Common Sense

Christian Graus

Oakman wrote:

However, if I understand it correctly, in Australia, there is a basic minimum health care available that is paid for by taxes. Since not everyone works, but everyone is covered, this is definitely a single-payer national health plan. However, you can also get more/better health care if you've got the bread by buying additional insurance. Just as you can over here.

Yes, it seems to me that we have the best of both worlds here, I would not like to be under the Canadian ,OR the US system.

Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista. "I am new to programming world. I have been learning c# for about past four weeks. I am quite acquainted with the fundamentals of c#. Now I have to work on a project which converts given flat files to XML using the XML serialization method" - SK64 ( but the forums have stuff like this posted every day )

Captain See Sharp

Christian Graus wrote:

We don't have 12 trillion in debt.

We will soon with Obama's budget and all the spending going on.

John Carson

Oakman wrote:

Since Friday, the news shows, especially on the cable stations, have been yammering on about Swine Flu as if the 4 horsemen of the Apocalypse had been seen riding down from the clouds. My friends in Canada tell me it's the same there. Every year we have a real influenza epidemic. EVERY year thousands of people die from the 'flu, including 83 children in 2008. Yet there is NO panic, and people who are susceptible still don't get the shot. Yet if there was a shot for swine flu, these same people would line around the block for it.

I basically agree with you. However, it is worth pointing out that the flu epidemic that began in 1918 killed more people than WWI. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu[^] Accordingly, there is some basis for being nervous if it looks like an unusually virulent flu is on the way.

John Carson

Lost User

Oakman wrote:

Did he win a booby prize?

mmm boobies. Unlikely though

Shog9 0

Sometimes, i really miss voting in this forum... :)

Chris Austin

:-D

Sovereign ingredient for a happy marriage: Pay cash or do without. Interest charges not only eat up a household budget; awareness of debt eats up domestic felicity. --Lazarus Long Avoid the crowd. Do your own thinking independently. Be the chess player, not the chess piece. --Ralph Charell

Christian Graus

That means bugger all to me. I am not a yank.

Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista. "I am new to programming world. I have been learning c# for about past four weeks. I am quite acquainted with the fundamentals of c#. Now I have to work on a project which converts given flat files to XML using the XML serialization method" - SK64 ( but the forums have stuff like this posted every day )

phannon86

So, let me get this straight. You want to fly on a magic carpet to see the King of the Potato People and plead with him for your freedom, and you're telling me you are completely sane?! I think that warrants 2 hours of W.O.O.

He who makes a beast out of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man

Lost User

I had the same thoughts too. Why the overreaction to this, and also bird flu? Perhaps ots the 'cross species' aspect, or that it isnt just the 'good olod flu that goes aorund every year and kills half a million'. Bizare, and the stock markets having a fit over it. Mind you its overvalued right now anyway so I think its just an excuse for a dip.

Morality is indistinguishable from social proscription

Mike Gaskey

Christian Graus wrote:

OK, so you're saying that people won't become doctors if it means they are accountable for their actions ?

not at all, it'll be because the government will control their income.

Mike - typical white guy. The USA does have universal healthcare, but you have to pay for it. D'oh. Thomas Mann - "Tolerance becomes a crime when applied to evil." The NYT - my leftist brochure. Calling an illegal alien an “undocumented immigrant” is like calling a drug dealer an “unlicensed pharmacist”. God doesn't believe in atheists, therefore they don't exist.

Rob Graham

You certainly draw a sweeping conclusion from a single bad experience. Do you never consider that you might just have encountered a boundary case?

Oakman

Fisticuffs wrote:

Unsurprisingly, you wait less time for the latter and I've rarely heard anyone bitch about them or one of their loved ones not getting into surgery quickly when it is unequivocally necessary.

Perhaps I was unclear. 18 months after the accident, she is finally getting into see an orthopedic surgeon who can decided whether getting into surgery is unequivocally necessary. I certainly hope you are right that once the decision is made, the action comes quickly. She has waited long enough.

Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface Both democrats and republicans are playing for the same team and it's not us. - Chris Austin

Oakman

John Carson wrote:

However, it is worth pointing out that the flu epidemic that began in 1918 killed more people than WWI.

No need, as far as I am concerned. My mother's family lost two of her brothers and her mother. There is speculation that the Spanish Flu died out because everyone who was not naturally immune, caught it - and those who could not fight it off, died. Thusly we are all descended from the survivors. I did not say that this could not be an epidemic, or a pandemic, which simply means epidemic in a large geographical area; not more virulent, or that I am not concerned about the lack of a vaccine. I am saying that the level of panic being driven by the cable news media in this country (and in Canada, Christian) is preposetrous and possibly more dangerous in some ways than the flu itself.

Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface Both democrats and republicans are playing for the same team and it's not us. - Chris Austin

Oakman

Christian Graus wrote:

I am not a yank

Funny thing about the word Yankee. It means someone who comes from New England and comes from the sobriquet bestowed on the continentals even before 1775 when they started kicking the shit out of Britain. Then, in the civil war, the South started calling all of the North, Yankees - who proceded to kick the shit out of the South. Then, in WWI, the word was applied to all Americans by the Europeans - who proceded to get the shit kicked out of them - twice. Maybe the problem in Vietnam is the Vietnamese never really learned to call us "Yankees."

Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface Both democrats and republicans are playing for the same team and it's not us. - Chris Austin

Rob Graham

Christian Graus wrote:

The US thrives on this sort of thing, keep the people scared.

I think you meant "The US media thrives on this sort of thing"... Actually, although the media has a tendency to be more than a little hysterical (they seem to think hysteria and ratings are correlated) most Americans are so desensitized to this that it produces little anxiety. In many ways this is bad, since REAL crisis tend to get ignored as well- witness Katrina. When the government starts being hysterical, we check to see if we still have our wallets, then look around for whatever it might be that they don't want us to notice...

Oakman

Christian Graus wrote:

How much does a real doctor cost in the US, right now ?

I pay nothing per visit; never have to wait more than a day for an appointment - less if I am willing to accept who's up, but I prefer to see my doctor; get to talk with her for 15 mins or so, plus the time with the nurse. They run their own pharmacy so prescriptions, when I need 'em, cost me from $4.00 - $15.00, depending. My wait, once I arrive has never been longer than 15 mins. I am extremely satisfied with the quality of their service and have been going to them for 4 years, though I could switch to another Doc, simply by walking into his or her office. Of course, if you walked in there, not having bought insurance, and being a drive-by patient with a funny accent that they'd never see again, you might not walk out as happy as I do. in other words, YMMV. Why is this such a surprise Christian, and more importantly why does one unhappy experience in one doctor's office make you an expert on the American health system? If you got bad service in one restaurant picked at random in one city in the U.S. would you announce that all food in the US was bad and all US cooks were charlatans?

Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface Both democrats and republicans are playing for the same team and it's not us. - Chris Austin

fred_

Maybe I'm crazy but I think all the hype is a smoke screen to get peoples minds of the economic issues and the governments world wide throwing cash at it. In the USA they are working on the Federal budget. But the flu occupies the spot light.

Christian Graus

Why would you assume this to be the case ? It's not in Australia. Doctors can charge what they want. I choose to go to a doctor that charges more, I simply choose to pay more than the amount that Medicare covers.

Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista. "I am new to programming world. I have been learning c# for about past four weeks. I am quite acquainted with the fundamentals of c#. Now I have to work on a project which converts given flat files to XML using the XML serialization method" - SK64 ( but the forums have stuff like this posted every day )

Christian Graus

Yeah, it's true I have a limited sample. All I know for sure is that it cost me $500 for a standard of care that would make the newspapers if it happened here.

Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista. "I am new to programming world. I have been learning c# for about past four weeks. I am quite acquainted with the fundamentals of c#. Now I have to work on a project which converts given flat files to XML using the XML serialization method" - SK64 ( but the forums have stuff like this posted every day )

Christian Graus

Oakman wrote:

why does one unhappy experience in one doctor's office make you an expert on the American health system?

It doesn't, but it does interest me that some people ( not you ) want to tell me that the Australian health system is obviously inferior, being socialist and all, but when I went to a doctor in the US, I instead found my experience to be well below the standards I have come to expect, to the point that I wondered how it is possible to practice medicine effectively in the manner that I experienced.

Oakman wrote:

If you got bad service in one restaurant picked at random in one city in the U.S. would you announce that all food in the US was bad and all US cooks were charlatans?

*grin* I have no doubt there are good doctors in the US, I just assume that as an uninsured visitor, I need to spend a lot more than $500 to get a basic GP visit that would cost $30 in Australia. The point is really an attempt to draw a real comparison between my (admittedly limited) experience, and my *obviously* flawed 'socialist' system at home, not to then assume that my experience means that all US medical care sucks.

Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista. "I am new to programming world. I have been learning c# for about past four weeks. I am quite acquainted with the fundamentals of c#. Now I have to work on a project which converts given flat files to XML using the XML serialization method" - SK64 ( but the forums have stuff like this posted every day )