Sudden Confusion

Error!!! Of course it is never called that. However my child has instructions and authority (written signed authorization) to unplug me if i will only be a "vegetable". I have explicitly discussed it more than once.

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He's articulated a favourite right wing myth. The "dependency culture" was invented by some right-wing commentator. Sociological research has never managed to demonstrate that it actually exists. In practice, the people get social security benefits would much rather have a job.

James Arthur ought to know this, but it doesn't fit with his ideological preconceptions, so he's incapable of taking the counter- evidence seriously.

So, as usual he's clearly and emphatically articulated a steaming heap of total nonsense that slanders people who are stuck with accepting social security until they can find something better.

Charles Murray has popularised the concept of the "dependency culture" but when people went looking for it they couldn't find it.

They can find interesting stuff going on, but nothing that looks much like a dependency culture.

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That story is absolutely true--spamtrap doesn't know what he's talking about. John knows the nurse who told me that one. She had tons. A nurse I dated had more.

Besides stories from nurses, I've been there and seen it myself, personally. Spamtrap has evidently never visited a So. Cal. emergency room, or one in the southern US, where I have experience.

-- Cheers, James Arthur

I wasn't evading. I don't remember what Dad charged (I was a kid) other than it was less than his partner, and Dad's patients definitely weren't rich, they were ordinary people. They'd mob us to say "hi" wherever we went out for groceries, or whatever. He knew every single one (and their families, and their histories from birth on the tip of his tongue). They weren't rich, and neither were we.

Dad was *very* careful with other people's money, as a matter of ethics. He eschewed much testing because he was damn good, and couldn't abide wasting time and money--the patients'--testing when he could tell perfectly well what was wrong.

Once Dad diagnosed and treated a MediCal patient on the spot, no tests. There was some time urgency, Dad explained, and he didn't want to delay treatment. He also said the tests weren't needed--he was confident of what was wrong.

The patient healed, diagnosis confirmed. After months of paperwork and prompting, MediCal refused to pay--Dad hadn't ordered all the tests they wanted, tests they needed to prove to themselves the treatment was justified.

You can see how this works--MediCal didn't know if Dad was honest, or even good. They honestly needed the extra crap. Dad, a super guy, didn't need to waste his time, Blanche's (his battle-hardened nurse with a heart of gold), and the patients' time--and everyone's money-- constantly proving himself to MediCal.

So, centralized systems are inherently, always, irreparably less efficient for that reason, and many more.

Dad just quit charging MediCal patients--it was too burdensome, slow, MediCal would hassle him to death with red tape, and half the time they wouldn't pay anyhow.

Later, as insurance (and these same hassles) became common, he joined the Army. (That way he could practice medicine, and avoid all the crap. It was less efficient, but easier on him.)

You're right to compare veterinary costs with other health care costs-- the fact that people pay veterinary bills from their own pockets creates competition and cost controls utterly lacking where government hath tread.

Everything the government subsidizes and makes a "right" zooms up in cost--medical care, mortgages, college tuition, etc. It's causal.

-- Cheers, James Arthur

It's not entirely valid. Veterinary medicine makes much more use of euthanasia than human medicine.

It isn't. Medical care has become more expensive as it has become more effective - the medical profession have got lots more ways of spending time and money on a patient than they did a century ago.

Mortgage costs depend on the prevailing interest rate and the price of the dwelling being bought. The government does have some influence on interest rates, but hasn't gone out of it way to increase them. It doesn't have much influence on house prices.

People - in practice - spend as much as they can of getting a dwelling they like, and as the population has gotten richer, they've taken to spending a bigger proportion of their disposable income on housing, which has pushed up the cost - and perceived value - of attractive dwellings.

College tuition really has become more expensive in the US due to government action

but not because government subsidies have allowed universities to become less efficient, but because the US government has reduced the amount it spends on subsidising students who go to college and replaced this subsidy with student loans - exactly the kind of right- wing intervention that James Arthur would be expected to be applauding, if he knew anything about it.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

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How long ago was this?

They may still have aspirin in the psychiatric wards - for the kind of patient who takes comfort in antiquated placebos, like the US constitution.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

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Last time I was in an emergency room was after I stepped barefoot on a chunk of smashed soda bottle. After I showed proof of insurance and gave them my life history, I waited a couple hours to be stitched up(all the slackers with chest pains or auto accident injuries got ahead of me, and blood was not spurting from my heel). I did not see any tourists there spending even more hours to get a Tylenol for free.

But who, needing a Tylenol, would wait six hours to get one? The triage system ensures that the Tylenol moocher will wait six hours, because they don't have an emergency. Let's make the SWAG that a Tylenol costs $0.06. Thus the moocher is "working" for a penny an hour.

These are good points, but keep in mind that the standards for veterinary care simply aren't quite as high as they are for human care either -- that does decrease the cost some. Additionally, many procedures really are just plain faster and cheaper on pets because most of them are so much smaller than your average human. (In a hospital room occupied by one human, you could typically get about a dozen dogs...)

That's a bit of a gray area. E.g., I absolutely trust my wife to "pull the plug" on me when the time comes if she deems it to be what I would have wanted. And while I'm still cognizant, at least here in Oregon you do have the legal option to end your own life if terminally ill.

Fine, if the few thousand bucks meant the difference between your getting health care or not, I'd give it to you.

That's one way to view it. I view it more as, "the first stop for help is the programs our government set up ahead of time because we-the-people had the foresight to know that others would, at some point, need them." That's just being smart, IMO. If there were no such programs, since for me a few thousand is "doable" but "kinda painful," while of course I'd still give it to you I don't see anything wrong with then trying to rally your friends at work or church or wherever to start chipping in as well.

Fair enough. I'd cut you the check and not look back then; I'd want you to get the healthcare/food/whatever-it-is you'd need since I know that in general you're a smart, highly-productive member of society and we're better off having you around than not.

---Joel

I intend to give them some healthcare in return. Indeed, it's a fair prediction that we're going to have a lot fewer loss days at work and school in a system where (via taxes or whatever) people can get some basic treatment for their various minor ailments that otherwise sometimes become far worse.

As a child I was made to share my toys with my brother. How about you?

Sure, I agree with that -- the definition of "basic health care" is clearly going to be perennially debatable.

There's sometimes a big difference between optimism and confidence... and reality; you fundamentally need to have safety nets, even though, yes, this does forcibly take away some amount of wealth from others.

You'll recall here that Rich Grise (where's he been lately?) is completely convinced that despite all his smoking, he's completely immune to a higher risk of lung cancer given his highly optimistic/confident outlook on life.

Hopefully able-bodied people are a bit smarter than the average bear?

I take your point, though -- there is something to it. But regardless of how smart you are, plenty of people every year are still going to come down with nasty diseases like cancer that, without insurance, will often bankrupt them and destroy their lives even if their disease doesn't do so first.

I would wager that for every entitlement recipient you can find me who feels that their dignity, pride, and ambition has been robbed, I can find you at least 100 who'll tell you they have *more* dignity, pride, and ambition from the "helping hand" that's been lent.

---Joel

While it may not be fair, pragmatically speaking it seems to me that the hospital should just go buy a bunch of big bottles of aspirin, and the next time these guys come in give them one.

Seriously, anyone who waits hours for aspirin is either (1) truly dirt poor with no money whatsoever or (more likely, I'd expect) (2) suffering from a mental disorder that needs treatment.

Intolerant and moralizing -- possibly yes. Bigoted -- no.

I know we've been over this before this: All big groups/countries/etc. impose their rules of behavior on their people that some will find not to their liking; this is in no way inherently a bad thing. I know you think our cozy little group called the U.S.A. has far too many such rules, and I do respect that and I'm all for your continued calls for change. ...but so far I only find myself partially agreeing with you. :-)

I am, although doing so is likely more efficient with a universal system, and -- most importantly -- it provides for fixing the broken legs of people who aren't able to pay for the procedure themselves.

Well it's not like they're *not* being sued. :-)

I think that philosophically almost everyone -- including Obama himself

-- would agree with you. As we've discussed, it's absolutely a case of a desperate man/administration taking a desperate act, and hoping history will vindicate him as the ends justify the means.

Well, I might disagree with you, but I couldn't really fault you for such actions.

You realize that surely Obama fully believe that his election to the White House was a strong message from many (if not all) of the electorate specifically to do what he did? He absolutely considers what he did "beautiful and positive," even though I think he'd agree it was a somewhat desperate/bomb-throwing back.

---Joel

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Well, my knee won't let me mow the lawn(s) anymore. How about chipping in for a rider? ;-)

The point being that health care *is* available for those without the means to pay for it themselves.

The only way. You're taking money, at gunpoint, from one person and giving it to another.

The problem is that government has no money to do this with. They must first take it from someone else.

If the government didn't steal it first, perhaps you'd have more to give yourself. ...to those who you think are the most worthy. Something the government cannot do.

I didn't know charities took money at gunpoint.

Hey, you can post bail with a "food stamp" card now. Why can't I use it to pay my mortgage?

And then one turns up allergic to aspirin and the ambulance chasers follow.

I know several people who work in emergency rooms. According to them pills are in big demand but it ain't aspirin they're looking for. The immediate care places I've gone recently have big signs saying that they do *NOT* treat chronic pain.

Leftists want less US and more EU. What a surprise.

Do you really think anyone goes without a broken leg fixed?

They're not. They won't pay even court costs if they lose.

Where in the Constitution is "the ends justifies the means"? I missed that part.

...or Thompson's revolution. ;-)

Yes, it's obvious that Obama has no use for the Constitution.

A few years ago someone on another newsgroup learned that I needed oral surgery I couldn't afford and took up a collection to cover the costs without asking me. It's nice to know there are still some good people on usenet. :)

A year later, I needed another tooth cut out. The fee was $325 and I had just received the $250 one time payment, instead of an increase im my VA disability that year. When I went to pay the surgeon told his clerk to take $100 off the bill. That left me $25 which paid for a couple days pain killer. The pharmacy filled the prescription for antibiotics, for free. I ended up with $2 and some change. :)

That's a somewhat melodramatic representation in my opinion, but I agree that factually it's essentially correct. Clearly few if anyone in the country has a problem with the general idea of taxes, though -- it's all about which particular programs they go to support, right?

Yes, I agree with that as well. At a certain level I think it's a fundamental function of government to pool money together (via taxation) for the greater good.

Yes.

Perhaps. But I want a certain level of food and health care to be available to everyone, even if they are seemingly *very* unworthy people

-- I have faith in basic human nature, and that even people with horrible track records in making good personal choices can often be redeemed and become productive members of society.

Because you haven't greased the skids of your local politicians enough yet? :-)

---Joel

You're just as liable if you give them two aspirin as if you give them a bottle of 500 then.

I do support a fair amount of tort reform, though -- I think Joerg has made a pretty good case that our country could really use it.

Yeah, that's about how it is at the clinic I've visited here: They're give you a prescription for, e.g., Vicodin when you first show up for a given problem, but won't renew them if you come back and say the pain is still there; you have to go to a regular physician at that point.

It's really a very sad situation for everyone involved here -- the clinics are trying hard to not support drug abusers, but people with legitimate maladies end up suffering as well.

(And I find this especially ridiculous when, e.g., I know of a dentist who hands out Vicodin scripts almost like candy. Getting a cleaning? Here's a script, just it case it's a bit tender afterwards. Oh, a filling? Here's a two-week prescription for you; this might hurt a bit!)

No, but I do think that right now you and I end up paying to fix the broken legs of people who absolutely had the means to afford insurance, but chose not to.

It's not in the Constitution; it's taught in the first class of Politicking 101 if I recall correctly.

He clearly has a much "looser" interpretation of it than you and James do. :-)

---Joel

Wow, great stories. It's quite uplifting to see this sort of generosity!