Comments on: Plagiarism?

By: Bryan

Bryan — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 22:37:11 +0000

The pattern has been consistent and obvious in one field after another – investors looking to make a lot of money buy up an industry, strip it in the name of efficiency, and then force up prices after driving all of the competition out of business.

They’ve done it in media, banking, health care, and WalMart is doing it in retail. The process is same and the results are the same – lost jobs, higher prices, and no choices. When these people fail there is nothing to replace them because they have destroyed their competitors.

By: Badtux

Badtux — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 18:07:52 +0000

The huge escalations in cost started when private hospitals started entering the market and snapping up the community hospitals. In my home state, private hospitals were illegal for anything other than cosmetic surgery until federal law overruled them in 1975, if you wanted to build a hospital you had to be a non-profit with a board of directors drawn from the community you served. But just like the community banking laws were overthrown to allow gigantic banks that are now too big to allow to fail, the community hospital laws were overthrown too. Sigh. We had the best medical system in the world. Now we have one of the worst, one that will happily let someone who needs a heart-lung transplant die while putting someone who needs a non-life-threatening knee replacement surgery in front of him just because of insurance status. But that's what worshippers at the altar of the "free market" wanted... and we got what was asked for. Feel healthier now? - Badtux the Health Care Penguin Badtux´s last blog post..Dull day

By: Bryan

Bryan — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 04:39:03 +0000

Pharmacies in US hospitals are a maojr profit center. They slap a handling fee on every pill handed out. They are also the cause of thousands of deaths in hospitals due to errors. No one would consider paying a plumber who doesn’t fix a leak, but hospitals still insist that the estate pay the medical bills of patients who die as a result of hospital screw-ups.

People without insurance are charged at a rate that is twice as high as insured patients. Medical bills are the largest single cause of personal bankruptcy in the US, and many of those going bankrupt had insurance.

One of the many “free market” paradoxes of the US system is that the more doctors and facilities in an area, the higher the prices are. It is the only field I know of where prices go up when the supply increases and demand stays the same.

The only logical step is to start with a single payer insurance plan that covers everyone, and then enforce what rules, regulations, and laws that exist to clean up health providers.

By: Kryten42

Kryten42 — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 03:32:00 +0000

It must be something in their water – maybe a high lead content.

COuld be mercury too. 🙂 Do they make a lot of felt hats or other felt products there? LOL (That’s where the term ‘As mad as a hatter’ comes from. They used mercury in the manufacture of hats. Then you sweat… The rest is history). 😉

Curiously (and in all seriousness) I have met two women from Sth. Carolina, one in her mid-20’s a few years ago, another several years ago in her late 30’s. I liked them both quite a bit and they really seamed quite sane and rational. The 20-something said she came to Aus. to ‘escape the insanity’. Maybe she meant it literally? I never thought to ask, I simply assumed she meant Bushmoron, the mention of whom made her blood boil… I used to tease her about Bushmoron, she looked lovely in a shade of red. 😀 I’m terrible… I know. 😉

I was just watching ABC’s Foreign Correspondant and they were talking about the third biggest killer of Americans, the US Health System. I knew the Hospitals and drug companies etc were total crooks, but I had NO idea how really bad they were! The biggest Medical complex in the World, in Texas, had markups upto 1000%!! Even in the USA that has to be criminal, surely? Luckily for many lower and middle-class people needing treatment, there is a crusader from Florida by the name of Holly Wallack who runs an organisation called Solutions Plus, who helps reduce the fees from totally abominable raping to mildly over charging. 🙂 Score one for Florida! 😉

By: Bryan

Bryan — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 03:09:03 +0000

We really should have let let South Carolina leave in 1861. It has been nothing but trouble from the beginning. It must be something in their water – maybe a high lead content.

By: Badtux

Badtux — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 02:11:12 +0000

Ah yes, the Party of Hoover in action, with the same great ideas they had in 1930. That really worked out well, didn't it? (Sarcasm intended). - Badtux the Sarcastic Penguin Badtux´s last blog post..Antennae