Re: Whole Foods--health care

[Guest guest]

I'm not taking a stand on any proposal that's out there (or on Whole

Foods) because I haven't researched each of them enough and it's all

still in flux, but remember that we have rationing and limited choices

now. Sure, there are lots of independent health care plans out there

to choose from, but a thousand choices is meaningless if you can't

afford any of them, or if you do buy in but get canned as soon as you

get seriously ill. This is happening more and more, legally. The

leading cause of personal bankruptcy for several years has been health-

care costs (foreclosure is up there, too). Think you're covered

because you have catastrophic insurance coverage? Think again. They go

back to their records to find an excuse to kick you off their rolls

once you need the insurance. It's their business plan, it's how they

operate. We already have bureaucrats between us and our doctors: the

insurance company employees who get bonuses and raises and promotions

based on how well they deny you care. See Sicko, if you haven't seen

it; it's about people *with* health care insurance who end up bankrupt.

I really recommend every read the frontline special website on this

issue. You can read directly from experts in the various countries

about their health-care plans. Everyone knows someone who knows

someone from Canada, and I can dig up as many pro-Canadian health care

stories as you can find anti-Canadian health care stories. There are

anecdotes all over the place. But based on polls and interviews,

people in other industrialized countries are scandalized that 16% of

our population doesn't have health insurance, which usually means no

regular (preventive) health care. We pay twice as much as many of

these countries and have much worse results. We're tops in emergency

care, but not in other care by any means.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sickaroundtheworld/

You can watch the full program online (I haven't done that yet but

plan to), and read about " 5 capitalist democracies & how they do it;

Interviews with health-care experts from 5 other countries and the

U.S.; analysis of what lessons we can learn from other countries, how

does it work for doctors in Taiwan, Japan, the U.K., Switzerland, and

Germany; does universal coverage mean socialized medicine (the short

answer: no), the cost of drugs issue. " Reading this is great

background for being able to evaluate the issues and choices in the U.S.

Cheers,

Jeanmarie

On Aug 19, 2009, at 9:15 PM, Lynda Constantineau wrote:

> I agree! I have family and friends in Canada and friends in the

> UK. National signle payer health insurance eventually means

> rationed health care and limited choices. A very dear friend in

> England who is 69 and diabetic has lung cancer and the rationing

> board has just denyed him treatment for the cancer. My brother in

> Canada had tarry stools (meaning blood from higher up) and had to

> wait 4 month for a colonoscopy. British Columbia's health care

> system is in dire straights and is now chopping health care even

> more - to the tune of denying 6,000 neurosurgeries/yr according to a

> recent article in the Vancouver Sun. The last time I was there one

> of the local TV stations had a feature on overcrowding in hospitals

> (because of hospital closures) to the point that patients were being

> placed anywhere there was space and in at least one case that meant

> the tub room.

>

> I have a friend who is from Denmark and her family tells her of

> similar stories. Etc, etc, etc. There needs to be a reasoned

> *bipartisan* debate and much more time taken to think things out

> more thoroughly. Pushing things through without a thorough

> understand of what they are voting for and understanding the long-

> term consequences. " The road to hell is paved with good intentions. "

>

> Lynda

>

>

[Guest guest]

A more fundamental question is whether our nation's laws permit the federal

gov't to get involved with health care (or auto makers, or etc.). And the

constitution does not, so it doesn't matter what other countries are doing if it

is illegal and not permitted in our nation.

Pretty much everyone agrees our health care system is broken (republican,

democrat, libertarian), as are many other systems in the nation. But it became

broken because of more government involvement in the first place. I have strong

doubts about their ability to provide better health care for our nation when 1.

their cost estimates for medi-cade, medicare were only off by 800% 2. They

cannot even administer a small, few billion dollar program involving inanimate

objects, among endless other examples of gov't manipulation, nepotism, and

political pandering.

For those who want national health coverage created or managed by the gov't, a

route is available to give them this power, constitutional amendment. If you

want to enlarge the powers of government, then have it done legally (this goes

for all political parties and stripes of views). Our government was set up to

limit the ability of any one group of people to force their ideologies and

policies on others, and an issue like this is the perfect example.

Also, Canada's system was, by those who run it, recently called unsustainable

and on the verge of collapse. Just because a system is working well for the

moment for a nation doesn't mean it will do so long term.

>

> > I agree! I have family and friends in Canada and friends in the

> > UK. National signle payer health insurance eventually means

> > rationed health care and limited choices. A very dear friend in

> > England who is 69 and diabetic has lung cancer and the rationing

> > board has just denyed him treatment for the cancer. My brother in

> > Canada had tarry stools (meaning blood from higher up) and had to

> > wait 4 month for a colonoscopy. British Columbia's health care

> > system is in dire straights and is now chopping health care even

> > more - to the tune of denying 6,000 neurosurgeries/yr according to a

> > recent article in the Vancouver Sun. The last time I was there one

> > of the local TV stations had a feature on overcrowding in hospitals

> > (because of hospital closures) to the point that patients were being

> > placed anywhere there was space and in at least one case that meant

> > the tub room.

> >

> > I have a friend who is from Denmark and her family tells her of

> > similar stories. Etc, etc, etc. There needs to be a reasoned

> > *bipartisan* debate and much more time taken to think things out

> > more thoroughly. Pushing things through without a thorough

> > understand of what they are voting for and understanding the long-

> > term consequences. " The road to hell is paved with good intentions. "

> >

> > Lynda

> >

> >

>

>

>

[Guest guest]

Please - prove that this is unconstitutional. And no - I don't believe that this

is the fundamental question. The fundamental question is one of human rights -

do people have the right to healthcare - and then is this something that we will

leave to private corporations.

Stop reading the propaganda of right wing zealots. You can find horror stories

about practically anything.

the only way that unemployed people, and poor people, are going to get

affordable healthcare in this country is if the government provides it. Just

because 'the government' doesn't always work well, doesn't mean logically that

it won't work as well as greedy corporate interests. The constitution doesn't

rule out single payer options. Stop watching Fox News.

Re: Whole Foods--health care

 

A more fundamental question is whether our nation's laws permit the federal

gov't to get involved with health care (or auto makers, or etc.). And the

constitution does not, so it doesn't matter what other countries are doing if it

is illegal and not permitted in our nation.

Pretty much everyone agrees our health care system is broken (republican,

democrat, libertarian), as are many other systems in the nation. But it became

broken because of more government involvement in the first place. I have strong

doubts about their ability to provide better health care for our nation when 1.

their cost estimates for medi-cade, medicare were only off by 800% 2. They

cannot even administer a small, few billion dollar program involving inanimate

objects, among endless other examples of gov't manipulation, nepotism, and

political pandering.

For those who want national health coverage created or managed by the gov't, a

route is available to give them this power, constitutional amendment. If you

want to enlarge the powers of government, then have it done legally (this goes

for all political parties and stripes of views). Our government was set up to

limit the ability of any one group of people to force their ideologies and

policies on others, and an issue like this is the perfect example.

Also, Canada's system was, by those who run it, recently called unsustainable

and on the verge of collapse. Just because a system is working well for the

moment for a nation doesn't mean it will do so long term.

>

> > I agree! I have family and friends in Canada and friends in the

> > UK. National signle payer health insurance eventually means

> > rationed health care and limited choices. A very dear friend in

> > England who is 69 and diabetic has lung cancer and the rationing

> > board has just denyed him treatment for the cancer. My brother in

> > Canada had tarry stools (meaning blood from higher up) and had to

> > wait 4 month for a colonoscopy. British Columbia's health care

> > system is in dire straights and is now chopping health care even

> > more - to the tune of denying 6,000 neurosurgeries/yr according to a

> > recent article in the Vancouver Sun. The last time I was there one

> > of the local TV stations had a feature on overcrowding in hospitals

> > (because of hospital closures) to the point that patients were being

> > placed anywhere there was space and in at least one case that meant

> > the tub room.

> >

> > I have a friend who is from Denmark and her family tells her of

> > similar stories. Etc, etc, etc. There needs to be a reasoned

> > *bipartisan* debate and much more time taken to think things out

> > more thoroughly. Pushing things through without a thorough

> > understand of what they are voting for and understanding the long-

> > term consequences. " The road to hell is paved with good intentions. "

> >

> > Lynda

> >

> >

>

>

>

[Guest guest]

> The fundamental question is one of human rights -

> do people have the right to healthcare -

Ok I'll bite, I haven't actually asked this of a believer. Ancient, how can

other people's service be a right of mine?

Other rights, such as freedom of person and freedom of religion, are things that

I am born with, not to be taken from me.

But I don't see how it is my right to require doctors and nurses to treat me.

I can see where I am born with health, such as it may be, and have the right to

pursue its continuance.

Connie

[Guest guest]

That question makes no sense whatsoever. How can someone else's right of free

speech, or whatever right we consider ourselves to have, be considered OUR

right? Isn't the logic the same? Does it need to be drawn out? I mean, it sounds

rather silly (not the way that language works) to say that it is MY right that x

has freedom of speech. We say that we all have these rights.

If you have the right to pursue your own health, meaning that we all do, then if

you can afford healthcare, but some unemployed or poor person cannot, how do

they have the same right? If you admit that pursuing our own health is a right,

then there should be some threshold where we say - yes, you have the right to

these specific things. And if someone cannot afford healthcare then their rights

are being violated.

I find it an utter abomination that people don't think that this is a right, and

that it is therefore fitting and proper that people go bankrupt, or die, because

they do not have access to healthcare.

Re: Whole Foods--health care

 

> The fundamental question is one of human rights -

> do people have the right to healthcare -

Ok I'll bite, I haven't actually asked this of a believer. Ancient, how can

other people's service be a right of mine?

Other rights, such as freedom of person and freedom of religion, are things that

I am born with, not to be taken from me.

But I don't see how it is my right to require doctors and nurses to treat me.

I can see where I am born with health, such as it may be, and have the right to

pursue its continuance.

Connie

[Guest guest]

I totally agree, but unfortunately few people seem to care what our

Constitution allows. thus the Patriot Act and some other lovely pieces of

legislation.

It would be far better to let this be done on the state level if they want.

And either way it shouldn't be forced as an only option!

Dawn

From:

[mailto: ] On Behalf Of louisvillewapf

Sent: Thursday, August 20, 2009 4:01 PM

Subject: Re: Whole Foods--health care

A more fundamental question is whether our nation's laws permit the federal

gov't to get involved with health care (or auto makers, or etc.). And the

constitution does not, so it doesn't matter what other countries are doing

if it is illegal and not permitted in our nation.

Pretty much everyone agrees our health care system is broken (republican,

democrat, libertarian), as are many other systems in the nation. But it

became broken because of more government involvement in the first place. I

have strong doubts about their ability to provide better health care for our

nation when 1. their cost estimates for medi-cade, medicare were only off by

800% 2. They cannot even administer a small, few billion dollar program

involving inanimate objects, among endless other examples of gov't

manipulation, nepotism, and political pandering.

For those who want national health coverage created or managed by the gov't,

a route is available to give them this power, constitutional amendment. If

you want to enlarge the powers of government, then have it done legally

(this goes for all political parties and stripes of views). Our government

was set up to limit the ability of any one group of people to force their

ideologies and policies on others, and an issue like this is the perfect

example.

Also, Canada's system was, by those who run it, recently called

unsustainable and on the verge of collapse. Just because a system is working

well for the moment for a nation doesn't mean it will do so long term.

>

> > I agree! I have family and friends in Canada and friends in the

> > UK. National signle payer health insurance eventually means

> > rationed health care and limited choices. A very dear friend in

> > England who is 69 and diabetic has lung cancer and the rationing

> > board has just denyed him treatment for the cancer. My brother in

> > Canada had tarry stools (meaning blood from higher up) and had to

> > wait 4 month for a colonoscopy. British Columbia's health care

> > system is in dire straights and is now chopping health care even

> > more - to the tune of denying 6,000 neurosurgeries/yr according to a

> > recent article in the Vancouver Sun. The last time I was there one

> > of the local TV stations had a feature on overcrowding in hospitals

> > (because of hospital closures) to the point that patients were being

> > placed anywhere there was space and in at least one case that meant

> > the tub room.

> >

> > I have a friend who is from Denmark and her family tells her of

> > similar stories. Etc, etc, etc. There needs to be a reasoned

> > *bipartisan* debate and much more time taken to think things out

> > more thoroughly. Pushing things through without a thorough

> > understand of what they are voting for and understanding the long-

> > term consequences. " The road to hell is paved with good intentions. "

> >

> > Lynda

> >

> >

>

>

>

[Guest guest]

> We say that we all have these rights.

I am trying to understand you.

Okay, say we all have the right to medical care.

Today, we don't have enough primary care doctors.

Many people go without the care that can legally be done only by MDs, not from

cost, but from lack of availability too.

So that no one's rights are violated, would you conscript doctors?

[Guest guest]

That's hilarious - so the constitution specifically says that the government

cannot get involved in healthcare? Of course it doesn't. And it probably doesn't

say specifically that it can do lots of things that it does do, and that you

would agree with. The question is whether it is actually  unconstitutional, and

no one has even made the slightest case that it is.

Re: Whole Foods--health care

A more fundamental question is whether our nation's laws permit the federal

gov't to get involved with health care (or auto makers, or etc.). And the

constitution does not, so it doesn't matter what other countries are doing

if it is illegal and not permitted in our nation.

Pretty much everyone agrees our health care system is broken (republican,

democrat, libertarian), as are many other systems in the nation. But it

became broken because of more government involvement in the first place. I

have strong doubts about their ability to provide better health care for our

nation when 1. their cost estimates for medi-cade, medicare were only off by

800% 2. They cannot even administer a small, few billion dollar program

involving inanimate objects, among endless other examples of gov't

manipulation, nepotism, and political pandering.

For those who want national health coverage created or managed by the gov't,

a route is available to give them this power, constitutional amendment. If

you want to enlarge the powers of government, then have it done legally

(this goes for all political parties and stripes of views). Our government

was set up to limit the ability of any one group of people to force their

ideologies and policies on others, and an issue like this is the perfect

example.

Also, Canada's system was, by those who run it, recently called

unsustainable and on the verge of collapse. Just because a system is working

well for the moment for a nation doesn't mean it will do so long term.

>

> > I agree! I have family and friends in Canada and friends in the

> > UK. National signle payer health insurance eventually means

> > rationed health care and limited choices. A very dear friend in

> > England who is 69 and diabetic has lung cancer and the rationing

> > board has just denyed him treatment for the cancer. My brother in

> > Canada had tarry stools (meaning blood from higher up) and had to

> > wait 4 month for a colonoscopy. British Columbia's health care

> > system is in dire straights and is now chopping health care even

> > more - to the tune of denying 6,000 neurosurgeries/yr according to a

> > recent article in the Vancouver Sun. The last time I was there one

> > of the local TV stations had a feature on overcrowding in hospitals

> > (because of hospital closures) to the point that patients were being

> > placed anywhere there was space and in at least one case that meant

> > the tub room.

> >

> > I have a friend who is from Denmark and her family tells her of

> > similar stories. Etc, etc, etc. There needs to be a reasoned

> > *bipartisan* debate and much more time taken to think things out

> > more thoroughly. Pushing things through without a thorough

> > understand of what they are voting for and understanding the long-

> > term consequences. " The road to hell is paved with good intentions. "

> >

> > Lynda

> >

> >

>

>

>

[Guest guest]

I don't even come close to  understanding this question.

If I open up a restaurant, do I have the right to refuse to serve black people?

Should I? If I'm a doctor, what gives me the right to refuse to help people.

What if a person who was poor couldn't find a doctor to help them. Is the right

of a doctor to refuse to help someone more important than the right of someone

to get that help?

Unbelievable.

Re: Whole Foods--health care

 

> We say that we all have these rights.

I am trying to understand you.

Okay, say we all have the right to medical care.

Today, we don't have enough primary care doctors.

Many people go without the care that can legally be done only by MDs, not from

cost, but from lack of availability too.

So that no one's rights are violated, would you conscript doctors?

[Guest guest]

> What if a person who was poor couldn't find a doctor to help them.

> Is the right of a doctor to refuse to help someone more important

> than the right of someone to get that help?

This happened to my poverty-stricken BF here in Oregon, which has an insurance

plan for people below the poverty line. He was insured but there were no

doctors accepting patients on his Oregon Health Plan. When he died in the

hospital the hospital got paid some of the amount by Oregon and lost money on

the difference.

Do I understand you, that the doctor then has no right to set limits on his or

her practice, if there are any poor patients waiting?

Or to use your restaurant analogy, what if the place is full? Is the

restaurateur required then to buy the place next door?

That is the difference between socialized insurance, and Jeanmarie wrote, versus

guaranteeing everyone care. Which puts the federal govt in the health care

provider business. No thanks for this voter.

> Unbelievable.

I get that you want everyone covered.

I like what Jeanmarie wrote about the society deciding everyone should be

covered. That I could go for if I thought the govt could do it. Take the VA

though, I don't know a single VA consumer of services who thinks it is working,

and that is an agency that is managed with as little money as possible.

Govt management sounds unbelievably reckless given our current situation.

Perhaps that's my big issue with govt single payer. Might as well print money

for usurious providers.

Negotiation on drug prices, for example, is trivial when the standards of care

are twisted to say that all Americans need drugs in the first place.

[Guest guest]

Yes, it does.

Bill of rights, article 10.

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor

prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to

the people.

You can read the commentary on it and the correspondence regarding it from the

founders. Health care is not one of the powers delegated to the federal

government in the Constitution, therefore it is out of bounds. But we have

become so used to a gov't that completely ignores it constitutional bounds that

they can now tell us what light bulbs to use, etc.

And as people who care about food, be sure that the more gov't gets involved in

health care, the more they will get involved with food, especially issues of

meat, fat, etc. and knowing what we know of where they are currently, this could

be more deleterious than imaginable.

BTW, for all your insulting people for not thinking, etc. you constant comments

with anyone who disagrees as being a Fox News watcher, etc. are just out of

bounds. Perhaps some people arrive at their positions who don't even own TVs or

who read from a wide array of news outlets, yet are contrary to yours.

I am all for caring for the poor, but like is done through our church, where

numerous members out of compassion and the other virtues you extol sacrifice

large amounts of time and money and even live among our church's neighborhood.

Compassion is not something that can be made compulsory, or it is no longer

compassion. You cannot force people to give generously, or it is no longer

giving.

To be a compassionate person doesn't mean you have to agree with or support

universal government mandated or managed health-care. It is a false dichotomy.

> >

> > > I agree! I have family and friends in Canada and friends in the

> > > UK. National signle payer health insurance eventually means

> > > rationed health care and limited choices. A very dear friend in

> > > England who is 69 and diabetic has lung cancer and the rationing

> > > board has just denyed him treatment for the cancer. My brother in

> > > Canada had tarry stools (meaning blood from higher up) and had to

> > > wait 4 month for a colonoscopy. British Columbia's health care

> > > system is in dire straights and is now chopping health care even

> > > more - to the tune of denying 6,000 neurosurgeries/yr according to a

> > > recent article in the Vancouver Sun. The last time I was there one

> > > of the local TV stations had a feature on overcrowding in hospitals

> > > (because of hospital closures) to the point that patients were being

> > > placed anywhere there was space and in at least one case that meant

> > > the tub room.

> > >

> > > I have a friend who is from Denmark and her family tells her of

> > > similar stories. Etc, etc, etc. There needs to be a reasoned

> > > *bipartisan* debate and much more time taken to think things out

> > > more thoroughly. Pushing things through without a thorough

> > > understand of what they are voting for and understanding the long-

> > > term consequences. " The road to hell is paved with good intentions. "

> > >

> > > Lynda

> > >

> > >

> >

> >

> >

[Guest guest]

Is that the same question? For instance, if a doctor had a line of

1000 patients, would he be allowed to go home? Silly example, but I

don't understand how

saying that a patient has the right to healthcare more important than

a doctor's right to refuse care based on certain factors, implies that

there are simply no limits whatsoever. That's analogous, I think

to saying that a person's right to healthcare means that the

government should pay for any frivolous cosmetic surgery he/she may

want, etc...obviously there are going to be SOME limits. But we are

talking in generalities here - the idea is that the government is

going to be paying the doctors, so why should they have the right to

refuse patients who are on a government plan....especially if that

person is urgently in need of care?

You are twisting the restaurant analogy beyond any semblance of its

meaning or intent. Obviously, if there is no more room in the

restaurant, then denying a black person a seat is not discrimination

against them. Similarly, if for whatever reason, a doctor cannot help

a person on a government plan (and ideally this would be most people,

I think, but this isn't 'on the table' now), then obviously it's

unreasonable to suggest that it be mandated.

I think that using reason and compassion you can get past these

seeming dilemmas.

My brain breaks down completely when I try to reconcile leaving the

government out of it, and covering everyone including those who cannot

afford to pay, meaning that greedy, unethical, insurance companies

prey on people. my impression is that most people in single payer

countries may have issues with the implementation, but that overall

they support the FACT of single payer, and the fact that their country

has it, far more than people in this country support this system. This

'government is evil' nonsense just totally throws me - I think that

OUR government is politically and ethically corrupt - the Republicans

just slightly more than the Democrats, but both enough that I don't,

and never have, consider myself a member of either party. But when

compared to corporate capitalistic greed (which is the main force that

is corrupting our government in the first place), I think that the

only compassionate just choice is to have the government do it, and

then to work on improving that option. I think that Joe Schmoe,

unemployed in the slums, should have the same access to important

healthcare as some rich person, whether he be Bill Gates, or

Pelosi. Expensive, sure - but we are spending so much money to fight

the so called 'war' on terror.....

> > What if a person who was poor couldn't find a doctor to help them.

> > Is the right of a doctor to refuse to help someone more important

> > than the right of someone to get that help?

>

> This happened to my poverty-stricken BF here in Oregon, which has an

> insurance plan for people below the poverty line. He was insured but

> there were no doctors accepting patients on his Oregon Health Plan.

> When he died in the hospital the hospital got paid some of the

> amount by Oregon and lost money on the difference.

>

> Do I understand you, that the doctor then has no right to set limits

> on his or her practice, if there are any poor patients waiting?

>

> Or to use your restaurant analogy, what if the place is full? Is the

> restaurateur required then to buy the place next door?

>

> That is the difference between socialized insurance, and Jeanmarie

> wrote, versus guaranteeing everyone care. Which puts the federal

> govt in the health care provider business. No thanks for this voter.

>

> > Unbelievable.

>

> I get that you want everyone covered.

>

> I like what Jeanmarie wrote about the society deciding everyone

> should be covered. That I could go for if I thought the govt could

> do it. Take the VA though, I don't know a single VA consumer of

> services who thinks it is working, and that is an agency that is

> managed with as little money as possible.

>

> Govt management sounds unbelievably reckless given our current

> situation. Perhaps that's my big issue with govt single payer. Might

> as well print money for usurious providers.

>

> Negotiation on drug prices, for example, is trivial when the

> standards of care are twisted to say that all Americans need drugs

> in the first place.

>

>

>

[Guest guest]

Nonsense. First of all, I have no respect for either biblical or

constitutional literalists. They ALWAYS seems to restrict the law on

the side of hurting people, whether it be healthcare, gay marriage,

etc... instead of taking the spirit of the law, they look for sections

that violate what is taken as the spirit so that they can further

their own hateful agenda.

Now, we have an extreme right wing Supreme Court, increasingly more so

over the years - yet they have never ruled Medicare to be

unconstitutional. That is certainly a government run healthcare

program...

A 'power' need not be explicitly expressed....it can be implied. I'd

certainly say that equal right to healthcare is implied by the

declaration of independence " Life, liberty, and the pursuit of

happiness " is one of the most famous phrases in the United States

Declaration of Independence. These three aspects are listed among the

" inalienable rights " of man. "

But I don't even think that the argument should go here at all. You

essentially expect that someone who believes that the only

compassionate and just solution right now is to have a single payer

system, should refuse to support it because of some literal

interpretation of some part of the constitution. Your arguments are

simply ridiculous, and because you rely on superfluous technicalities

to make them it is the antithesis of being compassionate. True - I

cannot make a person generous, but a society as a whole can be

compassionate by institutionalizing certain things. One of them is the

right to healthcare.

> Yes, it does.

>

> Bill of rights, article 10.

>

> The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution,

> nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States

> respectively, or to the people.

>

> You can read the commentary on it and the correspondence regarding

> it from the founders. Health care is not one of the powers delegated

> to the federal government in the Constitution, therefore it is out

> of bounds. But we have become so used to a gov't that completely

> ignores it constitutional bounds that they can now tell us what

> light bulbs to use, etc.

>

> And as people who care about food, be sure that the more gov't gets

> involved in health care, the more they will get involved with food,

> especially issues of meat, fat, etc. and knowing what we know of

> where they are currently, this could be more deleterious than

> imaginable.

>

> BTW, for all your insulting people for not thinking, etc. you

> constant comments with anyone who disagrees as being a Fox News

> watcher, etc. are just out of bounds. Perhaps some people arrive at

> their positions who don't even own TVs or who read from a wide array

> of news outlets, yet are contrary to yours.

>

> I am all for caring for the poor, but like is done through our

> church, where numerous members out of compassion and the other

> virtues you extol sacrifice large amounts of time and money and even

> live among our church's neighborhood. Compassion is not something

> that can be made compulsory, or it is no longer compassion. You

> cannot force people to give generously, or it is no longer giving.

>

> To be a compassionate person doesn't mean you have to agree with or

> support universal government mandated or managed health-care. It is

> a false dichotomy.

>

>

> > >

> > > > I agree! I have family and friends in Canada and friends in the

> > > > UK. National signle payer health insurance eventually means

> > > > rationed health care and limited choices. A very dear friend in

> > > > England who is 69 and diabetic has lung cancer and the rationing

> > > > board has just denyed him treatment for the cancer. My brother

> in

> > > > Canada had tarry stools (meaning blood from higher up) and had

> to

> > > > wait 4 month for a colonoscopy. British Columbia's health care

> > > > system is in dire straights and is now chopping health care even

> > > > more - to the tune of denying 6,000 neurosurgeries/yr

> according to a

> > > > recent article in the Vancouver Sun. The last time I was there

> one

> > > > of the local TV stations had a feature on overcrowding in

> hospitals

> > > > (because of hospital closures) to the point that patients were

> being

> > > > placed anywhere there was space and in at least one case that

> meant

> > > > the tub room.

> > > >

> > > > I have a friend who is from Denmark and her family tells her of

> > > > similar stories. Etc, etc, etc. There needs to be a reasoned

> > > > *bipartisan* debate and much more time taken to think things out

> > > > more thoroughly. Pushing things through without a thorough

> > > > understand of what they are voting for and understanding the

> long-

> > > > term consequences. " The road to hell is paved with good

> intentions. "

> > > >

> > > > Lynda

> > > >

> > > >

> > >

> > >

> > >

[Guest guest]

Well said. I just declared bankruptcy and it was health care costs that were the

last straw. I have a child with special needs and my insurance, with rather good

coverage by today's standards, would not cover speech therapy at all even though

it was written into the policy. They claimed it didn't apply to " chronic "

conditions, so I guess it was just there for people who catch a cold and need

speech therapy until they recover. Physical and occupational therapies are

covered to a point, but it is a constant battle to renew since they give us a

catch 22 logic in justifying the need for more: if insufficient progress is

being made, then it's not working and can be canceled whereas if progress is

being made, then it's not needed any more. This is the language that the

so-called Doctors who work for the insurance company come up with to avoid

paying--they are " rationing " our care (and bloating administrative costs to do

it). And we are approaching our lifetime limits. We actually had switched

companies because the previous one said no therapies are covered since our local

school board should cover it (they don't). Our insurance company also would not

pay for a specialist visit we made on our own dime to California.

When our services are terminated, I don't know what we will do. These therapies

are the difference between a child who grows up to work, pay taxes, and live

semi-independently and a severely autistic person that needs 24-7 care. How much

money will that cost society? How will I care for my child and who will look out

for him when my wife and I are dead? The Children's Special Health Care Services

program, a government program that is supposed to help, flat out refuses to

cover kids with Fragile X Syndrome, and our complaint under the Americans with

Disabilities Act was rejected by the feds. It is almost a full-time job

advocating and caring for our child, and my job has suffered as a result. Let's

hope I can keep that.

My wife and I spent a year in Germany. Let me tell you that you can not find

ANYONE that wants to scrap universal health care there or elsewhere that we've

been in Europe. It is considered a complete right and any politicians, right or

left, that don't keep the program strong would be committing political suicide.

Most of them seem to think we here in the USA are mentally ill, because we don't

have that, and we have people protesting, in effect, " please don't give me

health care. " Same deal with everyone I have spoken to about this in Canada. The

scare stories are out and out lies, and laughable to boot, since care is

severely rationed in this country by insurance companies to maximize profits.

Not only can't we have a single-payer system here, but most insurance companies

are for-profit corporations.

The reason for this is the decline of our traditional manufacturing economy in

the 1970s and since. Profits fell and companies looked to move into and find

more profitable enterprises than actually making things. So they went into

health care, converting hospitals and insurance companies and the like to

for-profit enterprises (they also did the same thing in education, finance [how

that work out for us?], and real estate).

The sheer level of extreme social misery in this country caused by our health

care system is staggering. It really is hard to respond to the pile of manure

confounding the public debate with " arguments " when the people behind the manure

have no interest in a rational debate, just in derailing the process. (And this

is for a very lame attempt at a universal system, not a truly robust system,

which at a minimum would involve kicking the insurance company parasites out,

found in all other industrialized countries.) At some point, the natural

instinct is to want to respond to these town hall bozos the way you would

respond to someone trying to harm your child. You don't debate with a predator,

you fight them.

Bill

>

> I'm not taking a stand on any proposal that's out there (or on Whole

> Foods) because I haven't researched each of them enough and it's all

> still in flux, but remember that we have rationing and limited choices

> now. Sure, there are lots of independent health care plans out there

> to choose from, but a thousand choices is meaningless if you can't

> afford any of them, or if you do buy in but get canned as soon as you

> get seriously ill. This is happening more and more, legally. The

> leading cause of personal bankruptcy for several years has been health-

> care costs (foreclosure is up there, too). Think you're covered

> because you have catastrophic insurance coverage? Think again. They go

> back to their records to find an excuse to kick you off their rolls

> once you need the insurance. It's their business plan, it's how they

> operate. We already have bureaucrats between us and our doctors: the

> insurance company employees who get bonuses and raises and promotions

> based on how well they deny you care. See Sicko, if you haven't seen

> it; it's about people *with* health care insurance who end up bankrupt.

[Guest guest]

The doctors and nurses have a right to be paid for the services they wish to

provide. The debate is about how to pay for it. The root idea you are expressing

here goes back to the extremely damaging ideology of laissez faire capitalism

that sought to justify the extreme social destruction of the industrial

revolution when land and labor began to be treated wholly as commodities subject

solely to market forces. Before this time, markets were always kept in check,

they were not allowed to displace social organization as such, or reorder

society for the benefit of the market. When this was done in Europe, it led to

extreme social breakdown, and people across the political spectrum united to at

least put some reforms on the process like limiting the workday and the like.

The same thing happened in colonized countries, even more successfully and

permanently in some cases, which accounts for the extreme social and political

dysfunction of much of the underdeveloped parts of the world today. (The classic

work here is Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation_.)

Bottom line is people are social animals, and societies make arrangements to see

that people don't starve, are rewarded for their contributions to the common

good, etc. There is actually discussion in Allport, _The Primal Feast_of

the Ik, a society damaged by war in Africa where some of the basics of all

societies like food sharing started breaking down. Children above three had to

fend for themselves and a mother was happy when a leopard killed her infant

since it left one less mouth to feed and it left a slow-moving leopard around

that might be killed for food. This kind of thinking only happens under extreme

hardship. People are social animals and societies, in different ways, regulate

the way people should interact to meet everyone's needs. This should be obvious

from some of the most basic human relationships that define who we are. A

parent's service of feeding and caring for a child is the child's right, for

instance.

Bill

>

> > The fundamental question is one of human rights -

> > do people have the right to healthcare -

>

> Ok I'll bite, I haven't actually asked this of a believer. Ancient, how can

other people's service be a right of mine?

>

> Other rights, such as freedom of person and freedom of religion, are things

that I am born with, not to be taken from me.

>

> But I don't see how it is my right to require doctors and nurses to treat me.

>

> I can see where I am born with health, such as it may be, and have the right

to pursue its continuance.

>

> Connie

>

[Guest guest]

The constitution allows the regulation of interstate trade, which includes

regulation of health care if Congress so chooses. This kind of application of

the interstate trade clause has been upheld by the supreme court, which is the

mechanism for sorting out claims that there is a violation of the constitution,

rather than just whether some citizen says so. In fact, the current system of

health care has all the virtues in its domain that the Articles of Confederation

had, leading to the ratification of the Constitution instead.

Bill

--- In , " louisvillewapf " <louisvillewapf@...>

wrote:

>

> Yes, it does.

>

> Bill of rights, article 10.

>

> The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor

prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to

the people.

>

[Guest guest]

Amen! We are indeed social animals, and *society* doesn't benefit by

letting individuals suffer needlessly.

Thanks for the book recommendation. I'll check out The Great

Transformation.

Jeanmarie

On Aug 21, 2009, at 10:11 AM, lynchwt wrote:

> The doctors and nurses have a right to be paid for the services they

> wish to provide. The debate is about how to pay for it. The root

> idea you are expressing here goes back to the extremely damaging

> ideology of laissez faire capitalism that sought to justify the

> extreme social destruction of the industrial revolution when land

> and labor began to be treated wholly as commodities subject solely

> to market forces. Before this time, markets were always kept in

> check, they were not allowed to displace social organization as

> such, or reorder society for the benefit of the market. When this

> was done in Europe, it led to extreme social breakdown, and people

> across the political spectrum united to at least put some reforms on

> the process like limiting the workday and the like. The same thing

> happened in colonized countries, even more successfully and

> permanently in some cases, which accounts for the extreme social and

> political dysfunction of much of the underdeveloped parts of the

> world today. (The classic work here is Karl Polanyi, The Great

> Transformation_.)

>

> Bottom line is people are social animals, and societies make

> arrangements to see that people don't starve, are rewarded for their

> contributions to the common good, etc. There is actually discussion

> in Allport, _The Primal Feast_of the Ik, a society damaged by

> war in Africa where some of the basics of all societies like food

> sharing started breaking down. Children above three had to fend for

> themselves and a mother was happy when a leopard killed her infant

> since it left one less mouth to feed and it left a slow-moving

> leopard around that might be killed for food. This kind of thinking

> only happens under extreme hardship. People are social animals and

> societies, in different ways, regulate the way people should

> interact to meet everyone's needs. This should be obvious from some

> of the most basic human relationships that define who we are. A

> parent's service of feeding and caring for a child is the child's

> right, for instance.

>

> Bill

>

>

>

>

>

[Guest guest]

> The sheer level of extreme social misery

> in this country caused by our health care system is staggering.

> Bill

Well said yourself, Bill. I would agree with you and would add to the parasite

list, all those making a fortune off sick people.

And not to forget the collapse of manufacturing in the 70s was the " Have " s

moving jobs off shore, further concentrating the wealth in the top. The same

people who are happy with the engine of Big Food generating heart disease and

diabetes for Big Medicine, and who just want to change the paying for it, not

change the fact that spending is so high.

Connie

[Guest guest]

>My wife and I spent a year in Germany. Let me tell you that you can not find

ANYONE that >wants to scrap universal health care there or elsewhere that we've

been in Europe. It is >considered a complete right and any politicians, right or

left, that don't keep the program >strong would be committing political suicide.

Most of them seem to think we here in the >USA are mentally ill, because we

don't have that,

Yep, we are traveling in France right now for the last few months talking to a

lot of locals as well as US expats and they are all thinking we are all just

absolutely crazy. Life is so much easier when you know you won't have to file a

bankruptcy next time something wrong goes with your health (like my mom almost

did). They all seem very happy with the quality of care they receive.

Thanks,

Elena

[Guest guest]

Connie:

" Ancient, how can other people's service be a right of mine? "

Ancient:

" That question makes no sense whatsoever. How can someone else's right of

free speech, or whatever right we consider ourselves to have, be considered

OUR right? Isn't the logic the same? Does it need to be drawn out? I mean,

it sounds rather silly (not the way that language works) to say that it is

MY right that x has freedom of speech. We say that we all have these

rights. "

Mike (me):

I don't have a opinion on the single-payer issue because I don't know or

care much about it, but reading threads like this do keep me abreast of

current events, for which I'm grateful. I haven't had any kind of health

insurance or medical treatment in many years, and I don't really think about

this topic because I've learned how to stay healthy through simple lifestyle

choices. I'm also too poor to consider buying insurance, but I find it

pretty cheap to eat foods that make allopathic healthcare unnecessary. If I

had to choose between spending $100 a month on local, biodynamic, free-range

eggs or spending $100 a month on health insurance, I'm pretty sure I'll live

a much healthier life by eating the eggs.

With that context, I just wanted to say that Connie's question does make

sense to me, and it's not obvious or even very plausible to me that

treatment by doctors is a universal human right. On the other hand, after

reading Ancient's paragraph about three times, I still can't make sense of

the convoluted attempt at an analogy with free speech. My opinion is that

Ancient is dismissing a very reasonable point of view with hasty, empty

rhetoric.

I can vaguely imagine an argument for healthcare as a basic human right in

some kind of abstract society where the basic premises of sustainable human

life were present, but our society is so extremely upside-down when it comes

to diet and body usage that the " healthcare " in question is an absurd

proposition. To be more specific, it seems to me that at least 90% of the

healthcare in question would be totally unnecessary if people weren't

victimized by the industrial food culture created by unethical corporations

and their governmental bedfellows. Bodily malfunctions like type 2 diabetes,

heart disease, cancer, arthritis, osteoporosis, bad backs, etc are mostly

very easy to prevent with simple lifestyle choices. While I recognize the

blame for people's bad choices has to be split between the individual and

their culture, and the division of blame will be subject to sharp debate,

I'm very hesitant to support a system in which huge amounts of resources are

used to give free treatment to all the people who have type 2 diabates or

heart disease because they spent a few decades overdosing on sugar and

suffering an obvious decline in basic physical vitality during that time.

The food corporations are to blame for selling dangerous food; the

governments are to blame for the lack of education and public policy

required for all citizens to have accurate information about the dangers of

these foods; and the individuals are to blame for letting themselves spend

years and years getting more obese, lethargic, and uncomfortable without

finding a solution to their problems.

I'm talking about extreme surreal absurdity on the level of the Town of

Allopath essay and video. I really believe that's what's happening in the

USA (and most other industrialized societies). Here's an analogy. If

millions of people have wounds caused by operating a kitchen appliance that

was poorly engineered and makes it very likely for the user to come into

contact with sharp blades spinning at high speeds, then we have two

problems, treating the cause and treating the symptoms. (Notice how obvious

and alarming it is when we wreak havoc on the outside of our bodies, while

pouring huge amounts of sugar, wheat, weird chemicals, etc into our body and

wreaking even worse havoc on the inside of our bodies is so easy to ignore!)

It's obvious to anyone that fixing the cause is the only sustainable

solution, but treating the symptoms is still a valid concern. However, the

current debate about large-scale public healthcare policy isn't addressing

causes or symptoms. In our analogy, if treating the symptoms means covering

the wound with a bandage, we could debate what kind of bandages would work

best, how often to change them, etc. That would be a debate about treating

symptoms. On the other hand, we could debate the problems of where the

bandages are manufactured, how our country's economy is affected by

different approaches to manufacturing bandages, whether the factory is using

sustainable energy, whether the factory is polluting, how the factory

workers are treated, whether the factory is practicing equal opportunity

employment, fair trade, etc, and other complicated, challenging issues.

These debates address neither the cause nor the symptom of the wounds. They

are tangential political and economic problems. All this grandiose, heated

debate about the economic and governmental structure of healthcare is

totally detached from the essential problems of health and healthcare.

In other words, our society is just being distracted by an artificial debate

about tangential problems. The USA government (via its current articulate,

smart and soothing figurehead) is spinning its wheels telling people " I know

you're poor and sick and all that bad stuff, so I'm going to help you afford

more of what we have for sale that might make you feel better " . The first

priority of the government right now should be to say " Look, our healthcare

system has serious problems and nobody knows for sure how various approaches

will pan out, so we're going to work hard on this long-term project, but

there are some simple things we can all do right away to dramatically

improve the situation. First of all, avoid refined sugar and never eat a

lot of it at once because it impairs your basic bodily functioning and

regular overdoses gradually create life-threatening health conditions like

diabates and heart disease. Try to eat fresh, whole foods instead of stuff

that's been highly processed in factories. While you're at it, try to get

most of your food from local, small-scale farmers and fishers to solve many

of our economic and environmental problems. One out of every three

Americans is genetically disposed to suffer bodily damage anytime they eat

wheat gluten, so find out if you're sensitive to wheat gluten and never

touch it for the rest of your life if you are. A similar common problem

comes from milk foods, especially when the milk is from Holstein cows, which

most commercial milk producers use. Make sure your body works well with milk

if you are going to rely on it as a staple food. Another common problem is

soy foods, which can impair your thyroid, so be careful if you eat more than

small amounts. In general, try to eat a variety of foods and find a balance

of fat, protein and carbohydrates that works for your individual body.

Always eat plenty of fat and ignore all the stuff people used to say about

fat and cholesterol back in the 20th century when the corn/soy/wheat

industry hijacked the food supply. Beyond your diet, don't sit on chairs for

long periods of time without taking breaks to do simple breathing and

stretching exercises. Move around a lot. Don't slouch or lean to one side.

Keep your back straight during all of your everyday activities. Go outdoors

for midday sun as often as possible to make vitamin D. If you follow these

simple lifestyle habits, you can avoid most of the problems that will result

in healthcare expenses, and there's lots of other simple, solid information

you can learn about taking care of your health, so take one small step at a

time and keep taking small steps. "

The most important word there is " say " , because the government can easily

afford to communicate this type of information to everyone. I'm not

advocating any particular economic or social system like socialism or

libertarianism. Even a tiny, libertarian government would have plenty of

resources to wage public information campaigns about the dangers of refined

sugar and industrialized foods. I think that 0.1% of the government's

healthcare budget would be more than enough to disseminate enough basic

knowledge about health to eliminate 90% of society's healthcare expenses.

Now that would be a budgetary proposition all political persuasions could

agree with.

The fundamental problem of our healthcare system is unethical food

corporations, unethical pharmaceutical corporations, and an unethical

government (really just another kind of corporation in itself) that puts the

interests of these corporations ahead of the public interest. In other

words, the government needs to fix its own corruption instead of playing

around with the economics of hospitals and insurance companies. Of course,

if the health insurance industry is corrupt, we should deal with that like

any other corruption.

The government works by taking tiny steps around a tiny circle in the

middle. The best way to maintain the status quo is to zoom in on the middle

and make a big fuss about every tiny shift to the left or the right. As many

people have observed, there is only one political party in the USA,

informally called the " business party " and Democrats and Republicans are

just factions of this single party with different public relations

strategies to create an artificial tension between two points in the middle.

I'm not suggesting that this politicians are doing this on purpose or that

it's the result of anyone's planning or intentions. I'm not suggesting

there's a conspiracy against the general public. I'm just describing the

actual structure of the government, which is not the way it's portrayed by

mass media. The mass media is essentially a suffocating smokescreen to keep

people's attention away from the extreme greed and unethical practices of

mega-corporations. Again, I'm not suggesting there's a conspiracy. The

governments of large-scale industrial societies like the USA are immensely

complex system with emergent properties that result from millions of small

components cancelling or reinforcing each other. The individual components

(e.g. a single corporation or a single public official) have very little

control over the system as a whole. Basically, thousands of conflicting

interests make it hard for large changes to take places in the entire

system. Instead, we see lots of tiny changes, and people wind up perceiving

tiny changes as huge changes, and very tiny changes as small changes. Most

importantly, we fail to see the true options available to us, the

fundamental changes that solve fundamental problems.

All these debates about single-payer healthcare are part of this tiny dance

around the middle. It seems like a radical change might take place, but

Washington doesn't work that way. It works by shuffling around soundbytes

and money to massage the status quo. Obama is basically the chief

advertising executive for a massive public relations corporation that

creates a veil of institutional propriety around the military-industrial

complex that siphons money from all possible sources. The side effects of

this greed is that the military-industrial complex either kills its own

citizens with slow poison (e.g. dangerous food, pollution, soil/water

destruction, etc) or kills people in other countries by direct murder (e.g.

war) or various strengths of poison (e.g. extreme economic subjugation that

forces deforestation, hyper-pollution, sweatshops, loss of

self-sustainability, etc). The USA government, like most others, is

basically a sprawling organized crime syndicate that does lots of charity

work.

Single-payer healthcare? Seriously, who cares? The government needs to

promote the truth about the dangers of sugar instead of pandering to huge

food corporations. The government needs to expose the cholesterol scandal

instead of pandering to huge pharmaceutical corporations. When I say " the

government needs to do x, y, and z " I'm not arguing for big government or

socialism. Nothing I've said here favors bigger or smaller government. The

debate between libertarianism and socialism is totally irrelevant to my

points. I don't hold any absolute beliefs about which system is better. I'm

simply saying that the government has been complicit in massive public

health policy fraud and it needs to tell the truth about the things it has

placed itself in the position to have authority on. For example, I'm not

saying government agencies like the USDA or FDA should or shouldn't exist,

but in our current reality they do exist and they have existed long enough

to do profound harm to public health, so their crimes need to be exposed and

the tides of public policy they created need to be reversed.

Healthcare as a universal human right? Interesting question for sure, but

there's no black-and-white answer that suits the sloganeering I'm seeing. I

think it depends on the kind of society and the kind of healthcare. If we

start with the basic small-scale society model where people's lives are

regulated by traditions that encode sustainable adaptations to their local

environment, then preventive medicine is primary and everybody has fair

access to the " village witch doctor " or other healers, whose methods and

limitations are accepted as part of shared cultural adaptation. When we try

to extrapolate that type of universal healthcare to large-scale societies

and then compare to the USA circa 2009, there are obviously many differences

in many variables, so I wouldn't say healthcare is a basic human right in

our society without making a lot of qualifications about the meaning of

" healthcare " and " society " . At a practical level, as a taxpayer, I really

don't want my money going to pharmaceutical executives (generals) or medical

school graduates (soldiers) because millions of people load their bodies up

with soda, bread, candy, etc, and spend most of their lives in chairs or on

couches. If " healthcare " just means covering broken arms, genetic variation,

rare diseases, etc, then we'd be talking about a tiny fraction of the budget

and infrastructure being debated in the current episode of the

government/media soap opera, so there wouldn't much debate and the problem

would've been solved a long time ago.

-Mike

[Guest guest]

You can't make sense of what I said?

The analogy is quite simple. I am not directly disputing directly (in

that passage) whether we should consider healthcare a right, but

addressing the argument, which seems to be:

healthcare isn't a right because it isn't MY right to have someone

else get healthcare - it would only be my right to have my own

healthcare.

Perhaps I'm misreading it. I don't understand that as an argument

because it would apply also to other things that we generally do

consider rights in our society - like free speech, etc. Why is it my

right that YOU have free speech? That just sounds strange, as does the

original statement referring to healthcare. It's not the way that we

speak. When referring to rights we just mean that everyone has that

right, not that it is our right that other people have it.

You say that I'm being nasty, but you apparently didn't understand at

all what I said. I don't think that the question makes sense. I still

don't. You're simply interpreting as her saying 'healthcare isn't a

right', and me saying in nasty fashion 'no it isn't' but I was

responding to exactly what she said.

I don't have the energy to read the rest of it.

> Connie:

> " Ancient, how can other people's service be a right of mine? "

>

> Ancient:

> " That question makes no sense whatsoever. How can someone else's

> right of

> free speech, or whatever right we consider ourselves to have, be

> considered

> OUR right? Isn't the logic the same? Does it need to be drawn out? I

> mean,

> it sounds rather silly (not the way that language works) to say that

> it is

> MY right that x has freedom of speech. We say that we all have these

> rights. "

>

> Mike (me):

> I don't have a opinion on the single-payer issue because I don't

> know or

> care much about it, but reading threads like this do keep me abreast

> of

> current events, for which I'm grateful. I haven't had any kind of

> health

> insurance or medical treatment in many years, and I don't really

> think about

> this topic because I've learned how to stay healthy through simple

> lifestyle

> choices. I'm also too poor to consider buying insurance, but I find it

> pretty cheap to eat foods that make allopathic healthcare

> unnecessary. If I

> had to choose between spending $100 a month on local, biodynamic,

> free-range

> eggs or spending $100 a month on health insurance, I'm pretty sure

> I'll live

> a much healthier life by eating the eggs.

>

> With that context, I just wanted to say that Connie's question does

> make

> sense to me, and it's not obvious or even very plausible to me that

> treatment by doctors is a universal human right. On the other hand,

> after

> reading Ancient's paragraph about three times, I still can't make

> sense of

> the convoluted attempt at an analogy with free speech. My opinion is

> that

> Ancient is dismissing a very reasonable point of view with hasty,

> empty

> rhetoric.

>

> I can vaguely imagine an argument for healthcare as a basic human

> right in

> some kind of abstract society where the basic premises of

> sustainable human

> life were present, but our society is so extremely upside-down when

> it comes

> to diet and body usage that the " healthcare " in question is an absurd

> proposition. To be more specific, it seems to me that at least 90%

> of the

> healthcare in question would be totally unnecessary if people weren't

> victimized by the industrial food culture created by unethical

> corporations

> and their governmental bedfellows. Bodily malfunctions like type 2

> diabetes,

> heart disease, cancer, arthritis, osteoporosis, bad backs, etc are

> mostly

> very easy to prevent with simple lifestyle choices. While I

> recognize the

> blame for people's bad choices has to be split between the

> individual and

> their culture, and the division of blame will be subject to sharp

> debate,

> I'm very hesitant to support a system in which huge amounts of

> resources are

> used to give free treatment to all the people who have type 2

> diabates or

> heart disease because they spent a few decades overdosing on sugar and

> suffering an obvious decline in basic physical vitality during that

> time.

> The food corporations are to blame for selling dangerous food; the

> governments are to blame for the lack of education and public policy

> required for all citizens to have accurate information about the

> dangers of

> these foods; and the individuals are to blame for letting themselves

> spend

> years and years getting more obese, lethargic, and uncomfortable

> without

> finding a solution to their problems.

>

> I'm talking about extreme surreal absurdity on the level of the Town

> of

> Allopath essay and video. I really believe that's what's happening

> in the

> USA (and most other industrialized societies). Here's an analogy. If

> millions of people have wounds caused by operating a kitchen

> appliance that

> was poorly engineered and makes it very likely for the user to come

> into

> contact with sharp blades spinning at high speeds, then we have two

> problems, treating the cause and treating the symptoms. (Notice how

> obvious

> and alarming it is when we wreak havoc on the outside of our bodies,

> while

> pouring huge amounts of sugar, wheat, weird chemicals, etc into our

> body and

> wreaking even worse havoc on the inside of our bodies is so easy to

> ignore!)

> It's obvious to anyone that fixing the cause is the only sustainable

> solution, but treating the symptoms is still a valid concern.

> However, the

> current debate about large-scale public healthcare policy isn't

> addressing

> causes or symptoms. In our analogy, if treating the symptoms means

> covering

> the wound with a bandage, we could debate what kind of bandages

> would work

> best, how often to change them, etc. That would be a debate about

> treating

> symptoms. On the other hand, we could debate the problems of where the

> bandages are manufactured, how our country's economy is affected by

> different approaches to manufacturing bandages, whether the factory

> is using

> sustainable energy, whether the factory is polluting, how the factory

> workers are treated, whether the factory is practicing equal

> opportunity

> employment, fair trade, etc, and other complicated, challenging

> issues.

> These debates address neither the cause nor the symptom of the

> wounds. They

> are tangential political and economic problems. All this grandiose,

> heated

> debate about the economic and governmental structure of healthcare is

> totally detached from the essential problems of health and healthcare.

>

> In other words, our society is just being distracted by an

> artificial debate

> about tangential problems. The USA government (via its current

> articulate,

> smart and soothing figurehead) is spinning its wheels telling people

> " I know

> you're poor and sick and all that bad stuff, so I'm going to help

> you afford

> more of what we have for sale that might make you feel better " . The

> first

> priority of the government right now should be to say " Look, our

> healthcare

> system has serious problems and nobody knows for sure how various

> approaches

> will pan out, so we're going to work hard on this long-term project,

> but

> there are some simple things we can all do right away to dramatically

> improve the situation. First of all, avoid refined sugar and never

> eat a

> lot of it at once because it impairs your basic bodily functioning and

> regular overdoses gradually create life-threatening health

> conditions like

> diabates and heart disease. Try to eat fresh, whole foods instead of

> stuff

> that's been highly processed in factories. While you're at it, try

> to get

> most of your food from local, small-scale farmers and fishers to

> solve many

> of our economic and environmental problems. One out of every three

> Americans is genetically disposed to suffer bodily damage anytime

> they eat

> wheat gluten, so find out if you're sensitive to wheat gluten and

> never

> touch it for the rest of your life if you are. A similar common

> problem

> comes from milk foods, especially when the milk is from Holstein

> cows, which

> most commercial milk producers use. Make sure your body works well

> with milk

> if you are going to rely on it as a staple food. Another common

> problem is

> soy foods, which can impair your thyroid, so be careful if you eat

> more than

> small amounts. In general, try to eat a variety of foods and find a

> balance

> of fat, protein and carbohydrates that works for your individual body.

> Always eat plenty of fat and ignore all the stuff people used to say

> about

> fat and cholesterol back in the 20th century when the corn/soy/wheat

> industry hijacked the food supply. Beyond your diet, don't sit on

> chairs for

> long periods of time without taking breaks to do simple breathing and

> stretching exercises. Move around a lot. Don't slouch or lean to one

> side.

> Keep your back straight during all of your everyday activities. Go

> outdoors

> for midday sun as often as possible to make vitamin D. If you follow

> these

> simple lifestyle habits, you can avoid most of the problems that

> will result

> in healthcare expenses, and there's lots of other simple, solid

> information

> you can learn about taking care of your health, so take one small

> step at a

> time and keep taking small steps. "

>

> The most important word there is " say " , because the government can

> easily

> afford to communicate this type of information to everyone. I'm not

> advocating any particular economic or social system like socialism or

> libertarianism. Even a tiny, libertarian government would have

> plenty of

> resources to wage public information campaigns about the dangers of

> refined

> sugar and industrialized foods. I think that 0.1% of the government's

> healthcare budget would be more than enough to disseminate enough

> basic

> knowledge about health to eliminate 90% of society's healthcare

> expenses.

> Now that would be a budgetary proposition all political persuasions

> could

> agree with.

>

> The fundamental problem of our healthcare system is unethical food

> corporations, unethical pharmaceutical corporations, and an unethical

> government (really just another kind of corporation in itself) that

> puts the

> interests of these corporations ahead of the public interest. In other

> words, the government needs to fix its own corruption instead of

> playing

> around with the economics of hospitals and insurance companies. Of

> course,

> if the health insurance industry is corrupt, we should deal with

> that like

> any other corruption.

>

> The government works by taking tiny steps around a tiny circle in the

> middle. The best way to maintain the status quo is to zoom in on the

> middle

> and make a big fuss about every tiny shift to the left or the right.

> As many

> people have observed, there is only one political party in the USA,

> informally called the " business party " and Democrats and Republicans

> are

> just factions of this single party with different public relations

> strategies to create an artificial tension between two points in the

> middle.

> I'm not suggesting that this politicians are doing this on purpose

> or that

> it's the result of anyone's planning or intentions. I'm not suggesting

> there's a conspiracy against the general public. I'm just describing

> the

> actual structure of the government, which is not the way it's

> portrayed by

> mass media. The mass media is essentially a suffocating smokescreen

> to keep

> people's attention away from the extreme greed and unethical

> practices of

> mega-corporations. Again, I'm not suggesting there's a conspiracy. The

> governments of large-scale industrial societies like the USA are

> immensely

> complex system with emergent properties that result from millions of

> small

> components cancelling or reinforcing each other. The individual

> components

> (e.g. a single corporation or a single public official) have very

> little

> control over the system as a whole. Basically, thousands of

> conflicting

> interests make it hard for large changes to take places in the entire

> system. Instead, we see lots of tiny changes, and people wind up

> perceiving

> tiny changes as huge changes, and very tiny changes as small

> changes. Most

> importantly, we fail to see the true options available to us, the

> fundamental changes that solve fundamental problems.

>

> All these debates about single-payer healthcare are part of this

> tiny dance

> around the middle. It seems like a radical change might take place,

> but

> Washington doesn't work that way. It works by shuffling around

> soundbytes

> and money to massage the status quo. Obama is basically the chief

> advertising executive for a massive public relations corporation that

> creates a veil of institutional propriety around the military-

> industrial

> complex that siphons money from all possible sources. The side

> effects of

> this greed is that the military-industrial complex either kills its

> own

> citizens with slow poison (e.g. dangerous food, pollution, soil/water

> destruction, etc) or kills people in other countries by direct

> murder (e.g.

> war) or various strengths of poison (e.g. extreme economic

> subjugation that

> forces deforestation, hyper-pollution, sweatshops, loss of

> self-sustainability, etc). The USA government, like most others, is

> basically a sprawling organized crime syndicate that does lots of

> charity

> work.

>

> Single-payer healthcare? Seriously, who cares? The government needs to

> promote the truth about the dangers of sugar instead of pandering to

> huge

> food corporations. The government needs to expose the cholesterol

> scandal

> instead of pandering to huge pharmaceutical corporations. When I say

> " the

> government needs to do x, y, and z " I'm not arguing for big

> government or

> socialism. Nothing I've said here favors bigger or smaller

> government. The

> debate between libertarianism and socialism is totally irrelevant to

> my

> points. I don't hold any absolute beliefs about which system is

> better. I'm

> simply saying that the government has been complicit in massive public

> health policy fraud and it needs to tell the truth about the things

> it has

> placed itself in the position to have authority on. For example, I'm

> not

> saying government agencies like the USDA or FDA should or shouldn't

> exist,

> but in our current reality they do exist and they have existed long

> enough

> to do profound harm to public health, so their crimes need to be

> exposed and

> the tides of public policy they created need to be reversed.

>

> Healthcare as a universal human right? Interesting question for

> sure, but

> there's no black-and-white answer that suits the sloganeering I'm

> seeing. I

> think it depends on the kind of society and the kind of healthcare.

> If we

> start with the basic small-scale society model where people's lives

> are

> regulated by traditions that encode sustainable adaptations to their

> local

> environment, then preventive medicine is primary and everybody has

> fair

> access to the " village witch doctor " or other healers, whose methods

> and

> limitations are accepted as part of shared cultural adaptation. When

> we try

> to extrapolate that type of universal healthcare to large-scale

> societies

> and then compare to the USA circa 2009, there are obviously many

> differences

> in many variables, so I wouldn't say healthcare is a basic human

> right in

> our society without making a lot of qualifications about the meaning

> of

> " healthcare " and " society " . At a practical level, as a taxpayer, I

> really

> don't want my money going to pharmaceutical executives (generals) or

> medical

> school graduates (soldiers) because millions of people load their

> bodies up

> with soda, bread, candy, etc, and spend most of their lives in

> chairs or on

> couches. If " healthcare " just means covering broken arms, genetic

> variation,

> rare diseases, etc, then we'd be talking about a tiny fraction of

> the budget

> and infrastructure being debated in the current episode of the

> government/media soap opera, so there wouldn't much debate and the

> problem

> would've been solved a long time ago.

>

> -Mike

>

>

[Guest guest]

> our society is so extremely upside-down when it comes

> to diet and body usage that the " healthcare "

> in question is an absurd

> proposition. To be more specific, it seems to me

> that at least 90% of the

> healthcare in question would be totally

> unnecessary if people weren't

> victimized by the industrial food culture

> created by unethical corporations

> and their governmental bedfellows.

You said it way better than I did. That's what I think too.

Eyeball: your assumption that people who oppose single payer, are parroting what

they hear from the right, is hilarious in my case. I literally read or hear

nothing from that side. My thoughts are from reading newsgroups like this,

obviously coming to different conclusions than you.

I was thinking of the grass-roots uproar over health care. I find it significant

that the roar is coming from the have-nots, not the haves.

The last time we had so many unemployed or working-poor people with health

problems that they couldn't afford to treat, it was the Great Depression. With

Roosevelts' New Deal solution, it was the fat cats who were roaring in anger,

not the little people.

So I was thinking of a combination of the New Deal and Cash for Clunkers. This

would make the people happy and the fat cats angry.

The basic premise of the Cash for Real Deal Health is a more healthy citizenry.

It is a government safety net for when all else has failed.

- For those without insurance, negotiate with the doctor or hospital like the

Amish do to pay cash for treatment. Then give the person the cash. It will be

cheaper to fix things early and cheaper than going into the insurance business

or the insurance regulation business.

- For lifestyle diseases, pay the people and their providers X per month to get

symptom-free with diet and exercise. (Diabetes care is a $500-1000 per month

income stream to Big Medicine.) Find all the programs that really work and

advertise them more than Lipitor even.

At a macro level this reduces the spending on medical care that is a root

problem.

Connie

[Guest guest]

You are exaggerating what I'm saying.

I referred to " some " people, I believe. I didn't say that everyone is

parroting right wing talking points.

If you actually research the so-called grassroots uproar, you'll find

that it is for the most part organized and funded by right wing

organizations, often connected to Republican operatives. The term

'astroturf' has developed a new meaning over this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing

..

> > our society is so extremely upside-down when it comes

> > to diet and body usage that the " healthcare "

> > in question is an absurd

> > proposition. To be more specific, it seems to me

> > that at least 90% of the

> > healthcare in question would be totally

> > unnecessary if people weren't

> > victimized by the industrial food culture

> > created by unethical corporations

> > and their governmental bedfellows.

>

> You said it way better than I did. That's what I think too.

>

> Eyeball: your assumption that people who oppose single payer, are

> parroting what they hear from the right, is hilarious in my case. I

> literally read or hear nothing from that side. My thoughts are from

> reading newsgroups like this, obviously coming to different

> conclusions than you.

>

> I was thinking of the grass-roots uproar over health care. I find it

> significant that the roar is coming from the have-nots, not the haves.

>

> The last time we had so many unemployed or working-poor people with

> health problems that they couldn't afford to treat, it was the Great

> Depression. With Roosevelts' New Deal solution, it was the fat cats

> who were roaring in anger, not the little people.

>

> So I was thinking of a combination of the New Deal and Cash for

> Clunkers. This would make the people happy and the fat cats angry.

>

> The basic premise of the Cash for Real Deal Health is a more healthy

> citizenry. It is a government safety net for when all else has failed.

>

> - For those without insurance, negotiate with the doctor or hospital

> like the Amish do to pay cash for treatment. Then give the person

> the cash. It will be cheaper to fix things early and cheaper than

> going into the insurance business or the insurance regulation

> business.

>

> - For lifestyle diseases, pay the people and their providers X per

> month to get symptom-free with diet and exercise. (Diabetes care is

> a $500-1000 per month income stream to Big Medicine.) Find all the

> programs that really work and advertise them more than Lipitor even.

> At a macro level this reduces the spending on medical care that is a

> root problem.

>

> Connie

>

>

>

[Guest guest]

Very well said, Mike! And some excellent points also.

I would not be opposed to emergency type coverage for broken arms and what

not. I agree they could do so much good just sending out basic educational

material about sugar, soy and other foods. But they won't! The sugar

industry, soy industry etc won't be happy about that and they pay to make

sure policy goes their way.

When I was on Medicaid I received a lot of different " educational " materials

for about 18 months. I wonder how much the government spent to send me all

the drug and vaccine 'reminders' and 'education' that they did. They also

sent me monthly booklets about the development of my baby and what to

expect, what to be worried and call a doctor ect which is good except it was

also full of " Look at all the great soy formulas and be sure to get all

these vaccines " . They also gave out my personal information to the

companies that make soy formulas and diapers, I was getting tons of junk

mail unsolicited as soon as I filled out that paperwork! What will they do

will all our information in a universal health care systems? I bet I'd get

junk mail from General Mills trying to get me buy Sponge Bob cereals.

Besides pushing vaccines and other things the booklets also advocated giving

him full strength apple juice at 5 or 6 months old, starting him off on baby

cereals at a very young age and other things. Creating the new generation

of sugar, soy and cereal junkies.

And Bill? I think it was said our laissez faire economics don't work? Our

economy drowning in government " regulation " and control, it's anything but

laissez faire. And of course when the government interferes with business,

business interferes with government so that the businesses can get what they

want controlled and what they don't not-controlled and create an unfair

advantage for themselves at the expense of others.

Let's look at the FDA. Most people are surprised to hear that there is a

revolving door with Monsanto and other large corporations and the FDA. But

it's not surprise to me when the FDA is basically doing their very best to

run small businesses out of business, harassing them with unfair regulations

because the companies don't even know what the rules really are! It's all a

matter for interpretation. But they fast track this swine flu vaccine

despite the debacle in 1976, they fast track drugs then WOOPS people are

dying and getting sick time to recall it. I wonder how many people have

died from eating coconut oil vs. Vioxx (55,000 dead??).

http://www.organicconsumers.org/politics/corrupt21705.cfm

Now, back to the " health care " . I have serious doubts it's going to help

anyone. What it is going to do is prime up more consumers to buy these

drugs and vaccines, eat these " diabetic " and " heart patient " diets that

actually cause the conditions to worsen and can kill people. We won't be

given options to get insurance, or instead put our money into say

catastrophic and pay out of pocket to see an ND instead.

But you can be sure m y address will be sold and I will get Quaker Oats and

Cheerios coupons in the mail along with the free samples of soy infant

formula and pampers.

When I was on Medicaid for my childbirth I was grateful in part but also

aggravated and not a little worried. It was wonderful to have the prenatal

care, c-section, as well as recovery fully covered. But if my husband

wasn't paying outrageous taxes already we could have gotten insurance

through his work. Do to my health issues it's not possible for me to buy

insurance myself. While on Medicaid when I wasn't in the OB/GYN office I

was treated pretty roughly. The pediatrician's office was a nightmare and I

was told I had to take my son for ANOTHER check up 24 hours after discharge

from the hospital despite the fact he was checked every day for 3 days at

the hospital and was pronounced extremely healthy. While there they had no

where for me to sit, and I was still very anemic and in a lot of pain from

the c-section they didn't care until I started crying in the office

(hormonal too!).

I have little faith that our already corrupt government who is forcing NAIS

down our throats, is letting the FDA run amok and ruin people's lives (or

kill them), and gives our soldiers untested vaccines will be able to provide

universal health care and make it worth a damn. Instead we'll be paying a

ton for increasingly poor service and the crooks will infiltrate it very

quickly and who knows what criminal rules they will make. If you have high

cholesterol you HAVE TO go on Lipitor or we won't treat you anymore. I can

totally see that happening and then the news will say " All these

irresponsible people are expecting our tax dollars to be used on them for

critical care because they won't take their Lipitor. We need to make it

mandatory " .

I mean come on!

Dawn

From:

[mailto: ] On Behalf Of Mike

Sent: Saturday, August 22, 2009 5:48 AM

Subject: Re: Whole Foods--health care

Connie:

" Ancient, how can other people's service be a right of mine? "

Ancient:

" That question makes no sense whatsoever. How can someone else's right of

free speech, or whatever right we consider ourselves to have, be considered

OUR right? Isn't the logic the same? Does it need to be drawn out? I mean,

it sounds rather silly (not the way that language works) to say that it is

MY right that x has freedom of speech. We say that we all have these

rights. "

Mike (me):

I don't have a opinion on the single-payer issue because I don't know or

care much about it, but reading threads like this do keep me abreast of

current events, for which I'm grateful. I haven't had any kind of health

insurance or medical treatment in many years, and I don't really think about

this topic because I've learned how to stay healthy through simple lifestyle

choices. I'm also too poor to consider buying insurance, but I find it

pretty cheap to eat foods that make allopathic healthcare unnecessary. If I

had to choose between spending $100 a month on local, biodynamic, free-range

eggs or spending $100 a month on health insurance, I'm pretty sure I'll live

a much healthier life by eating the eggs.

With that context, I just wanted to say that Connie's question does make

sense to me, and it's not obvious or even very plausible to me that

treatment by doctors is a universal human right. On the other hand, after

reading Ancient's paragraph about three times, I still can't make sense of

the convoluted attempt at an analogy with free speech. My opinion is that

Ancient is dismissing a very reasonable point of view with hasty, empty

rhetoric.

I can vaguely imagine an argument for healthcare as a basic human right in

some kind of abstract society where the basic premises of sustainable human

life were present, but our society is so extremely upside-down when it comes

to diet and body usage that the " healthcare " in question is an absurd

proposition. To be more specific, it seems to me that at least 90% of the

healthcare in question would be totally unnecessary if people weren't

victimized by the industrial food culture created by unethical corporations

and their governmental bedfellows. Bodily malfunctions like type 2 diabetes,

heart disease, cancer, arthritis, osteoporosis, bad backs, etc are mostly

very easy to prevent with simple lifestyle choices. While I recognize the

blame for people's bad choices has to be split between the individual and

their culture, and the division of blame will be subject to sharp debate,

I'm very hesitant to support a system in which huge amounts of resources are

used to give free treatment to all the people who have type 2 diabates or

heart disease because they spent a few decades overdosing on sugar and

suffering an obvious decline in basic physical vitality during that time.

The food corporations are to blame for selling dangerous food; the

governments are to blame for the lack of education and public policy

required for all citizens to have accurate information about the dangers of

these foods; and the individuals are to blame for letting themselves spend

years and years getting more obese, lethargic, and uncomfortable without

finding a solution to their problems.

I'm talking about extreme surreal absurdity on the level of the Town of

Allopath essay and video. I really believe that's what's happening in the

USA (and most other industrialized societies). Here's an analogy. If

millions of people have wounds caused by operating a kitchen appliance that

was poorly engineered and makes it very likely for the user to come into

contact with sharp blades spinning at high speeds, then we have two

problems, treating the cause and treating the symptoms. (Notice how obvious

and alarming it is when we wreak havoc on the outside of our bodies, while

pouring huge amounts of sugar, wheat, weird chemicals, etc into our body and

wreaking even worse havoc on the inside of our bodies is so easy to ignore!)

It's obvious to anyone that fixing the cause is the only sustainable

solution, but treating the symptoms is still a valid concern. However, the

current debate about large-scale public healthcare policy isn't addressing

causes or symptoms. In our analogy, if treating the symptoms means covering

the wound with a bandage, we could debate what kind of bandages would work

best, how often to change them, etc. That would be a debate about treating

symptoms. On the other hand, we could debate the problems of where the

bandages are manufactured, how our country's economy is affected by

different approaches to manufacturing bandages, whether the factory is using

sustainable energy, whether the factory is polluting, how the factory

workers are treated, whether the factory is practicing equal opportunity

employment, fair trade, etc, and other complicated, challenging issues.

These debates address neither the cause nor the symptom of the wounds. They

are tangential political and economic problems. All this grandiose, heated

debate about the economic and governmental structure of healthcare is

totally detached from the essential problems of health and healthcare.

In other words, our society is just being distracted by an artificial debate

about tangential problems. The USA government (via its current articulate,

smart and soothing figurehead) is spinning its wheels telling people " I know

you're poor and sick and all that bad stuff, so I'm going to help you afford

more of what we have for sale that might make you feel better " . The first

priority of the government right now should be to say " Look, our healthcare

system has serious problems and nobody knows for sure how various approaches

will pan out, so we're going to work hard on this long-term project, but

there are some simple things we can all do right away to dramatically

improve the situation. First of all, avoid refined sugar and never eat a

lot of it at once because it impairs your basic bodily functioning and

regular overdoses gradually create life-threatening health conditions like

diabates and heart disease. Try to eat fresh, whole foods instead of stuff

that's been highly processed in factories. While you're at it, try to get

most of your food from local, small-scale farmers and fishers to solve many

of our economic and environmental problems. One out of every three

Americans is genetically disposed to suffer bodily damage anytime they eat

wheat gluten, so find out if you're sensitive to wheat gluten and never

touch it for the rest of your life if you are. A similar common problem

comes from milk foods, especially when the milk is from Holstein cows, which

most commercial milk producers use. Make sure your body works well with milk

if you are going to rely on it as a staple food. Another common problem is

soy foods, which can impair your thyroid, so be careful if you eat more than

small amounts. In general, try to eat a variety of foods and find a balance

of fat, protein and carbohydrates that works for your individual body.

Always eat plenty of fat and ignore all the stuff people used to say about

fat and cholesterol back in the 20th century when the corn/soy/wheat

industry hijacked the food supply. Beyond your diet, don't sit on chairs for

long periods of time without taking breaks to do simple breathing and

stretching exercises. Move around a lot. Don't slouch or lean to one side.

Keep your back straight during all of your everyday activities. Go outdoors

for midday sun as often as possible to make vitamin D. If you follow these

simple lifestyle habits, you can avoid most of the problems that will result

in healthcare expenses, and there's lots of other simple, solid information

you can learn about taking care of your health, so take one small step at a

time and keep taking small steps. "

The most important word there is " say " , because the government can easily

afford to communicate this type of information to everyone. I'm not

advocating any particular economic or social system like socialism or

libertarianism. Even a tiny, libertarian government would have plenty of

resources to wage public information campaigns about the dangers of refined

sugar and industrialized foods. I think that 0.1% of the government's

healthcare budget would be more than enough to disseminate enough basic

knowledge about health to eliminate 90% of society's healthcare expenses.

Now that would be a budgetary proposition all political persuasions could

agree with.

The fundamental problem of our healthcare system is unethical food

corporations, unethical pharmaceutical corporations, and an unethical

government (really just another kind of corporation in itself) that puts the

interests of these corporations ahead of the public interest. In other

words, the government needs to fix its own corruption instead of playing

around with the economics of hospitals and insurance companies. Of course,

if the health insurance industry is corrupt, we should deal with that like

any other corruption.

The government works by taking tiny steps around a tiny circle in the

middle. The best way to maintain the status quo is to zoom in on the middle

and make a big fuss about every tiny shift to the left or the right. As many

people have observed, there is only one political party in the USA,

informally called the " business party " and Democrats and Republicans are

just factions of this single party with different public relations

strategies to create an artificial tension between two points in the middle.

I'm not suggesting that this politicians are doing this on purpose or that

it's the result of anyone's planning or intentions. I'm not suggesting

there's a conspiracy against the general public. I'm just describing the

actual structure of the government, which is not the way it's portrayed by

mass media. The mass media is essentially a suffocating smokescreen to keep

people's attention away from the extreme greed and unethical practices of

mega-corporations. Again, I'm not suggesting there's a conspiracy. The

governments of large-scale industrial societies like the USA are immensely

complex system with emergent properties that result from millions of small

components cancelling or reinforcing each other. The individual components

(e.g. a single corporation or a single public official) have very little

control over the system as a whole. Basically, thousands of conflicting

interests make it hard for large changes to take places in the entire

system. Instead, we see lots of tiny changes, and people wind up perceiving

tiny changes as huge changes, and very tiny changes as small changes. Most

importantly, we fail to see the true options available to us, the

fundamental changes that solve fundamental problems.

All these debates about single-payer healthcare are part of this tiny dance

around the middle. It seems like a radical change might take place, but

Washington doesn't work that way. It works by shuffling around soundbytes

and money to massage the status quo. Obama is basically the chief

advertising executive for a massive public relations corporation that

creates a veil of institutional propriety around the military-industrial

complex that siphons money from all possible sources. The side effects of

this greed is that the military-industrial complex either kills its own

citizens with slow poison (e.g. dangerous food, pollution, soil/water

destruction, etc) or kills people in other countries by direct murder (e.g.

war) or various strengths of poison (e.g. extreme economic subjugation that

forces deforestation, hyper-pollution, sweatshops, loss of

self-sustainability, etc). The USA government, like most others, is

basically a sprawling organized crime syndicate that does lots of charity

work.

Single-payer healthcare? Seriously, who cares? The government needs to

promote the truth about the dangers of sugar instead of pandering to huge

food corporations. The government needs to expose the cholesterol scandal

instead of pandering to huge pharmaceutical corporations. When I say " the

government needs to do x, y, and z " I'm not arguing for big government or

socialism. Nothing I've said here favors bigger or smaller government. The

debate between libertarianism and socialism is totally irrelevant to my

points. I don't hold any absolute beliefs about which system is better. I'm

simply saying that the government has been complicit in massive public

health policy fraud and it needs to tell the truth about the things it has

placed itself in the position to have authority on. For example, I'm not

saying government agencies like the USDA or FDA should or shouldn't exist,

but in our current reality they do exist and they have existed long enough

to do profound harm to public health, so their crimes need to be exposed and

the tides of public policy they created need to be reversed.

Healthcare as a universal human right? Interesting question for sure, but

there's no black-and-white answer that suits the sloganeering I'm seeing. I

think it depends on the kind of society and the kind of healthcare. If we

start with the basic small-scale society model where people's lives are

regulated by traditions that encode sustainable adaptations to their local

environment, then preventive medicine is primary and everybody has fair

access to the " village witch doctor " or other healers, whose methods and

limitations are accepted as part of shared cultural adaptation. When we try

to extrapolate that type of universal healthcare to large-scale societies

and then compare to the USA circa 2009, there are obviously many differences

in many variables, so I wouldn't say healthcare is a basic human right in

our society without making a lot of qualifications about the meaning of

" healthcare " and " society " . At a practical level, as a taxpayer, I really

don't want my money going to pharmaceutical executives (generals) or medical

school graduates (soldiers) because millions of people load their bodies up

with soda, bread, candy, etc, and spend most of their lives in chairs or on

couches. If " healthcare " just means covering broken arms, genetic variation,

rare diseases, etc, then we'd be talking about a tiny fraction of the budget

and infrastructure being debated in the current episode of the

government/media soap opera, so there wouldn't much debate and the problem

would've been solved a long time ago.

-Mike

[Guest guest]

On Aug 22, 2009, at 6:06 PM, Dawn wrote:

> What will they do

> will all our information in a universal health care systems?

>

If it were Canada, you would get little of that (at least, my

experience 15 yrs ago or so). But this being the US, you'd probably

be able to build a healthy bonfire, or build up a sizable compost

heap, with all the trash mail.

-jennifer