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Health care is very expensive (I guess because there are precious few, competitive alternatives) and that means in this country, literally, 100s of thousands of men, women and children receive substandard or virtually no care. It is tragic and unneccessary. In urban centers, sick individuals will fill emergency rooms because it is the only hope they have receiving fundemental services; of course this overtaxes, emergency centers. We must do something to alleviate the problems for the poorer members of our society. Bear in mind, most of these folks have jobs. They are not welfare cases. They just can not afford health insurance. If my employer did not pay most of the cost, neither could I afford it.

My advice Beag would be what ever system you favor keep the damned government out of it

That's the bottom line. Our gov't is already involved way too much in the health care system already. to the detriment of health care.

This would be the biggest growth of government that I can remember in my lifetime.

In our system Monk both employer and employee pay into the system, no problems there, it's with the running of the system. Our government insists on owning the system and managing it, in the last decade 74 billion in funds has gone into the system, less than one third has gone into patient care.
Ours is referred to as a National Health System, but Blair devolved Wales and Scotland, and with the small population here in Wales, less than 3 million, my preferred therapy for my cancer is not available to me in Wales.

Forum Monk wrote:

Minimalist wrote:Somehow the rest of the industrialized world manages to have a national health care program.

One wonders why we can't seem to manage it.

Who's lobbying against it?

Everyone who makes a buck out of the old system.

Like it or no Min the profit motive remains the best way of getting most things done.

The problem with our system is that the government insists on managing it, not health workers.

The problem with the US system is, even if you have health insurance, it is managed by the insurance companies, not health workers.

I would prefer a system where the government collects the funds from employer and employee Min then pay the bills in a competative, but regulated, system.
Nobody expects a consultant to run Amtrak so why should we have a non medical minister running the health service. When a consultant is not permitted to offer advice where the hell are we heading?

Returning to topic, the title is now something of a misnomer as the planet has been cooling for some years, how this equates with ice melting though I know not, but we should, I thing refer to climate change instead.

Digit wrote:Like it or no Min the profit motive remains the best way of getting most things done.

The profit motive, without regulation, is a recipe for greed. I always have to laugh when conservatives state that "the free market system made America great." Wrong. America prospered through a complex dance involving free enterprise, government regulation and unions giving the workers a voice.

What has happened is that the businesses have bought the government and disenfranchised the workers. Hence the rich get richer and the poor get poorer and the corporate interests are just fine with that.

There was a story in the papers a year or two ago about Toyota deciding to build a factory in Canada instead of Alabama. The reasons given were the general education level of the workforce in Alabama being below standard AND the lack of national health care in the US which would inflate their costs.

Minimalist wrote:America prospered through a complex dance involving free enterprise, government regulation and unions giving the workers a voice.

True. It has not always been a graceful dance either. A lot of toes of been trounced.

On the otherhand, the competitive spirit which spawns innovation and sets entreprenuers on the course of riches is usually born in the garages and workshops of America, thanks to a free market economy which encourages and rewards such endeavors.

Only later after these startups become viable, and boards of directors take over, and government regulations interfere and labor costs increase, does it become complicated.

(oh yeah, and the earth is getting colder..uhh..I mean warmer. Well anyway the ice age is still in place.)

Min, those conditions haven't existed in years. Today's workers are the best paid in the world, with the best benefits. The downside is that many manufacturers have moved overseas, so the unions didn't help those workers.

Toyota has a ceiling imposed on it in terms of how many cars they can manufacture here. That ceiling is to protect the UAW workers. I think the gov't engages in too much protectionism. But then, that's a case of labor buying the gov't.

Digit wrote:Returning to topic, the title is now something of a misnomer as the planet has been cooling for some years, how this equates with ice melting though I know not, but we should, I thing refer to climate change instead.

Well, point on top of point, "science", right now, is kinda like the gummint.

Ir runs headlong to whoever pays; i.e., profit.

This whole thing disintegrated when "scio" shifted from the desire to know, to, the big whacking business model. eye ee: the industrial revolution, which was gonna solve everybody's aches & pains forever.

So we have the military/industrial complex driving the bus, and, believe me, NASA, for example, is just a tit bar doorman for the m/i complex.

Despite the adverts.

So, to your point, your wise observation that this is about climate change.

Part man, part planet, but in my opinion we have absolutely lost the discretionary ability to discern - in terms of "Science" - the difference between profit and knowledge.

To our utter, irreducable, and fatal loss.


john

Damn Yankees are still lucky. The USDA website expects a near record corn crop, 155 bu/acre, which I find a mindblowing yield. I was born on a farm in 1939, and with new hybrids, we got 45-50 bu/acre in the early 1950's. I thot that was a lot.

But at the same time, it looks like Global Warming gave Canada record heat and dryness, so their production fell. We know Australia has been hit by drought, and China by hurricanes. Farmers in India are committing suicide. Its like Fate has decreed that Americans should be well fed and rich.

But this I know about every climate model I've ever seen: it is wrong. Whatever the climate is, the dendochronology shows it changes. How it can change at all and not cut back American production is a mystery.

The only sure lesson we can draw from archeology is that you dont want to be living in a great power center if there's crop failure. But at this point, it looks like we are good for another year. Or- at least until the ships have hauled away this fall's harvest, which they mite get done by Mardi gras.

The USDA website expects a near record corn crop

And yet it's reported today that food prices are rising faster than any time since 1990.

Like I say Beag, the Yankees are lucky. Ethanol plants are starting to come online; one report is that Iowa will soon have enuf to convert its entire corn crop. If Mexicans have to starve, well, we gotta have gas for the SUV.

The crop failures elsewhere are creating more demand for US grain. And, I mite add, providing lotsa support for the dollar. Which would otherwise have tanked a long time ago.

But likewise, we see that the US government is just one crop failure away from disaster, like so many great empires before it.