I forgot to mention that a dental checkup and cleaning is about $40-$100 depending on where you go. You can also go on Craigslist and find a dental student that wants to clean for free!

Sorry, I'm the worst at posting too many in a row. I'm the guy who has the perfect comeback when its far too late. Like George Costanza and "the jerk store".

I must say, I do agree that things could be tightened up. Cutting costs, raising efficiency, etc. I believe this for Canada and probably the US as well.

You think we still make things in the US ROFL.

Nah it was made overseas and most of the money transferred out.

Another huge drain is public money being spent on Medicare. Current Taxes are not high enough to cover it. raise taxes cut people spending ability, hurt the economy more.

Companies are moving jobs overseas where they don't have to pay for health care for the employees on the payroll. They pay employees less in benefits and that increases profit.

it is quite the downward spiral we are on.

My dad was in emergency one night (glad I was there with him) and had the heart operation (2 stents) the next day. Home in 3 days or so and has been doing great for 5 years now.

Oh yes, not a bill in sight.

Quote:

---

The answer to your question is a resounding "Yes", but that would have taken way much political intelligence.

---

Dean, did you REALLY just use the words "political" and "intelligence" right next to each other with no punctuation between them? In other words, you linked them together, made them a phrase, coined a new term, etc., etc., etc. I mean, I could understand it if your sentence read something like, "When it comes to all things political, intelligence always flies out the window." But to actually use the phrase "political intelligence?"

Congratulations, Dean, on creating the greatest oxymoron in the history of morons, oxy or otherwise!

Too funny Dean!

Brad

Hey Brad,

It is always nice to be rewarded for making history, and making people laugh. Of course Moronic Oxys are very popular around here, and funny punsters everywhere can't resist making them every now and again. but mostly now. Heheh

the answer is no. A stimulus must be broad based and impact a much larger section of the economy than just healthcare.

Housing, construction, etc must be improved to see any impact on the economy. Pumping money just into healthcare is just throwing down a money pit and there would be no impact on the economy. too small a focus

Hey Drizz,

Do you think throwing money at healthcare would have less impact on the economy than say... throwing money at clunkers? Who knows? It just seems to me that if you are going to be throwing money around, it would be a good idea to see that some of it went to making a healthy workforce.

That being said, I am not in favor of the government throwing money at anything. It seems that both the past and present administrations have done all they can to make us dependent on the government. Personally, I'm a fan of Thomas Jefferson when he said "The government that governs least governs best."

Hi Jaybird!

Quote:

---

I'm not against health insurance reform. I said that from the get-go. However, those numbers in that table can be misleading because they don't tell the whole picture.

---

I remember, glad we agree that we are both open to health insurance reform in the U.S. Also agree that the numbers in that table doesn't tell the whole picture. But I think of them as raw data, they need to be interpreted, as you have started doing

Quote:

---

I've seen a comment or two wowing about Mexico's health care system. I'm not here to disparage their health care system, but their infant mortality rate per 1,000 is over four times that of the U.S. Now the U.S. is double that of Japan, which I also find quite shocking. I wonder if that may be attributable to the lifestyle of the mother or both the mother and the father. While the Netherlands, Canada, and Japan have longer lifespans, it is not that surprising. I guess what I'm wondering is if this has more to do with lifestyle (e.g. diet, exercise, reliance on self, etc.) than medical systems. I mean, I am of the impression that folks from Japan and the Netherlands are overall more active than those of the U.S. I also have the impression that most Japanese maintain a rather healthy diet (at least in contrast to the Standard American Diet). I suppose something similar must hold true for Canada as three years of additional life is pretty significant.

---

Totally agree that socio-economic conditions in a country are critical to look at when trying to make sense of some of the statistics and data, and that we must consider & discuss other factors

I'm definitely not one to say that we should adopt Mexico's (for example) health care policies, but we should be asking why they are spending so much less per capita than we are, (about one-ninth) and still getting comparable results

One of the BIG reasons that I see, is that they get the same drugs that are produced in the US, but pay way, way less

(I checked the scene from the DVD of "Critical Condition" that I mentioned, and I got the numbers from memory wrong, it was worse, Carlos bought his AS medicine from the Mexican pharmacy for $3.50, same medicine that he paid $100 for in Los Angeles!!)

And I believe that the reason for that kind of story happening is because of collusion on the part of our pharmaceutical countries, and the insurance companies function as a monopoly here, because they still enjoy being protected as getting an exemption from our anti-trust laws, as established in the afore-mentioned McCarran-Ferguson Act of 1945 (google-able for the details)

Other countries that buy the drugs produced in this country, don't have that restriction, the price they pay benefits from their government negotiations, ironically of course, because we are supposed to be the ones with the "free-market" capitalist system (that's one of the reasons why Canada has such a big mail-order business of selling US made drugs to Americans)

Quote:

---

While I don't doubt that access to health insurance has some influence on these figures, I find it hard to draw conclusions based on the information presented.

---

Agreed there too. And while it would have been easy to do so, I didn't want to look for a chart that ignored some of the other relevant numbers, do like a "Michael Moore" version of it, simply omit the column with the number of birth fatalities, just quote some of the numbers from the chart. It would still have been technically true and accurate, more persuasive to the cause of US health reform, but THAT, I would have considered to be misleading

Glad we are able to to be having this discussion!

PS

I think it's wrong that only one company makes the game Monopoly.
- Steven Wright