The generation that the doctors betrayed

Actually your fully private health system is the most expensive in the world. You have long spent more on health care than other countries - with worse results.

It seems counter intuitive - not sure what factors are behind this or whether untrammelled private operators simply ripped you guys off.

I'm not saying that the private health care industry hasn't ripped us off here in the U.S., it has. I just have a problem with "Big Brother" coming in and screwing things up worse. Just wait, it will happen. Socialism, anybody?

What are the 9 most terrifying words words in the English language?

"I'm from the government, and I'm here to help."
 
Dumb conspiracy theories about GMOs and vaccinations simply didn't exist, keeping us well-fed and protected against disease.

Born 1965.

Also born in '65 and I had, what, 3 vaccines? Kids today will have 81 (and counting) by the time they hit 18. Sorry, but I'll take natural immunity over a shot of chemicals any day.

Conventional doctors are taught to treat symptoms not correct the underlying cause. No money is getting people cured and healthy.

But drums, yes, drums are also a part of natural immunity building :)
 
I'm not saying that the private health care industry hasn't ripped us off here in the U.S., it has. I just have a problem with "Big Brother" coming in and screwing things up worse. Just wait, it will happen. Socialism, anybody?

What are the 9 most terrifying words words in the English language?

"I'm from the government, and I'm here to help."

If Australia is even in the same galaxy as socialism then I'm a monkey's aunt. Don't believe the reactionary rhetoric ... we have had nationalised health for 40 years and we are a deeply conservative free market society with some of the lowest taxes in the western world and high levels of private ownership.

Bottom line of national health care is "a stitch in time saves nine".

Maybe one day that will change, given politicians' increasing tendency to stick their snouts in the public trough (ironically, especially conservatives) but for now they seem to have some vaguely useful purpose aside from their main function of acting as errand boys for moguls and multinational companies.
 
If Australia is even in the same galaxy as socialism then I'm a monkey's aunt. Don't believe the reactionary rhetoric ... we have had nationalised health for 40 years and we are a deeply conservative free market society with some of the lowest taxes in the western world and high levels of private ownership.

Bottom line of national health care is "a stitch in time saves nine".

Maybe one day that will change, given politicians' increasing tendency to stick their snouts in the public trough (ironically, especially conservatives) but for now they seem to have some vaguely useful purpose aside from their main function of acting as errand boys for moguls and multinational companies.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you. Honestly, I can't comment on this situation as it pertains to the rest of the world, only here in the U.S.

My biggest fear is simply government involvement. No matter who you are or where you live, when the government decides to get involved it's going to cost somebody somewhere more money than it should.

In the U.S., some of the biggest scams involve the government - usually because of its own bureaucratic obesity. The right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing, and because of this, it's the tax payer that ends up taking it in the shorts. For example, the U.S. government spends $25 billion a year maintaining federal buildings that are either unused or totally vacant.

Let me give you another personal example, although not related to health care:

I'm a teacher who is a few years away from retirement. I was hired under a set of rules regarding retirement that the state and I agreed to; I would contribute a given amount (or percentage) to my retirement and the state would cover the remaining portion Over the course of the last few years, due to government incompetence, the "powers that be" mismanaged the money they had and several hundred millions of dollars basically when up in smoke. Gone, due to bad investments and other things by unethical people who worked for or on behalf of the government. Because of this, I now have had to contribute more of my paycheck into the retirement system to make up the difference these government jackasses pissed away. By the way, nobody has ever been held accountable for the loss of all this money.

Somebody in all this mess made a lot of money while the little guy, me in this case, gets screwed by the government that is supposed to be designed to protect and serve its citizens.

Now back to healthcare. Will it be cheaper to have government healthcare? Yes. Will it be as reliable? I say no.
 
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... I'll take natural immunity over a shot of chemicals any day....

Natural immunity? That works really well with polio, mumps, measles, rubella, small pox, HPV.

Immunisation works by injecting a weakened form of the virus which your body can "beat" by creating antibodies.
 
Now back to healthcare. Will it be cheaper to have government healthcare? Yes. Will it be as reliable? I say no.


In the long run it won't be cheaper because there will be 10 people over seeing each other where previously you had a Doctor, nurse and insurance company. Anything Uncle Sam gets involved in costs more.
 
Sorry, but I'll take natural immunity over a shot of chemicals any day.

And I'll take vaccinations for myself and my kids over sickness, paralysis, loss of mobility, disfigurement, agony, death and conspiracy theories. Yeah, I know that sounds pretty dramatic but it's like 60 years since we wiped out these diseases and I think people have plumb forgot the world beneath our vision is a scary, lethal place.
 
Now back to healthcare. Will it be cheaper to have government healthcare? Yes. Will it be as reliable? I say no.


In the long run it won't be cheaper because there will be 10 people over seeing each other where previously you had a Doctor, nurse and insurance company. Anything Uncle Sam gets involved in costs more.

Possibly. Consider that insurance companies cover fewer and fewer things, though, and still charge a lot.

Don't you work as a hospital manager or something? I'd be interested in your perspective on Obamacare.
 
In the long run it won't be cheaper because there will be 10 people over seeing each other where previously you had a Doctor, nurse and insurance company. Anything Uncle Sam gets involved in costs more.

Grunt - I can tell you here in Canada (we have a public care system) "Doctor, nurse and insurance company" are still the only three involved.

Granted waitlists are longer than USA, but that is due to an aging population.
 
.... Over the course of the last few years, due to government incompetence, the "powers that be" mismanaged the money they had and several hundred millions of dollars basically when up in smoke. Gone, due to bad investments and other things by unethical people who worked for or on behalf of the government. Because of this, I now have had to contribute more of my paycheck into the retirement system to make up the difference these government jackasses pissed away. By the way, nobody has ever been held accountable for the loss of all this money.

Somebody in all this mess made a lot of money while the little guy, me in this case, gets screwed by the government that is supposed to be designed to protect and serve its citizens.
....


It's possible that you may be misplacing blame.
Say the people who were managing your retirement funds invested in a company like Enron in good faith (remember the bankruptcy scandal).
There were a lot of similar situations after that surrounding the crash of 2008.
Obviously, I don't know the facts in your situation, but there may be more to it than meets the eye.

All I have to say about the healthcare situation in the US is that it's not the best run system. And the current attempts at patching it are likely to make it worse.
 
Wouldn't it be great if nobody ever died ever again? Maybe someday doctors will be able to save everyone from dying. Oh! What a happy, happy world it would be.

I'm 44 and I take no medication. I'm sure that if I went to the doc, he/she would find a few pills that I could take, yet I continue to live prescription free. It hasn't always been like this. I did have to take one pill for about ten years. It shrank my brain tumor. Now I'm just enjoying my second chance in life.

I guess genetically I'm lucky in a few ways, but not knowing me or where I came from, you would have a few preconceived notions about me if you met me.

So, I was born in '69. My mom went to work and dad stayed home and raised us. Mom breastfed me a couple years, and we hardly ever ate out. I wasn't very well-behaved. I didn't really start eating fast food a lot until I started working. When I was married I ate healthy, organic food because my wife was a health nut from Europe. They eat cleaner food I think.

I think the food that moms and dads are shoving down their kids throats is partly causing all the rampant autism and AD disorders. I'd like to go back to eating that healthy way again. I am just so burned out on eating the junk fast food, but eating really healthy everyday is expensive at restaurants and diners. I don't have my own kitchen right now, but I can't wait to go back to good, healthy home cooked food everyday. I really miss my own cooking. :(

I can't afford a doctor or health insurance. My new job doesn't have benefits. Now I'm being forced by the government to get insurance eventually. I'll probably have to go bankrupt just to afford my "affordable" bottom feeder health insurance solution. They don't really give a crap about us. We have a serious case of an aging population. The main reason they want all of us to get health care is so that younger people will supplement all these old people who are retiring and want to stay alive for as long as humanly possible using the wonders of modern Western Medicine. I mean, who can blame them? We are, after all, human.
 
Sorry, but I'll take natural immunity over a shot of chemicals any day.

Im not sure you would say that if you were in Philly in the 1800s, or in NYC, in the 1850s, or indeed living anywhere in the US in 1915.

Cholera, Yellow Fever, Polio epidemics were taking out huge swathes of population then and even today the threat of AIDS and H1N1 Swine Flu have yet to reveal their full impact on society.

The way I see it, pogress isnt always pretty and perfect, it comes with hits and misses, but I'll take progress over whistling in the dark.


...
 
This is like the children of thalidomide and mono sodium glutamate.
 
... and several hundred millions of dollars basically when up in smoke.

Hey! Wait a minute!! It wasn't me!! If I had several hundred million dollars, I wouldn't be posting here!!

I'm not so sure about nationalized health care (oops, national health insurance). If Medicare, Medicaid and the Veteran's Administration (VA) health care systems are models of what's to come, I'm not sure I want any part of it. The USA's track record is a bit weak...
 
Larry's posts on another thread got me thinking.

For anyone born in the 1960's here in America, we were betrayed by the doctors and big business.

The Space Age was in full swing. We were so advanced that we were convinced that we had bested nature.

Our mothers were told not to breast feed because "formula was better". The formula that was essentially sugar, starch and water.

Our baby food was just as bad. Sugary gunk with no nutritional value.

Trans fats replaced the essential oils in our diet because they lasted indefinitely on the shelves.

Fiber? We don't need no stinking fiber!

Our parents smoked, as a matter of fact, almost every adult smoked and we were just expected to breathe it in.

Our breakfasts were high glycemic carbs and fatty processed meats.

Our generation got the frozen TV dinners, the Twinkies, the soda and the fruit juice from concentrate. I remember mixing the semi-solid concentrate goo with water to "make orange juice".

Our fruits and vegetables (when we actually had any) were covered in pesticides.

I could go on.

Contrast that to today. My daughter was breast fed, eats organic food and takes essential fatty acid supplements.

Yeah, we got screwed.

We actually entered at the best time (I was born in 1965). Vaccines had wiped out many diseases and were about to wipe out many more. Life expectancies were growing greatly. Mass literacy, access to education and opportunity were pretty good, and remain good.

There were two TV channels growing up and one of the always had preachers. So we ran around outside, rode our bikes, walked home at night, dialed phone numbers to talk to each other - yes, talk - and stayed out more.

I am grateful to have been born when I was, and grateful to be alive now. Every. Second. Of the day.
 
I totally agree with you on this David. I have no problem with the surgeons, and everyone connected with this kind of thing. I single out the pill pushing health robbing doctors. Of course, how your wife got that tumor in the first place is really the issue.. Thank god they were able to save her. This is where medicine is awesome. Still, preventing that tumor is better than the alternative. If humans came with a care and feeding manual, very little of what we put in and on our bodies would be included in it.

My mom is 82, not in great health, and right now has bad bronchitis. They gave her antibiotics and steroids. Steroids? Isn't her liver having a tough enough time battling the bronchitis? I asked her what the steroids were for and she said she didn't know. I'm sure the doctor would say so any inflammation would subside, but geez at what cost? This is more what I'm talking about. She's not in good health as it is and he feels it's OK to tax her system with steroids? He even told her, don't take them too long because that's bad. Lol. But she's entrenched in the system. You can't change peoples minds.

Larry,I have COPD,from being a 9/11 first responder, and those steroids I take to be able to breathe are brociodialators.They keep my airways open.Without them,I would be out of breath walking from my bedroom,to the kitchen.There are other meds out there that aren't steroid based,but they don't seem to work nearly as well,for me anyway.

As for liver damage,my primary care Dr.makes sure to test my liver enzymes, every 3 months.I drink lots of ater,and take a Milk Thistle supplement,a herbal non drug,which with the water,helps detox my liver,and my liver enzymes are normal.

The steroids can actually damage the bones as well,making them very brittle.

I know steroids aren't a great thing to be putting in your body,but the alternative is to not be able to function.If you can't breathe,you can't do anything.

Steve B
 
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