Vader,
Thank you for your thoughtful and intelligent post.
xpandergt,
About your “cutting edge world class health care system”…It is cutting edge ONLY for a segment of the population. Those that CAN AFFORD health insurance and live near big cities with big city hospitals. Yes, there you get first class cutting edge technology and care.
BUT WE ARE 28th IN THE WORLD ON INFANT DEATHS! How’s that for cutting edge?
Little baby, you have a better chance of reaching your first birthday if you choose to be born in Croatia, not the United States of America.
We are having an epidemic of pre-mature labor and preemie infants.
My sister’s nephew’s wife, Hope, aged 40, just lost her first baby, born prematurely.
Why? Because Hope and her husband were amongst the working poor and didn’t have health insurance from their jobs.
So she didn’t get treated properly for her chronic re-occurring bladder infection. Bladder infections cause pre-term labor!
They held their little daughter, about 1 pound in weight, for the 10 minutes it took her to die. In a California County Hospital. Where doctors said that baby was below the line where she could survive. Can you imagine how devastating it would have been to be in that hospital room with that couple and their baby for those 10 minutes?
So don’t even go on and on about your “cutting edge” ELITIST care.
All Hope had needed was antibiotics and careful monitoring during her pregnancy. Which she couldn’t get under our cutting edge health care.
The longevity rate also is a measure of the adequacy of health care. Well, how long are we living? We’re not cutting edge there, either. Also our infection rates for different diseases is way too high. Compared to the rest of the industrialized countries.
By the way, the Pharmacy Companies CAME OUT IN FAVOR of the health care bill. Why? Because a HIGH PROPORTION OF PRESCRIPTIONS NEVER GET FILLED! People can’t afford to!
Pharmaceutical Company profits will go UP and they WILL have money for R & D if they can count on prescription profits.
The AMA came out in FAVOR of the bill. People are getting Emergency Room treatment in lieu of doctors’ office visits. Doctors’ office visit numbers are going to go way up.
Many of you have been raging about “big government”, “entitlements”, the “socialization” of our country.
Sorry, folks. I’ve spent all my rage on the health care setup that allowed for the death of that little one-pound baby girl. Who might not have died in those 27 other countries. Where her Mama would have gotten, not cutting edge, just simply adequate pre-natal care.
Oh, by the way, we really DO have cutting edge surgical and trauma skills in those big city hospitals. The surgeons and trauma doctors are FIRST IN THE WORLD…they have the very most experience in the world in treating…
gun-shot victims.
Furnishedowner