California Leaders Focus on Universal Health Care

Here in the UK we do pay for the National Health Service. We pay through our taxes, which I believe are significantly higher because of this. Almost everyone in the UK would be mortified at the thought of having to pay up front or produce insurance details before being admitted to hospital whilst in excruciating pain or having an arterial bleed!

We also have the benefit of free healthcare throughout the European Union so that if we are travelling or working in another country we get the same treatment as at home. It works both ways, other Europeans have access to our healthcare system for free.

So what do we have here - a community probably the size of the US which has private healthcare for those who choose/can afford it, but also healthcare which is of a very high standard for everyone funded through taxes. And it works.

Are Americans really so very different from us?

To my brothers and sisters across the pond: sounds like you're all pretty satisfied with your current system. I'm glad for you. I sincerely mean that. I wonder if such a system were implemented here if we would have to give up our guns to get it?
Also, I don't know what sort of tax system you have there but here in America, we are already taxed to death on several levels. We have property taxes, ad valorum taxes, excise taxes, point of sales taxes, income taxes. Then there are "hidden" revenue gathering techniques such as "licenses" (fishing, hunting, marriage, driving and professional licenses). We have to get "tags" which is a type of license on mobile homes, boats, motorcycles, cars, recreational vehicles, etc. To give you an idea of the layers of tax upon tax we have here: A lumber company cuts a tree into boards and sells it to a lumber warehouse. The sale is taxed (as is the priviledge of conducting business on both ends of the sale). The lumber warehouse sells it to a retailer where the sale is taxed again. I buy some boards from the retailer where I am taxed for the sale of these boards that have already been taxed directly at least 3 times and indirectly at least 3 times. I get a permit (another hidden tax) to build a lovely but simple deck on my house and the property tax of my house increases FOREVER because I have increased the value of my property.
The alcoholic who takes his paycheck to the local pub and blows it all on a bender actually pays less tax than the responsible citizen who tries to improve the economy and values all around.
We are still paying to rebuild countries and send aid to Africa and others. This does not include what we willingly contribute to various charities via the generosity of individual Americans.
Money does not grow on trees and if we implement yet another entitlement, cuts are going to have to come from somewhere. Probably from our social security or pension or disability or unemployment or welfare. A host can only accommodate so many parasites before it's bled dry and dies. Then what will become of the needy?
Historically, no society has survived a 50 % taxation of it's people. My income tax alone is 30 %. Out of the remaining 70 % of my hard-earned dollars comes everything else and I'm still expected to live on what's left. People in THIS country are dying from having to choose between heating their house or buying groceries. If UHC is implemented here, the entire economic structure would have to be restructured to accommodate the proverbial straw that breaks the camel's back.

Originally posted by whitewave

...the entire economic structure would have to be restructured to accommodate the proverbial straw that breaks the camel's back.

Now there's an interesting idea.

And maybe, find out who's really riding the camel?

Oh, I have no doubt a "restructuring of the economy" will come but I'm not sure we'll like the result. Microchipping, anyone? Does the term "useless eaters" bother anyone but me?

Hmmm. I was thinking of going in the other direction with it, actually. A more traditional form of 'restructuring' as it were.

BTW whitewave - microbes do not respect borders or class boundaries. So epidemics and pandemics tend to spread in the poor to infect the rich. Some people think that's why it makes sense to take care of everyone in a society, and keep them all healthy. Even the servant class.

Go figure.

Soficrow and others,
I believe that there are unorthodox cures available to the rich/influential that the majority of us working stiffs don't even know about. So even if some ungodly incurable superbug hits them, they'll be better protected than the undesirable, not-so-easily-duped.
Royal Raymond Rife, a respected engineer (not a medical doctor) came up with a cure for cancer, TB, syphyllis, etc. in the 1930's but was bullied out of existence along with his universal microscope and rife machine. The universal microscope which is more powerful than the electron microscope and capable of viewing LIVE viruses can still be seen in the Smithsonian Institute (as a noteworthy relic only).
How old is Kissinger? Does anyone know? He's gotta be getting up there-he was old when I was a kid. Last interview I saw of him the media was trying to ask him some questions that he was trying to dodge and he BOUNDED up the stairs to get away. He's gotta be taking some vitamins or SOMETHING that I don't have access to.
I have ideas for restructuring the economy, too, that don't include killing off the "useless eaters" but, so far, no high-ranking official has asked for my opinion.
For info on how to build your own rife machine go to www.noriftrife.com/

Originally posted by whitewave
Soficrow and others,

I believe that there are unorthodox cures available to the rich/influential that the majority of us working stiffs don't even know about. So even if some ungodly incurable superbug hits them, they'll be better protected than the undesirable, not-so-easily-duped.

I agree the rich have access to treatmnents and "cures" we can't begin to imagine (although the illegal trade in babies for stem cells does come to mind).

But - I think said rich will find that natural evolutionary processes are working against them - that as a result of their ongoing therapies, they have NOT evolved to live in the all-new bio-chemical world they created.

IMO - the poor and 'untreated' have evolved a greater degree of immunity and resistance to emerging pathogens.

So if the poor survive, and become "carriers," who do you think will do the housecleaning, the cooking and serving, providing of childcare, nursing care and all those other distasteful jobs? Robots won't work.

I can see it now - the elite will have an elite core of "service providers" - who are tested and treated - as insurance against "exposure." That's along with the special water filters, air filters, decontaminated hydroponics greenhouses, and GM meat sources.

Presumably anyone entering from "outside" will need to go through a decontamination chamber.

Sounds like a great life. Sublimely protected, insulated, plasticized to the ultimate.

I've been a service provider to the ultra rich and they pretty much already live that insulated, plasticized life. Won't be much of a change for them. Most of them are horrified to think the proliferating herd of barbarians (us) breathe recycled, polluted air from public airlines, drink at public water fountains, (or worse, tap water!), lie in hospital beds that had someone die in them only hours before, etc. Their immune systems won't be able to handle the superbugs their world has created (unless, of course, you're mistaken about healthy immune systems being able to tolerate that sort of thing). I don't think that being rich is a guarantee that one is in the "in crowd" of influential elite. I can't see Paris Hilton being chosen to survive when there's some supergeek that is actually useful to the elite.
Ever since the CDC changed their definition of what constitutes an AIDS epidemic ( was anyone HIV+, now it's anyone dying of PCP or Karposi's sarcoma) I've been certain that a quarantine is coming. Won't be of the HIV+ but of those NOT infected. Much fewer to quarantine. Withhold AZT, et al and let "nature" take it's course. Be affordable to have UHC then.

Originally posted by whitewave

Ever since the CDC changed their definition of what constitutes an AIDS epidemic ( was anyone HIV+, now it's anyone dying of PCP or Karposi's sarcoma) I've been certain that a quarantine is coming. Won't be of the HIV+ but of those NOT infected. Much fewer to quarantine. Withhold AZT, et al and let "nature" take it's course. Be affordable to have UHC then.

I missed that cute trick.

But have my own list of redefinitions and eponymities.



What's UHC, btw?

UHC=universal health care.
Oh yes, the CDC was able to keep the wolf away from the door by calling it a dog. neat trick, indeed.

Originally posted by whitewave
UHC=universal health care.

DUH ! ...Perhaps I should sleep soon.

Oh yes, the CDC was able to keep the wolf away from the door by calling it a dog. neat trick, indeed.

That is SUCH a good line. May I steal it, please?

Re: HIV. ...Any idea of the real prevalence? Demographics? Sounds like you're talking over 50%. ...???

The CDC used to keep statistics on HIV+ people but if they still do, they're not sharing it with the rest of us. South Africa is over 90 % infected. (back when statistics were being shared). Haiti is not far behind.

Considering that it is a lentevirus (long dormancy period-up to 14 years), the chances of it declining are slim, fat, and none. It is a well known fact that in the history of diseases, no sexually transmitted disease has ever been eradicated. Any treatment that depends on personal self-will/discipline/compliance doesn't stand a chance of effecting a cure.

Hepatitis C (used to be called "non A, non B) also has a long time from onset of + test results to death. 20-30 years. Even if only 1 positive person has sex with 2 other people in their ENTIRE lives (pretty unlikely, really) and those 2 people have sex with only 2 people and so on, the disease spreads exponentially in just one generation. Epidemic status is guaranteed.

Another interesting but scary tidbit: HIV used to be known as HTLV (human t-cell lente virus). Last count, there were 8 known mutations. HTLV 1-8. In this country, HTLV 3 is the most common and that is the only one tested for. So if you and your potential lover go to the health department and both get tested before having sex with each other and you both test negative, it only means you don't have HTLV 3 (or at least your disease is not far along enough to register on the test but still communicable!). In Japan, HTLV 1 (which produces symptoms of leukemia) is more common. In America, the predominant response to HTLV 3 is PCP (pneumocystis carinii pneumonia) or Kaposi's sarcoma. Don't remember what the other ones were or their country of prevalence.

The 2 guys who discovered HIV wrote a book entitled "what they're not telling you about aids". One of the most frightening revelations in that book was that the aids virus has an affinity for the tubercle bacilli (tuberculosis) and attaches to it easily, making aids an effectively airborn disease. In other words, if someone who had TB as well as AIDS (pretty common really) coughed on you, you could be simultaneously infected with both TB and AIDS.
Sweet dreams.

Originally posted by 2stepsfromtop
Do you have any idea just how big the Medical Insurance industry is in California?

Do yo have any idea how much fraud is committed against the Insurance Companies in California?

Do you have any idea how high the rates are from Insurance Companies in California?

.


1. It's so big the insurance lobbist would never go for it

2. So much fraud that the investigators and those who lobby for them would never let free health care happen.
3. So high and people pay them that this seconds the reason the lobbist would never go for free health care.

Originally posted by whitewave
The CDC used to keep statistics on HIV+ people but if they still do, they're not sharing it with the rest of us. South Africa is over 90 % infected. (back when statistics were being shared). Haiti is not far behind.

Considering that it is a lentevirus (long dormancy period-up to 14 years), the chances of it declining are slim, fat, and none. It is a well known fact that in the history of diseases, no sexually transmitted disease has ever been eradicated. Any treatment that depends on personal self-will/discipline/compliance doesn't stand a chance of effecting a cure.

Hepatitis C (used to be called "non A, non B) also has a long time from onset of + test results to death. 20-30 years. Even if only 1 positive person has sex with 2 other people in their ENTIRE lives (pretty unlikely, really) and those 2 people have sex with only 2 people and so on, the disease spreads exponentially in just one generation. Epidemic status is guaranteed.

...

The 2 guys who discovered HIV wrote a book entitled "what they're not telling you about aids". One of the most frightening revelations in that book was that the aids virus has an affinity for the tubercle bacilli (tuberculosis) and attaches to it easily, making aids an effectively airborn disease. In other words, if someone who had TB as well as AIDS (pretty common really) coughed on you, you could be simultaneously infected with both TB and AIDS.
Sweet dreams.

Lots of interesting, illuminating information.

Re: bugs that attach to other bugs, thus increasing routes of transmission, etc.

This is not uncommon - altho not much talked about publicly.

Commonly - prions attach to viruses, and viruses attach to bacteria. Makes it easy for the little suckers to get around, doesn't it?

...What have you got on other bugs - like spirochetes or mycoplasma for example?


.

sorry soficrow, not much info on mycoplasms or spirochettes. interesting field of research for someone on this site to share if they know it, though. i used to try to prepare for any/all types of emergencies but i got overwhelmed when i realized that, ultimately, one just has to trust in the creator. the conspirators have unlimited resources, manpower, money, etc. and i do not. unfortunately we, as a species, seem to be devoting all our brainpower to devising new and creative ways to kill ourselves/each other rather than to improve the lot of all.
for the record, i think it is inevitable that we (entire global community) will have "free" health care but until we reach a point of maturity/tolerance the transition phase will be disastrous.