for future power of industrialized nations
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And those newer, cleaner fuels aren't all that clean. Ethanol takes more energy to produce than it provides, is just as polluting, and requires vast tracts of land, land that could instead go towards growing food for consumption. Since ethanol production in the U.S. requires corn, all that corn used for ethanol isn't used for feeding people. Supply of food is reduced, and prices go up. Wind doesn't provide all that much power for the space it takes, it is only available in certain areas, birds can hit the turbine blades and get maimed, and solar is only effective during the day. Geothermal energy is rare. Fission power is extremely effective, is extremely clean, yet the environmental lobby is opposed to it. I hate to say it, but fossil fuels are the best choice we have for power in the near future. Solar, wind, and geothermal just aren't that effective, and fission power is widely opposed.
Birds. Birds? Excuse me for stating the blatantly obvious here, but who gives a flying **** about birds?! Granted, eco-nutters like PETA, but let's be rational about this. Wind turbines are useful. They're not that effective, but used efficiently they can really ease the burden on other energy sources. Yes, birds fly into them and get insta-mulched. Tough **** for them. Natural selection in regions containing wind-farms will eventually weed out the birds who fly at the level of the turbine, and life will continue as normal.
Fission... you've got a point, there. It's been demonised something fierce, but there is a potent risk there. Disasters have happened, and will continue to happen. It's not something to be taken lightly. But I do agree, it may not be the salvation of mankind it was made out to be in the late 40's/50's, but further evolution of the technology could result in major benefits for humankind. That said, it's not extremely clean. When you factor in the pollution created by the entire process: the mining of fissile materials, construction, operation and decommission, it simply can't be considered "extremely clean." Not to mention the inevitable waste products, and the economic and political capital required to invest in making it a worthwhile energy source.
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Ever heard of Hydro buddy?
Not practical for many reasons. Hydroelectric power is actually environmentally ruinous, and there aren't many places where it can be reasonably built left either.
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Maybe I don't want Obama dinging the rich to pay for my medical care, ever consider that? Maybe I think I should be the one paying for my medical care.
Good, you can pay for yours. Just please stop preventing everyone else in your country from getting it.
And I happen to think a strong military is essential to freedom, as a military can be useful for protecting the citizens of a free nation. Nations with weak militaries haven't lasted that long traditionally.
Decadent nations don't tend to do all that well either.
Remember the saying "If you want peace, prepare for war."?
That's a bit different from what you've done, which falls more along the lines of "If you want money, invade oil producing countries and then fail to exploit them."
Despite what Obama says, we really are engaged in a War on Terror.
No, it's over.
While I may not happen to approve of the way Bush prosecuted it through his warrantless spying, I do think the U.S. military needs to be prepared to deal with outside threats of any kind.
Wait, what does this have to do with healthcare?
And those newer, cleaner fuels aren't all that clean. Ethanol takes more energy to produce than it provides,
Of course it does. Thermodynamics!
is just as polluting, and requires vast tracts of land, land that could instead go towards growing food for consumption. Since ethanol production in the U.S. requires corn, all that corn used for ethanol isn't used for feeding people. Supply of food is reduced, and prices go up.
Perhaps, but it's mainly a stopgap solution made necessary by the pathetic lack of leadership on alternative fuels.
Wind doesn't provide all that much power for the space it takes, it is only available in certain areas, birds can hit the turbine blades and get maimed,
Not that you actually give a **** about birds but wikipedia owns you:
However, preliminary studies estimate that wind turbines kill approximately 20 times fewer birds per unit of energy generated compared to fossil fuel power plants; 14.5 million birds were killed by fossil fuel power generation in the USA in 2006, compared to around 7000 killed by wind turbines.
and solar is only effective during the day.
Utter bull****.
Geothermal energy is rare.
which is no reason not to use it where available...
Fission power is extremely effective, is extremely clean, yet the environmental lobby is opposed to it.
I would support fission but it still has problems (limited supply, time to build power stations and more).
I hate to say it, but fossil fuels are the best choice we have for power in the near future.
Which is why alternatives shouldn't be investigated or attempted for the further future.
Solar, wind, and geothermal just aren't that effective, and fission power is widely opposed.
This does not lead to your conclusion. In summary, you clearly have severely limited knowledge on this topic, are misrepresenting the truth in order to further your argument or both.
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A better energy grid and more efficient transmission system would at least partially mitigate the difficulties posed by those problems. As the sun sets/wind dies down in one area we could direct power in from another. With the right storage mediums we could lessen the impact of night on PV and solar thermal plants. Also, the amount of energy that goes into the production and manufacture of steel wind turbines is less than the energy they will produce during their operating lifetime. The avian-vs-blades thing is being addressed, and while sad, our squishy faced Persian friends maim and kill many more birds per year than wind turbines.
(http://viperpilot.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/persian1.jpg)
This guy kills more birds than that windmill outside.
Hydroelectricity is nice where it is workable, but you can only dam rivers up so much before you stop contributing an appreciable amount of power to the grid for each new facility you set up. There are a number of major rivers in the United States that could not reasonably sustain a new hydroelectric site. There's also the fish factor. Dams cut off migratory fish from their spawning sites, with loss of stream habitat and urbanization making things even worse. Still, fish ladders can aid in getting some fish back to their native streams, and I guess you can always plant more trees to restore the streams?
(http://www.columbiariverimages.com/Images/bonneville_dam_fish_window_wild_salmon_2005.jpg)
Salmon at Bonneville Dam. I'm gonna guess it's either Chinook or Steelhead but I'm probably wrong. Why do I live here?
Nuclear is clean as far as carbon output goes but it is not completely emission free, and I'm not referring to the spent fuel issue. That said, all groups opposed to it should probably get over themselves if they want to maintain our current living standards after Peak Oil. Breeder reactors can theoretically be used to extend our supply of fissile/fissionable material, and further studies of thermal plumes and their effect on aquatic environments will hopefully yield practical remedies to that problem.
(http://www.cormix.info/images/17,GermanThermalShorelinel.jpg)
All that hot water has gotta go somewhere.
And that's my opinion on the UK's opinion of the US's opinion on healthcare. :cool:
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What's really funny is the number of people who have fallen for this blatant attempt to change the subject away from one that the people who are against health care reform know they can't win. :p
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I noticed as well. I may not be involved much in the deep discussion. But i'm happy to keep it on track.
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and solar is only effective during the day.
http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/02/storing-solar-power-in-salt/
http://pesn.com/2008/02/21/9500472_Abengoa_worlds_largest_solar_plant/
http://www.eng.fsu.edu/~shih/succeed-2000/roadmap/solar%20power%20plant.htm
http://www.sandia.gov/Renewable_Energy/solarthermal/NSTTF/salt.htm
Need I go on?
Fission... you've got a point, there. It's been demonised something fierce, but there is a potent risk there. Disasters have happened, and will continue to happen. It's not something to be taken lightly. But I do agree, it may not be the salvation of mankind it was made out to be in the late 40's/50's, but further evolution of the technology could result in major benefits for humankind. That said, it's not extremely clean. When you factor in the pollution created by the entire process: the mining of fissile materials, construction, operation and decommission, it simply can't be considered "extremely clean." Not to mention the inevitable waste products, and the economic and political capital required to invest in making it a worthwhile energy source.
http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA378.html
http://skirsch.com/politics/globalwarming/ifr.htm
http://skirsch.com/politics/globalwarming/ifrBerkeley.htm
http://goneri.nuc.berkeley.edu/jiw-ntas/Speaker%20Presentations/Olander.pdf (starting at pg. 26 for the most part. Feel free to read the rest though)
This was actually my debate case last year, so I have researched this extensively.
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Nuclear1, I'm gonna quote something here and highlight the important part. The source is rushlimbaugh.com, not because it's from a Right Wing Pundit, but because I can count on him to have the ENTIRE quote and not just some except that seems to make his point. This is taken from a transcript located at http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_072209/content/01125107.guest.html
One member of the audience, Jane Sturm, said, "My mother is now over 105. But at 100, the doctor said to her, 'I can't do anything more unless you have a pacemaker.' I said go for it, she said go for it, but the specialist said no, she's too old. When the other specialist saw her, saw her joy of life, so on, he said, 'I'm going for it,' that was over five years ago. My question to you is, outside the medical criteria for prolonging life for somebody who's elderly, is there any consideration that can be given for a certain spirit, a certain joy of living, a quality of life, or is it just a medical cutoff at a certain age?"
I can't believe somebody is actually asking this question of the president of the United States in this country, but it happened. A woman asks the president, "Would you let my mother live? Would you take into account her joy of living? Would your plan let my mother live?" Can you believe that we're even asking that question? Sadly, it was asked, and here's his answer.
OBAMA: I don't think that we can make judgments based on people's spirit. That would be a pretty subjective decision to be making. I think we have to have rules that say that we are going to provide good, quality care for all people. End-of-life care is one of the most difficult sets of decisions that we're going to have to make. But understand that those decisions are already being made in one way or another. If they're not being made under Medicare and Medicaid, they're being made by private insurers. At least we can let doctors know and your mom know that, you know what, maybe this isn't going to help. Maybe you're better off not having the surgery but taking the painkiller.
So that's part one of "It didn't come from nowhere"
Part two is as follows
John Holdren, the Science Czar(we're up to 32 now, BTW, unelected cabinet level officals who report to no one except the President) wrote a book in 1977 "Ecoscience: Population, Resources, and Environment" The book reportedly includes this statement: "population-control laws, even including laws requiring compulsory abortion, could be sustained under the existing Constitution." I'm going to find this book and read it and report back here if it includes this statement or not. His office, not himself, just his office, has claimed that he is not now, nor has he ever been for compulsory abortion or other fertility limitations. Though if he isn't, why did he write such a damning sentence?
On a separate note, does anyone know the birthrate required for a culture to maintain itself for more than 25 years? Also, what is the historical point of no return ?
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Oh my God. Seriously?
:lol:
It takes some serious desire for conspiracy to find any hints of eugenics in health care plans. Nor is anybody going to be killing the elderly. Obama's quote there says exactly that: 'these decisions are already being made, every day, by private health care.'
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Did you miss this? "I think we have to have rules that say that we are going to provide good, quality care for all people."
Anyway, the painkiller vs surgery bit: for example, my exboyfriend's grandfather had ALS. That's a disease that leads to a very slow, potentially painful death. My ex's grandfather decided to sign a DNR when he didn't have a lot longer to live. That is, he decided to tell the doctors to allow him to die even if they could save (and extend) his life.
It's not an easy decision, but people do actually choose the painkiller over the surgery sometimes, and it's not always anything to do with money.
Nobody but the wingnuts are suggesting the government will start making this decision for people because it just isn't true.
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Well GB, the supposed point of government medical care is to give better care than private care. If it ends up providing the exact same level of care, but at increased cost due to all the extra bureaucracy, why do it?
Also, under today's medical care system you can decide to pay out-of-pocket for stuff like this if insurance turns you down. Will Obama's health care plan allow for out-of-pocket payments for medical care if insurance refuses to cover it? I'm not talking immediately after implementation, I'm talking 5+ years after when government health care has metastasized to a single-payer system.
The main concern people have is that the government plan will metastasize and squeeze out private insurers and private choice, forcing a single bureaucrat-run system of medical care on people. Those concerns aren't unfounded given the nature of government programs.
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Given that European health care is apparently far cheaper and far more effective than that in the USA (Rian just took a really long class on health care and came away a bit dumbstruck by US policy), I don't see how that'd be a problem.
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Nobody but the wingnuts are suggesting the government will start making this decision for people because it just isn't true.
iamzack, how do you know they won't? Once they get this level of control, THEY CAN DO ANYTHING THEY WANT. My concern is not motivated by a desire to maintain the status quo, the medical industry needs a revamp, but this isn't a revamp. This is a power grab by a bunch of your hated "plutocrats".
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Can we merge the healthcare threads yet? I still don't know why we have two of them...
I think that if the U.S. is going to go for a national single-payer plan, it should do so directly instead of pretending not to and instead setting up a system that is likely to ultimately lead to it. Just do it directly and stop beating about the bush.
That said, I'm uncomfortable with the idea for several reasons I already listed on the other thread.
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I'm getting a headache from all this facepalming, Liberator.
I ALREADY HAVE GOVERNMENT HEALTH INSURANCE. SO DO MILLIONS OF OTHERS. INCLUDING (ESPECIALLY) OLD PEOPLE.
All the government is doing is creating another policy-thinger like Medicare and Tri-care. Why would the government suddenly decide to start killing old people when the government won't even let people kill themselves with the assistance of a physician?
Why don't you see how little sense you're making?
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I've never heard of the NHS trying to be 'better than private care', it's never pretended to be, and it would be self-defeating to try. What the NHS is, is a basic, acceptable standard of life for everyone in the country, the whole idea of 'Euthenasia squads' etc is beyond preposterous, especially since this government is still wrapped up in deciding 'right to die' cases, where the person wants to die, the concept that there are somehow 'death squads' is preposterous.
I think people are taking 'Triage' and converting it to appeal to their own political position to be honest, what the NHS will NOT do, for example, is spend tens of thousands of pounds trying to keep someone alive who stands little or no chance of surviving, hence the famous 'Do not Resuscitate' on terminal patients, because even if they are bought back, it would be a short, and expensive, reprieve, that may buy them 24 hours. This is no different to the US, where the relatives can either decide to have the machine turned off, or, in worst case scenarios, an application can be made to the court.
What amazes me is the concept that somehow, radical Americans claimed they know that the UK 'kill' its pensioners, and didn't once complain about it until it was politically expedient? That smacks more of a political stance than an ethical one to me.
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Okay, Liberator has ended the thread and all consideration as a serious commentator for the next three months...
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Has Obama's health care plan changed from his pre-election days? Last I heard his "plan" was to simply provide government subsidies to the insurance costs so effectively health care would cost just as much (ie more than all the other developed countries) just that the government would effectively pay more of the bill and insurance firms would still get a ****load of money.
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Yep. Latest plan was to force coverage mandates on insurers and create a whole 'nother federal bureaucracy dedicated to acting as an insurance company.
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Somehow, i think Sparda would be singing a different tune if he had leukemia and was trying to get insurance.
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Somehow, i think Sparda would be singing a different tune if he had leukemia and was trying to get insurance.
He'd probably have a better chance than our government has of running anything effectively.
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whole 'nother
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF- :mad:
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Doesnt matter WeatherOp. Having people's health reduced to a decision based on profit is wrong and needs to be stopped.
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Doesnt matter WeatherOp. Having people's health reduced to a decision based on profit is wrong and needs to be stopped.
I actually agree with you. Like I said before, Healthcare does need to be reformed. But, it's just crazy to say something needs to be reformed so bad, that we will let someone who likes to throw away money like it's nothing, and yet still have a huge chance of failure in the end. It's like paying someone a ton of money to mow your fields, yet knowing they will use a butter knife.
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Are you talking about Obama and health care, or Bush and Iraq?
Where did this sudden concern with fiscal care come from? Wasn't that the liberal talking point for the last eight years as Bush drove the economy and the budget balance deep into the red?
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Are you talking about Obama and health care, or Bush and Iraq?
Where did this sudden concern with fiscal care come from? Wasn't that the liberal talking point for the last eight years as Bush drove the economy and the budget balance deep into the red?
No, actually, I'm talking about it all. I'm sickened by the stimulus packages(Bush and Obama) and to know they are planning to spend another half trillion to a trillion in the middle of a bad recession just ticks me off.
Face it, at least in the Bush wars, whether you where for it or against it, there were an actual enemy. But, in something like this, you know the government is just gonna crap it up as they always do.
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Fair enough, I can agree with that.
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Face it, at least in the Bush wars, whether you where for it or against it, there were an actual enemy. But, in something like this, you know the government is just gonna crap it up as they always do.
How does having an enemy help? (Especially when one enemy is only an enemy because people are shouting that he's an enemy.) Also, just because the Republicans fail at government (and war for that matter) does not imply that Obama will also fail.
Please provide your alternative that does not involve acquiescing to the every whim of various companies gouging people without piles of cash.
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Face it, at least in the Bush wars, whether you where for it or against it, there were an actual enemy. But, in something like this, you know the government is just gonna crap it up as they always do.
How does having an enemy help? (Especially when one enemy is only an enemy because people are shouting that he's an enemy.) Also, just because the Republicans fail at government (and war for that matter) does not imply that Obama will also fail.
Please provide your alternative that does not involve acquiescing to the every whim of various companies gouging people without piles of cash.
When I said having an enemy, I meant something literal, as in something you can face. When your worst enemy is yourself, guess what happens?
Oh so having faith in a politician, a politician, just because we don't know he will fail is a good thing? Even when this faith is a trillion dollars. Ohh, so Bush wasted money, so we have to let Obama waste money too?
Please, let him prove his huge stimulus package was worth it and let him drive us out of this recession before we let him spend another trillion dollars.
Personally, I don't know what we can do about solving the healthcare problem here. But, I'll tell you this, what the insurance companies gouge out of us, is nothing to what the government will if they spend a trillion dollars and crap it up.
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I just realized that my medical history will probably prevent me from getting health insurance that I can afford after I lose my parents' insurance. Frak.
Obamacare, please!
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Need I go on?
Yes, please explain how its massive land inefficiencies make it suitable for land squeezed countries. Solar power is inefficient, and so if we were to depend heavily on it we would have to build way over what we otherwise would need to in order to feed the energy conversion (such as the salt thing that was mentioned) process which ends up wasting even more energy and introducing more inefficiences into the system, not to mention more land to be needed. Just in terms of land usage it makes no sense to depend so much on it. I'm not saying there isn't a place for it, but I don't think it is wise to bet the whole farm on something that is proven to be inefficient too often unreliable.
However as it turns out, big new solar farms seem to be running into major opposition from......environmentalists (http://articles.latimes.com/2008/dec/03/business/fi-bigsolar3)
Fission power is extremely effective, is extremely clean, yet the environmental lobby is opposed to it.
I would support fission but it still has problems (limited supply, time to build power stations and more).
Limited supply of what? Uranium is everywhere and is a surprisingly common resource. Part of the problem with time to build power stations is that there's enormous amounts of beaucratic red tape as well as constant lawsuits against it.
Healthcare does need to be reformed.
I think the 50 million people without insurance and the rest of us who are all stuck with outrageous costs might want to have a word with you.
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I think the 50 million people without insurance and the rest of us who are all stuck with outrageous costs might want to have a word with you.
Sure go ahead, I'm stuck with outrageous cost too. But, lets go with the government who craps everything up's plan. Then we'll be stuck with outrageous cost and a worthless dollar to pay it with. Ohh joy. :doubt:
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WeatherOp, the random stuff you pull out of your ass on the effectiveness of government health insurance conflicts with my actual experience with government health insurance. Hmm...
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Thing is, I can't help thinking back to my fathers' heart attack in February, not only did the NHS act with incredible speed and efficiency, to the point where there appears to be almost no muscle damage to his heart from the attack, but within a month, they'd performed 2 more angioplast operations to widen 2 arteries that were 50% blocked.
Thing is what people hear about the NHS is ambulances that don't turn up, and appointments that take months, people are more likely to be vocal about a mistake than shouting that they got an appointment in 3 weeks, everything went fine, and they got the treatment they needed.
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One member of the audience, Jane Sturm, said, "My mother is now over 105. But at 100, the doctor said to her, 'I can't do anything more unless you have a pacemaker.' I said go for it, she said go for it, but the specialist said no, she's too old. When the other specialist saw her, saw her joy of life, so on, he said, 'I'm going for it,' that was over five years ago. My question to you is, outside the medical criteria for prolonging life for somebody who's elderly, is there any consideration that can be given for a certain spirit, a certain joy of living, a quality of life, or is it just a medical cutoff at a certain age?"
I can't believe somebody is actually asking this question of the president of the United States in this country, but it happened. A woman asks the president, "Would you let my mother live? Would you take into account her joy of living? Would your plan let my mother live?" Can you believe that we're even asking that question? Sadly, it was asked, and here's his answer.
OBAMA: I don't think that we can make judgments based on people's spirit. That would be a pretty subjective decision to be making. I think we have to have rules that say that we are going to provide good, quality care for all people. End-of-life care is one of the most difficult sets of decisions that we're going to have to make. But understand that those decisions are already being made in one way or another. If they're not being made under Medicare and Medicaid, they're being made by private insurers. At least we can let doctors know and your mom know that, you know what, maybe this isn't going to help. Maybe you're better off not having the surgery but taking the painkiller.
Congratulations on missing the point of your own quote. Did you not notice that your supposed death panel already exists?
but the specialist said no, she's too old.
And that's before Obama did anything. These death panels the right wing have been going on about already exist. The insurance industry has been running them for years and no one complained then.
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WeatherOp, the random stuff you pull out of your ass on the effectiveness of government health insurance conflicts with my actual experience with government health insurance. Hmm...
He's not talking about your government insurance zack, he's talking about colossal cluster****s that the vast majority of government programs of the size and complexity we're talking about are.
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Then surely the problem is not with the proposed system, but with the way the these kinds of things are handled?
So why weren't these same Republicans shouting louder at the complete screw up of the funds in the Iraq war? Why is it only suddenly a 'fight for America' when its the opposing political party, and, I will add, they are NOT mis-managing funds, it's merely being assumed they will, yet Billions were disappearing in Iraq, and a lot of the conservative talking heads said nothing about that.
It just amazes me that the one solution I haven't seen yet is 'fix the corruption that causes the money to vanish in the first place', instead, people would rather forget even trying.
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It just amazes me that the one solution I haven't seen yet is 'fix the corruption that causes the money to vanish in the first place', instead, people would rather forget even trying.
I suggested it (my suggestion involves firing squads), but really it will never happen since campaign finance laws need to go through congress, and congress likes money too much to actually pass the laws.
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When I said having an enemy, I meant something literal, as in something you can face. When your worst enemy is yourself, guess what happens?
You're right, Americans need someone to fight. Introducing something as an improvement would be admitting that America isn't perfect in every way which would be unamerican.
Oh so having faith in a politician, a politician, just because we don't know he will fail is a good thing? Even when this faith is a trillion dollars. Ohh, so Bush wasted money, so we have to let Obama waste money too?
Yes, trust in the big faceless corporations instead, who like this thing called profit. Surely letting Obama splurge like Bush is only fair. At least his splurges would improve quality of living for tens of millions of your own population instead of ruining the lives of however many people your invasions did.
Please, let him prove his huge stimulus package was worth it and let him drive us out of this recession before we let him spend another trillion dollars.
Bush didn't prove his first war was a good plan before starting his second one.
Personally, I don't know what we can do about solving the healthcare problem here. But, I'll tell you this, what the insurance companies gouge out of us, is nothing to what the government will if they spend a trillion dollars and crap it up.
Perhaps, but those trillions would provide actual healthcare to everyone instead of arbitrarily cutting it off when they feel like it.
Limited supply of what? Uranium is everywhere and is a surprisingly common resource. Part of the problem with time to build power stations is that there's enormous amounts of beaucratic red tape as well as constant lawsuits against it.
See point 4 of http://www.science.unsw.edu.au/opinion-greenhouse-solution-myth-fallacy-spin (http://www.science.unsw.edu.au/opinion-greenhouse-solution-myth-fallacy-spin).
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WeatherOp, the random stuff you pull out of your ass on the effectiveness of government health insurance conflicts with my actual experience with government health insurance. Hmm...
He's not talking about your government insurance zack, he's talking about colossal cluster****s that the vast majority of government programs of the size and complexity we're talking about are.
You mean like Tri-Care?
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See point 4 of http://www.science.unsw.edu.au/opinion-greenhouse-solution-myth-fallacy-spin.
BS (http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/08/how-long-can-uranium-last-for-nuclear.html)
On top of that there's still Thorium based reactors, and Thorium is many times more abundant than Uranium (even though it is also very abundant). That we can even get Uranium from fraking SEAWATER if we have to makes me want to call BS on these "we just have a few decades left" predictions.
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That doesn't seem to address the cost/emissions in obtaining and preparing it.
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So we go from "we're going to run out" to "it's going to become too expensive", progress I suppose.
A.) Even though something is initially expensive, economies of scale generally drive the prices down. When the prices of commodities get higher, then it makes less easy to get reserves economically accesible, pushing the prices back down again.
B.) I'm also calling BS on emissions, just because we use fossil fuel based technology to do all that stuff NOW does not mean that we have to or always will. France's nuclear waste reprocessing facility is, IIRC, powered by a nearby nuclear reactor.
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Mass divergence although interesting, is hard to follow.
I can see, political discussion, death panel, health care and fission vs solar. . . .at least that's uh impression I get.
Btw. . .it's heavy water ie- deuterium, not uranium from sea water.
Regarding healthcare, people slag it off til they need it. And i'm not starting on overpopulation as a counter to to the death panel topic.
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Good, peak oil shouldn't be a problem then; its demand is at such a scale that prices should be compressed down.
I don't think there was anything about solar vs. fission. They're really complementary options. It's just that fission isn't going to solve our power or pollution problems.
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Btw. . .it's heavy water ie- deuterium, not uranium from sea water.
No, it was talking about Uranium. Another description (http://peakoildebunked.blogspot.com/2006/01/207-uranium-from-seawater-part-1.html).
It's just that fission isn't going to solve our power or pollution problems.
That's because our power problems go much deeper than simple supply issues. The grid itself is antiquated, and badly in need of an upgrade in many places. We still get half of our power from coal, if nukes were to replace that it would cut emissions (even factoring in emissions from Uranium mining, processing, and transportation using fossil fuel based vehicles) from power generation drastically.
Good, peak oil shouldn't be a problem then;
You're not one of those people who believes PO will be the end of the world, are you?
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No, it's just that the price of oil and its derivative products will likely only increase from that point on. It really seems like you skipped the bit on different grades of uranium.
Nice ad hominem though.
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It wasn't not an ad home, it was a question, or at least that was how it was intended.
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I just realized that my medical history will probably prevent me from getting health insurance that I can afford after I lose my parents' insurance. Frak.
Obamacare, please!
And there are the real death panels.
The Death Panel decides that you're too much of a risk to insure because you've got sick.
The Death Panel decides to set your deductibles so high that you would have to more than bankrupt yourself, and thus you don't get the treatment.
The Death Panel decides that your illness isn't bad enough to treat, or that your *specific* illness isn't covered by their plan.
Every time your insurance company finds a way to deny coverage, that's the death panel at work.
These Death Panels are beholden only to their shareholders, so you can't even vote their masters out of office if you don't like them.
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And Obama's "death panels" aren't going to be any different, except they will be run by the inefficient government bureaucracy. Also, chances are they will be "removed from the political process", which translates pretty well to being unaccountable since the political process is what provides accountability in government.
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So, were you paying attention for any of the n-billion posts where iamzack and nuclear1 talked about how great their government-run Tricare insurance was?
After a massive economic collapse caused by a lack of government regulation, more privatization is the last thing we need.
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I think they don't realize that they're "government" insurance isn't actually run by the government, merely paid for by same.
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Uh, no? It's run by the TMA, under the Secretary of Defense (or some underling.) Very definitely government.
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:wtf: I don't like this thread anymore. But i'm gonna let it run.......
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I think they don't realize that they're "government" insurance isn't actually run by the government, merely paid for by same.
Thank you for insulting my intelligence.
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I think they don't realize that they're "government" insurance isn't actually run by the government, merely paid for by same.
Yes, my Federal Employee Insurance comes from Blue Cross.
Unfortunately for you, the government mandates certain things (nearly everything, in fact) from it in addition to paying for it. So basically it's a private insurance policy both run by and paid for by the government.
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I think they don't realize that they're "government" insurance isn't actually run by the government, merely paid for by same.
and that's the real trick: when paid by gov't, it becomes not-for-profit, and this means that there is no finnancial incentive to NOT pay for treatment, unlike the basicially evil private insurance companies, whom are scared ****less about reform, for obvious reasons
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Its worth noting that reforming the health care system does not have to be about more government. Its a sad fact but today most people automatically equate "reform" with "more government". Health care reform can also be reduced government in the form of fewer mandates for care, as well as the ability to purchase medical insurance across state lines, increasing competition. Health Savings Accounts could also be part of reform, putting more money in control of the health care user. Also, one could remove the tax exemption for employer-provided health care and just do a straight-up tax exemption for all medical insurance.
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Either the government has to legislate it and then set up something to enforce legislation or provide that power and the means to enforce to an existing agency (because the folks who do healthcare sure as hell aren't going to do it themselves), or do it themselves. Either way, it's more government. There is no smaller-impact solution.
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No smaller impact solution? How about fewer coverage mandates? That would certainly involve less government in medical care.
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Allow me to rephrase. There is no good smaller impact solution. There are, however, bad or stupid ones.
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No smaller impact solution? How about fewer coverage mandates? That would certainly involve less government in medical care.
it would also make the problem worse instead of better.
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It would end up reducing how much insurance costs since companies would be required to provide less coverage. Every mandate added increases premiums since the companies will be forced to cover those mandates.
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So, could I repeat one more time that the cheapest, most effective healthcare systems in the world are European ones?
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I heard most English doctors use private health care for them and their families instead of NHS. If NHS is so good, why would that be?
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Because they can afford better than the standard level of care, so they buy better?
But the baseline level of care is still far higher.
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So, could I repeat one more time that the cheapest, most effective healthcare systems in the world are European ones?
Depends on country to country.
In UK its completely free. In Ireland we make a 'contribution' of around €40. Once off payment per visit. But once your in the hospital, it runs (usually) pretty well. Of course there are problems, such as staffing issues, and at times their could be waiting lists, but the priority is on the patient, and on health, not on 'how much can this person afford'
We pay a higher tax for healthcare but it is worth it.
While we have insurance companies for private healthcare, its works as a doubling of the system. But because most of the country's population is covered by public hospitals, the govermnet carefully regulates the insurance and private healthcare companies to make sure the system stays stable, such as a leading insurance agency which has the majority of 'older' members, is being subsidised by other insurance agencies.
Our current problem is with the COST of medicine, related to the pharmacies. Which is a slightly different issue.
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You know what really makes me laugh though. Despite all the claims of death panels and poorer coverage not a single person from any of the countries with government run health care has said they'd prefer the American system.
That really should tell the doubters something cause I can only think of a few possible scenarios that cover it.
1) Everyone except the Americans are dumb not to have realised their system is better.
2) The Americans are dumb not to have realised that the system the rest of the Western world use is better.
3) The American government is so crap that even if they tried to run a system like the rest of the Western world they'd **** it up.
I'm pretty sure it's not 1 and the WHO agrees with me on that. :p
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I honestly think it's an issue of inertia at this point. A lot of people (zealots notwithstanding) recognize that basically everyone else has it better. But you can't just say "OK, we're going to do it the way France does it next year." Health insurance administration in the US is basically an industry of its own at this point, which both employs a hell of a lot of people and has massive lobbying force behind it. A lot of people's livelihoods/private jets are on the line, so any changes have to be incremental, and even those meet massive resistance. Change is happening, but I'm not sure it'll happen quickly enough.
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Crossing my fingers for within 4 years.
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3) The American government is so crap that even if they tried to run a system like the rest of the Western world they'd **** it up.
Actually, this is pretty much the motivation for a lot of people. A deep distrust of the government, especially the federal government, is very much a part of American culture. :) It's not totally justified...but it's not totally unjustified, either.
And so far, everyone I've heard from who actually lives under nationalized healthcare of some sort is satisfied with it. To me, that's the single most telling argument in favor of doing it in the U.S. But I'm very skeptical of the federal government's ability to do it right, and even more skeptical about some of the plans that have been floating around (although, to be fair, they're not yet fully defined). And I still think that it would be better to keep the federal government out of it and let states enact whatever system they want.
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Sushi, though you are not in my part of the political spectrum, you are a reasonable man. I wish we had more of you.
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The NHS has a lot of waste, makes mistakes and doesn't always provide the absolute best.
But, for all its failings, it's pretty damn good.
The NHS is ours. We *****, moan and complain, but it's our system to complain about.
At the end of the day, I can go to my GP tomorrow and get any treatment I need. If I need drugs, it will cost me £7.20, regardless of whether those drugs are actually worth £10, £50 or £1000. If I need to see a specialist, I might have to wait a while, but it will cost me absolutely nothing.
If I didn't have a job, I could still go and do that, except my drugs will be free.
Details of implementation aside, how can any civilised being complain about that idea?
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Wow. That sounds idyllic. I didn't know it was that good.
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The NHS has a lot of waste, makes mistakes and doesn't always provide the absolute best.
But, for all its failings, it's pretty damn good.
The NHS is ours. We *****, moan and complain, but it's our system to complain about.
At the end of the day, I can go to my GP tomorrow and get any treatment I need. If I need drugs, it will cost me £7.20, regardless of whether those drugs are actually worth £10, £50 or £1000. If I need to see a specialist, I might have to wait a while, but it will cost me absolutely nothing.
If I didn't have a job, I could still go and do that, except my drugs will be free.
Details of implementation aside, how can any civilised being complain about that idea?
bb. .but .. .but .. it takes away your freedom to not pay for all the poor people [/conservative who actually falls into the category he is complaining about]
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You pay for your health care in the form of higher taxes. And your prescription drugs are cheaper because you have price controls. We in the U.S. have no controls, so we pay higher prices since you guys aren't paying your fair share in drug costs.
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:wtf:
I don't think so. I certainly don't think US drug prices are high because Europeans aren't paying their fair share.
You haven't yet presented a reason why one of the apparently excellent European systems wouldn't work in the US.
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You pay for your health care in the form of higher taxes.
Yes, I do. I currently pay roughly £200 a month for the NHS and Government pension. (Not totally accurate and can't easily separate these, but it's what NI is nominally for).
How much does a US citizen pay for health insurance?
(Genuine question - I don't know how much it really is for an individual, only that it costs me quite a lot more to get travel insurance for the US than for Peru.)
And your prescription drugs are cheaper because you have price controls.
Actually, we don't. The 'NHS' and the drug companies come to an agreement about the price, just like your insurance companies/hospitals do. The NHS gets a better price because of their buying power, and (rather strong) bargaining position.
GSK et al could choose not to sell their drugs to the NHS if they wanted to, but they don't because they still make a decent profit at the price level that's agreed.
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But Americans get higher drug prices because yours are so low. Companies have to make a profit somehow. If drug companies don't make a profit, then they end up broke, and no-one gets any drugs that way.
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Source?
And did you even read his post? He specified that the companies were making a comfortable profit.
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Wow. That sounds idyllic. I didn't know it was that good.
And bear in mind that the British health care system still only ranked 18th in the world!
The NHS does have a lot of faults and that's what caused it to slip so low in the rankings but it is a very good safety net for people who need it and I doubt you'll find many Brits willing to give it up without a fight.
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But Americans get higher drug prices because yours are so low. Companies have to make a profit somehow. If drug companies don't make a profit, then they end up broke, and no-one gets any drugs that way.
Doesn't work that way, the customer pays the first 7.50 of the price, even if the pills came to 2 pounds to manufacture, any shortfall is covered by national insurance, so the Government buys pills at trade price, which is exactly what American retailers do, and pays exactly the same amount, any cost over 7.50 is covered by the Health Service, and cost under 7.50 is actually a small profit. The main difference is some Americans have to buy through distributors, who add a further profit margin, whereas the UK tends to buy from source.
There are certainly drugs that the Health Service are unwilling to prescribe because of the costs, such as certain drugs for Alzheimers etc, but it should be borne in mind that for people who can afford it, private health-care does still exist, and you can get those medications privately, though, ironically enough, probably at a higher price than their American counterparts.
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The main difference is some Americans have to buy through distributors, who add a further profit margin, whereas the UK tends to buy from source.
That's because the US government is actually barred by law from leveraging its collective bargaining power to reduce the prices of prescription drugs, thank you Bush.
Companies have to make a profit somehow.
Maybe if they quite blowing so much money on advertising they wouldn't be so expensive. Seriously in the US drug adverts are fracking everywhere, doctors offices are full of them (everything from the pens on the secretaries desk to the calendar on the wall has at least one ad on it), they are always on TV, sometimes even on billboards. Not to mention the hundreds of millions that get spent every year on buying off experts and lobbying washington dc.
In any case, I remember reading somewhere about all these old people who are out worrying that the government is about to take over medicare wit hthis plan, and uninsured people who dont want this plan....the amount of Orwellian double think on this issue is truely astounding.
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While I do believe that the TV ads are completely out of control, I am sick of seeing Viagra/Celestra/ED treatment of your choice. It's pointless, tasteless and annoying. However you won't be able to sell product without your customer's knowing about the product. And the level of advertising that you are talking about with the pens and pads and whatnot is a fraction of the cost of producing a TV ad and is the way the "Big Pharma" has advertised they're products for decades.
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However you won't be able to sell product without your customer's knowing about the product.
It's funny because the running joke is that the ads give you the name of a drug and some side effects, but sometimes don't really explain what it's for. :P
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I keep reading some of the drivel that's coming out of the US on health care and it's like people are willfully shutting off their brains. Limbaugh and Beck, who would be labeled bat-**** insane and promptly ignored in any other country, are getting legitimate airtime. People are talking about "death panels" like this is even a remote possibility. Somehow, socialized health care and equal access is being compared to facism and Nazi Germany, which doesn't even make sense (though I suppose the old Communism yell has lost credibility).
Honestly, EVERY OTHER developed nation on this planet has some form of socialized health care system. Canada and Britain's aren't terrible but they could do with improvement. Some Canadian provinces (*shakes fist at Alberta*) are looking at the US pondering more privatization. ALL of us should be looking at wider Europe, in particular Scandinavia, and saying "Why the *** aren't we doing it that way?!"
The rhetoric coming from south of the 49th right now is absolutely astounding.
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While healthcare here in the United States is pretty expensive I think it will be more expensive if it were government run. But doesn't the US have higher survival rates in most diseases like cancer for example? I just don't think the system should be messed with if its going to cost lives and lower our survival rates for certain ailments.
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Health care is cheaper in Europe and its effectiveness is far higher. So your points are incorrect.
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No body is arguing that Health care in America needs to be handled somehow. The argument is that the only "somehow" being talked about hands control of 1/6th of the economy over to a government that we can't trust to do what they said they were gonna do.
Also, frankly, I don't give a damn if the entire world decided that it was good and right for people to wear polka-dot kilts and toss cats out of windows. That doesn't mean that it's necessarily the right way to do it.
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They aren't saying things to be saying things, Liberator. They have these things called "data" and "facts" to back up their claims.
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Also, frankly, I don't give a damn if the entire world decided that it was good and right for people to wear polka-dot kilts and toss cats out of windows. That doesn't mean that it's necessarily the right way to do it.
You, sir, totally and utterly fail at analogies.
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http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2009/08/merciless.html#more
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No body is arguing that Health care in America needs to be handled somehow. The argument is that the only "somehow" being talked about hands control of 1/6th of the economy over to a government that we can't trust to do what they said they were gonna do.
Also, frankly, I don't give a damn if the entire world decided that it was good and right for people to wear polka-dot kilts and toss cats out of windows. That doesn't mean that it's necessarily the right way to do it.
And yet if wearing polka-dot kilts and tossing cats suddenly caused a 20% drop in the crime rate, a 50% boost in longevity, and an end to war, then it probably would be the right way to do it.
Data, data, data.
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I suppose if I were to mention a concern, it would be that America seems to have, at least from impressions given, a bit of an addiction to treatment. The reason things like the NHS work is because there are a lot of people in the UK who don't feel the need to take medication for every single ailment, whereas America, at least from impressions, is far more inclined towards chemical treatments for things like depression, over-activeness and a host of other psychological orders that could, with all respect, probably be dealt with far more efficiently without the use of chemicals.
Secondly, I don't know if Doctors get subsidies from pharmaceutical giants for prescribing their particular drugs, but it's worth checking out. I can see that problem being far worse in the US, especially at first. Doctors need to be encouraged away from prescribing Medicine for everything and start considering cheaper, but equally effective treatment, else the toll on the system is going to be quite substantial.
Right now, in the UK, there's a move to 'Use it when you need it' with the NHS, in other words, booking an appointment in the Doctors for a cold is not a profitable use of the Doctors' time, and causes delays for people who do need the Doctor. This is something else I can see being a concern at first.
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Wow. That sounds idyllic. I didn't know it was that good.
And bear in mind that the British health care system still only ranked 18th in the world!
Just curious, where can I find that ranking? I want to see how good my country does (for the sake of ... nationalism?).
EDIT: Found the WTO one, but it's rather old, and some countries had a reform since then.
I suppose if I were to mention a concern, it would be that America seems to have, at least from impressions given, a bit of an addiction to treatment. The reason things like the NHS work is because there are a lot of people in the UK who don't feel the need to take medication for every single ailment, whereas America, at least from impressions, is far more inclined towards chemical treatments for things like depression, over-activeness and a host of other psychological orders that could, with all respect, probably be dealt with far more efficiently without the use of chemicals. It seems that 'having a counsellor' seems to be almost required by a certain section of society.
It is actually a common tactic by drugs companies to take a common problem (for example, I have the tendency to walk around A LOT when waiting. it's called 'ice bear-ing' in the netherlands), give it another name ('restless feet') and act as if it is an disease. And then, sell drugs for it, as everybody seems to have it (Yes, anti-shyness drugs were made using that tactic).
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I suppose if I were to mention a concern, it would be that America seems to have, at least from impressions given, a bit of an addiction to treatment. The reason things like the NHS work is because there are a lot of people in the UK who don't feel the need to take medication for every single ailment, whereas America, at least from impressions, is far more inclined towards chemical treatments for things like depression, over-activeness and a host of other psychological orders that could, with all respect, probably be dealt with far more efficiently without the use of chemicals.
A lot of that is because of advertising. Look on TV and for most shows theres always at least one ad talking about something like "if you're feeling sad, you might have clinical depression, take zoloft/prozac/whatever SSRI they're pushing", and you'll see it for many many conditions advertising.