Author Topic: Talking Heads - Healthcare Reform (Read 101117 times)

ANNIE · « **Reply #320 on:** September 13, 2009, 09:14:16 PM »

bellemere
Would love to see the govt. junk the manned space program, the Afghan was, the tobacco subsidies, the tax breaks for the oil companies, and pay for the health care reforms.

Quite a nice selection, Belle, of things to junk and be able to pay for the health care reforms. One more thing that would almost pay completely for the first few years would be to address "torte reform". But the lawyers have a very strong lobby and this will not happen.
And, they could stop subsidizing the farmers of America which means that all the large agricultural companies, such as the Garst Seed Co., who have bought out all the small farmers in eastern Indiana and western Ohio, would have to stop raking in that money, paid by our taxes, every year.

ANNIE · « **Reply #321 on:** September 13, 2009, 09:15:32 PM »

bellemere
Would love to see the govt. junk the manned space program, the Afghan was, the tobacco subsidies, the tax breaks for the oil companies, and pay for the health care reforms.

Quite a nice selection,Belle, of things to junk and be able to pay for the health care reforms. One more thing that would almost pay completely for the first few years would be to address "torte reform". But the lawyers have a very strong lobby and this will not happen.

And, they could stop subsidizing the farmers of America which means that all the large agricultural companies, such as the Garst Seed Co., who have bought out all the small farmers in Iowa, eastern Indiana and western Ohio, would have to stop raking in that money, paid by our taxes, every year.

Steph · « **Reply #322 on:** September 14, 2009, 07:44:07 AM »

Oh Bellemere, I do agree. I live in Florida who wants to keep the manned space program, but I think the unmanned makes so much more sense..I hate all war under any circumstances, so agree there as well.. We need universal health care and we need to make sure we can somehow cut out the excessive profits from the health care industry.

bellemere · « **Reply #323 on:** September 14, 2009, 06:38:35 PM »

Yes, I think the French with their Ariane satellite system are getting as much scientific information from space as we get from the glamor boys in the orange jumpsuits space walking around and dropping their wrenches. (I'm awful, I know . They are very brave, but what's the point?)
How about the subsidies to corn farmers to make high fructose corn syrup; it is in everything and is contributing to the whole obesity thing.

Steph · « **Reply #324 on:** September 15, 2009, 08:35:21 AM »

I have never understood farm subsidies.. Why not simply raise whatever will make you money without the government helping..

ANNIE · « **Reply #325 on:** September 15, 2009, 11:36:15 AM »

If I remember correctly, the farmers are being paid not to raise some crops. Can't remember how that works.

Babi · « **Reply #326 on:** September 15, 2009, 01:29:58 PM »

Basically, I think the idea is that overproduction lowers the price of the crop.
Paying people not to raise that crop lowers production and supposedly helps keep the farming economy stable. How good an idea that really is, I have no idea.

Steph · « **Reply #327 on:** September 16, 2009, 08:12:44 AM »

Actually what I meant is that who gets to pick the crops.. Why should we pay farmers not to raise tobacco.. I know it was considered a money crop in the south, but surely by now they know that they should not raise it.. I think we encourage them to not find a new way to make money.. Produce crops , especially organic or baby veggies make good money for farmers willing to try new things.

ANNIE · « **Reply #328 on:** September 16, 2009, 09:23:12 AM »

Back in the dark ages of no pesticides, my family did quite a bit of canning. Vegatables and fruits were at the local city market plus many folks had Victory gardens and our whole neighborhood was busy getting ready for winter. I think we were eating organic and not knowing it. Remember Carson's book about pesticides??
http://www.nrdc.org/health/pesticides/hcarson.asp

Babi · « **Reply #329 on:** September 17, 2009, 08:12:24 AM »

I remember the Victory gardens; they were a WWII phenomenon. Patriotic
people planted gardens and saved their grease and aluminum foil. I can
remember cutting up potatoes for planting, and complaining because the kids
next door stole our watermelon. Ah, memories!

Steph · « **Reply #330 on:** September 17, 2009, 08:48:53 AM »

I grew up in the country and we had a very large garden and orchard. We did eat organic, because I used to complain as a child that our apples did not look like store apples.. Dad insisted that they had much more taste,.. I know that tomatoes did.. Nothing like a squashy white bread, mayo, salt, pepper and very very ripe tomato sandwich. Best eaten over the sink.

ANNIE · « **Reply #331 on:** September 17, 2009, 10:08:21 AM »

A tomato sandwich! Oh, Steph, they are to die for!!
When I lived in Atlanta, I listened to a talk show that featured Ludlow Porch. Ludlow could make your mouth water for a tomato sandwich at 5am!
Ludlow was a comedian and author. He always said "The government only has to do two things. Keep our borders safe and run the post office." I agree with that!!

bellemere · « **Reply #332 on:** September 17, 2009, 02:34:32 PM »

We sertainly have ranged far and wide in this discussion. I think it has been characterized by civility; common sense; and a surprising range of knowledge on the part of contributors. When something is a mystery to one person, but another seems to be able to enlighten us.
Also I detect a note of nostalgia for a world that is, like Scarlett's , gone with the wind. It is a challenge to us to make judments about government policy based on the today world; nothing is going to bring back Leave It to Beaver. (Or the Lone Ranger, for even farther back)
Their always will be a difference of opinion on the role of government vs. the role of the free market. My feeling is that the free market does a great job of supplying most needs, but that it is not up to supplying the needs for health care of people today, withoug some government "intervention"
I hope people can continue to find consensus and not use talk radio show hosts as their source of leadership in our democracy. They are paid to entertain and have no responsibilities for truth or accuracy.
And I have enjoyed the little sidebar stuff, like tomato sandwiches. My job in our Victory Garden ws to pick the awful cutworms off the tomato plants. Almost killed my appetite for tomatoes.
Let's see what congress does now. I am betting on Olympia Snowe; she is a woman like us; she comes from a beautiful but not very affluent state, and does not seem to be so rigidly ideological, more practical. I think she can lead members of her party to lend support to the final bill. Maybe.

Steph · « **Reply #333 on:** September 18, 2009, 08:41:21 AM »

Health care.. Years ago we did not even have health insurance and I brought two sons into the world with no insurance.. Just saving up each month.. Now, that would be so far past a normal delivery that you would be bankrupt from that. We need to get a handle on costs.. Non profit hospitals really arent.. We need to look at all of the clever new inventions and really look at whether they are really a help or simply a new way.Our country needs to get their act together and if I see one more senior on the news with a no socialized medicine sign, when they get medicare I am going for the throat.

bellemere · « **Reply #334 on:** September 18, 2009, 09:05:44 AM »

My family had no "health insurance" either. But we did have Dr. Bob, who brought us into the world and took care of us, house calls and all, right up to our blood tests for marriage. But as Dr. Relman, the former editor of the New England Jounal of Medicine said, There really was not a lot that doctors could do in those days. Miracle drugs developed during the ww2 and advances in technology made real health care possible. I would add, tremendous advances in public health. (
The government telling you what to do, like have your child vaccinated; clean up you water supply, no selling of flammable pajamas for kids, and mandatory inspection of meat production. on and on, all bitterly opposed by somebody. Greatest good for the greatest number?
But Dr. Bob is long gone.'
My son in law put it succinctly/ Doctors are going to have to make less money. Hospitals are going to have to make less money. Insurers are going to have to make less money. And drug companies are going to have to make a lot less money. Not a pretty picture from their point of view, is it? No wonder they are fightning to kill this effort.

ANNIE · « **Reply #335 on:** September 18, 2009, 09:22:23 AM »

About three months ago, I was emailed a blurb-news??? that claimed that we are being charged for drugs sometimes 4000 times more than they cost the pharmaceutical companies. I will look to see what Swopes says and bring it in here.
Cut worms?? My gosh, I haven't heard anyone speak of those since I lived in Texas way back in the dark ages. We didn't have them in Indiana where I grew up but when my husband and I moved to Texas, what a mess. They were ugly little things, weren't they?? And, they destroyed our first tomato crop due to our not knowing they were there.
Health insurance in the 40's didn't exist but I do remember my grandmother carrying some thing under White Cross. Something with a high deductible, high being $100. Something else I can search for.

bellemere · « **Reply #336 on:** September 18, 2009, 01:11:21 PM »

Our father's cutworm pesticide: Pick them off and drop them into a can of water with a lot of old cigarette butts in the bottom. Need I tell you what that looked and smelled like at the end of my chore? Child abuse?

Steph · « **Reply #337 on:** September 19, 2009, 02:32:46 PM »

Cutworms.. whew, have not thought of them for years.. Just as bad when we lived in New England was beetles, which loved my tea roses and made such a mess. I did hate those things.

ANNIE · « **Reply #338 on:** September 19, 2009, 07:09:38 PM »

As to the article on Rx's and high prices, here's what I found on Snopes.
http://www.snopes.com/medical/drugs/generic.asp

Babi · « **Reply #339 on:** September 20, 2009, 08:24:34 AM »

Wow! Thanks for that link, ANNIE. I buy very few prescription drugs, generic, at WalMart so my costs are already very low. But the info. about the Costco
pharmacy is something I'll be happy to pass on.

Steph · « **Reply #340 on:** September 20, 2009, 09:33:12 AM »

I take generics, but mdh has to use a chloresterol lowering drug that is horribly expensive. The others affect his liver. The difference between even the cheapest drug stores, including wal-mart and Canada is scary.

bellemere · « **Reply #341 on:** September 22, 2009, 09:52:34 AM »

I read the Gary Trudeau "Doonesbury" strip for laughs now and then. Mike is trying to stop his feisty elderly mom from burning her Medicare card; she opposes "government-run health care," and feels she must be philosophically consistent.
As this conversation has ranged far and wide, there is a tendency on thepart of all of ;us to "nostalge"", isn't there? It is hard to focus on the future when ours is limited. And no generation has seen more upheaval in society than we have. But in the health care debat, our focus has to be on our children and grandchildren, I think. Does the generational divide have old people afraid of the young? Is that the cause of all the "unrest"? I wonder.

Steph · « **Reply #342 on:** September 22, 2009, 10:08:43 AM »

Hmm, if anything I think that many of us are worried about our grandchildren and their access. Health care becomes more and more of a problem and we seem to have less and less as an answer.

Babi · « **Reply #343 on:** September 23, 2009, 09:30:35 AM »

My concern is definitely my younger daughter. No health insurance, diabetic
and other health problems, bound to get worse.

bellemere · « **Reply #344 on:** September 23, 2009, 10:51:43 PM »

So now this debate enters the next stage. I believe the Senate has 3 or is it 4 bills to consider. I guess most of the fur is going to fly over the "public option." I can't see real cost control without it or something like it. Passing abill without a public option will be handing the big insurance companies something like 40 MIllion new customers who have to buy insurance, and the companies hav e no limit on what they can charge for premiums. That doesn'g sound like cost control to me.
Incidentally, are the veterinarians in on this? some heartless person left a tiny baby kitten in my trash can. We discovered it, and cannot keep it, for many reasons. so I called the Humane Society and they said I could bring it there and they would treat it and try to find a home - for a donation. When my husband asked what the customary donation was, they said they usually ask $75 dollars! We can't afford that and they said, " whatever you can afford is okay" So tomorrow he goes to a new start in life.

Steph · « **Reply #345 on:** September 24, 2009, 08:02:10 AM »

Hmm. Thats a new wrinkle..Charging you to help an animal. Not done locally. I called several to see.. They are overrun just now however. Lots of people losing homes and moving into apartments with a no pets rule. Lots of broken hearts on that one. I give to help animals each year and this year there are so many ways to give money.
Our charities this year are food for humans and animals. Both a necessity.
Yes, the so called public option should rein in insurance companies and I dont know what else will.

nlhome · « **Reply #346 on:** September 24, 2009, 08:21:16 AM »

I agree about the public option, but the insurance companies are speaking louder than we are. So if you haven't contacted your Senators and your Representative in Congress, no matter what you believe is right on this topic, now is the time to do so. I know people say it doesn't matter, but it does. Besides, it's like winning the lottery - you certainly can't win if you don't buy a ticket - so even if it seems like blowing into the wind to contact your Congress folk, you definitely won't make an impact unless you at least send that email or letter or phone call.

bellemere · « **Reply #347 on:** September 24, 2009, 08:45:08 AM »

We lost Ted Kennedy and I thougth John Kerry was behind the public option. Now I read that he is "on the fence" Gotta call and get him off. Our reps, however , have not givn up on it.
Our governor is not allowed to name an interim senator, so that gives the Democratic Party the 60 votes in the Senate needed to block a filibuster.
Just read of the firing of the CEO of a small community hospital. His salary was over a half million dollars.

Babi · « **Reply #348 on:** September 25, 2009, 08:41:10 AM »

I at least contacted our Senator Cornyn about the public option. I hope it
helps. I observed that expecting the insurance companies not to take advantage was about like expecting a cat not to scratch. I urged him to please trim their claws with the public option.

bellemere · « **Reply #349 on:** September 25, 2009, 09:49:08 AM »

A typo in my last message cocerning an interim successor to Ted Kennedy. I said our governomr was not allowed to name one. Well, now he can, and he did, so if the Democrats can resolve their differnces there will be 60 votes, veto proof.
A columnist this morning says that the Obama administration has a "progressive" view of government as having a rational, analytic basis "what makes sense for the greatest number of people" similar to the view of FDR and to some extent Johnson and Clinton. But our constittion gives ultimate power to our elected legislators, whose interests are much narrower, and short term, based largely on their reelection prospects. They are so vulnerable to special interests who all have their own private agendas, especially if it is a major economic force in their districts, and if it has big money to donate to candidates.
If you are contacting your legislators, use the phone. My environmental activist daughter says "one phone call is worth 10 emails" I didn't know that. So I followed up my email to John Kerry with a phone call; took only a second to go on record infavor of the public option.

Steph · « **Reply #350 on:** September 25, 2009, 03:10:38 PM »

Thanks for the advice on the phone. I got in touch, but truthfully in Florida, I hold out no hope for all three,, the senators.. hmm. one just got appointed to be a place holder for our stupid governor who wants to be a senator now and the other ,, maybe, but I doubt it. Our representative is a woman who gets reelected each time and I have no idea why..

bellemere · « **Reply #351 on:** September 25, 2009, 03:34:26 PM »

Good move with the phone Steph. And didn't you love Babi
s remarks to Senator Cornyg/ oh,do you spell it? About the cats. Loved it.

nlhome · « **Reply #352 on:** September 25, 2009, 06:21:33 PM »

Steph, just keep calling and encouraging others to call. You never know when those calls will start to make an impact.

ANNIE · « **Reply #353 on:** September 25, 2009, 06:53:18 PM »

Steph,
Just a heads up for you, in case you aren't aware. All statins used to lower cholesterol can harm the liver, even the healthy organic one advertised as harmless, Red Rice Bran?, harms the liver. It is a statin also. Just read an article about that. If anyone wants to read it, I could look it up.

I am using Cholestoff made by Nature Made. It is made of sterols and I have had a 25 point lowering of my cholesterol after taking it twice a day before meals for three months. Now, the dr said to go ahead and use it and we will see if it comes down anymore.

I am still stuck on the government staying out of this health care situation. Does anyone here think that the co-ops might work better??? They are supposedly owned and run by the clients who buy their product and are non-profit. But the government would be keeping an eye on them. And to do that, the government would probably imbed government workers.

Now, as to co-ops, we had an electric co-op in Georgia and they were found to be charging us way too much for our utility and were threatened with jail if they didn't lower our charges per ohm or whatever!

bellemere · « **Reply #354 on:** September 26, 2009, 08:00:30 AM »

I don't understand "imbed government workers" Is that like undercover FBI agents, or spies? I don't think that would happen.
The government plan is, remember, a means to an end. The end goal is lower costs. Co-ops seem to work well for small, common interest groups; we have dairy co-ops here, they have been working for years. My retirement plan is TIAA CREF, which has some characteristics of a co-op and it has been great. But to cover a multimillion population with a vital service like Health care' that kind of structure would be too loose and weak to get real competition going.
I know some people really believe that private industry does everything better than the government. That is questionable. I see that the war in Iraq had been full of fraud and abuse by private contractors, whose employees make tons more money than the soldiers who used to perform those duties. And great public universities like North Carolina and Michigan have not made great private colleges go out of business.

nlhome · « **Reply #355 on:** September 26, 2009, 08:02:42 AM »

Adoannie, any health plan will have to have the government involved at some level. Medicare was started because older Americans could not get affordable health care or insurance, in many cases could not get insurance coverage at all. Now all ages are having difficulty getting affordable health care. People who are in their late 50's up to age 64 in my area cannot find insurance at any reasonable cost and, if they have had any health issures at all, are pretty much unable to find any insurance.

Insurance companies are set up to make profit. Co-ops may be a nice idea, but they probably can't do it on their own without government support and oversight.

Babi · « **Reply #356 on:** September 26, 2009, 09:19:07 AM »

ANNIE, you don't know how I wish I had known that about the statins
before I messed up my digestive system, on doctor's orders! I can only
suppose they didn't really know either, and lowering cholesterol is a
big deal now. Pardon my cynicism, but I can't help wondering how much
the pharm. industry has to do with big medical trends and imperatives.

Back when hormones were the latest, newest thing, a doctor permanentlymessed up my younger daughters life by ordering the strongest one in the
maximum dose. I still get angry when I think about it.

Steph · « **Reply #357 on:** September 26, 2009, 02:53:53 PM »

Yes, I knew that about statins, but mdh chloresterol is very very high.. So what they do is prescribe and he gets liver enzyme checks every single month. I am using red rice yeast. Thus far I test normal all over the place.. My chloresterol was not very high at all.. It is now down to within normal range. So I take COQ10, fish oil and flaxseed oil ( I much prefer flaxseed itself, but it is hard to get). So we are careful. Honest.. My nephew is a doctor and he keeps strict track of his Aunt and Uncle.

Babi · « **Reply #358 on:** September 27, 2009, 09:17:12 AM »

So nice to have a doctor in the family....especially a nice one who watches
over his aunt and uncle.

Steph · « **Reply #359 on:** September 27, 2009, 09:59:31 AM »

Yes, he and his new bride came to visit a few weeks ago. They agreed that Florida s way too hot and humid for them.. I told them that late August and September is a horrid time of year and they should come back in February from Pittsburgh.. They are sweet and funny. My late brother would have been so proud.

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Author Topic: Talking Heads - Healthcare Reform (Read 101117 times)