[geeks] now Health Care

[Lionel Peterson]

>From: Mike Meredith <very at zonky.org>
>Date: 2008/05/22 Thu AM 03:07:36 EDT
>To: geeks at sunhelp.org
>Subject: Re: [geeks] nVidia 8800GT for Apple Mac Pro

>On Wed, 21 May 2008 17:28:15 -0400, Patrick Giagnocavo wrote:
>> Socialized healthcare == RATIONED healthcare
>
>ROFL! Unless the US has infinite resources to allocate to healthcare,
>it also has healthcare rationing. Open your wallet. See those bits
>of paper with "$" written on them ? They're ration tickets. It may

The US healthcare "scare" is more about scoring political points than helping people. One candidate says in order to get everyone insurance, we'll just require everyone to buy insurance, under penalty of law. Another thinks that the answer lies in extracting ever more money from anyone with money to pay for things those without money want, and I'm not quite sure what the third candidate thinks  (maybe increased taxes on cigarettes, that seems pretty popular these days)...

The reality is, if you show up at an Emergency Room in America, you get treated. Maybe not right away (it's called triage, not rationing), but (as I understand it, and I am not an expert on the matter), our system is skewed towards waiting for bad things to happen, 
rather than try and prevent problems from ever occuring. Also, we have an ever-expanding laundry list of things "basic health care" is supposed to cover, including health club memberships, stop smoking clinics, etc. All have value, but do they really belong in employer-sponsored health insurance?

>If you do have to throw rocks at socialised healthcare, please make
>sure they are really rocks and not boomerangs.

I will happily plead ignorance of the health care systems in other countries, even after enduring the latest Michael Moore "emission" - I tend to view the information I get about health care in other countries like the old story about the blind people describing an elephant (all examining the same thing, each from a different perspective).

I will say without any reservation that the last thing I want is to put my health care in the hands of our current political leaders (no matter the party) here in the US of A.

Lionel