From: mascdb@gdr.bath.ac.uk (C D Burdorf)
Newsgroups: alt.california
Subject: Re: Paradise lost and Medi-Cal...
Date: 21 Aug 92 10:35:18 GMT
Organization: School of Mathematics, University of Bath, UK

In article <92233.62128.J056600@LMSC5.IS.LMSC.LOCKHEED.COM> J056600@LMSC5.IS.LMSC.LOCKHEED.COM writes:
>In <1992Aug20.091514.21888@gdr.bath.ac.uk>, C D Burdorf writes:
>
>
>Unless you're doing nothing to improve your lot in life.  Then, the working
>taxpayers will have their pockets picked *just for you*.
>

The point is that by taking care of others you are taking care
of yourself.  You get you're pockets picked worse in the US
for Medical care than we do here in the UK.  What's more 
everyone in the UK is covered and in the US you've got
people suffering on the streets that will periodically
rise up against you.  Your greed and self-centeredness ends
up costing you more.

>
>You also get the mediocrity of a government-run system.  Like Californians
>(or anyone in the States) really wants public hospitals to be in the same
>condition as our public schools.  The doctors would run around, form a large
>state employees union, cry that medicine is being "underfunded" until the
>people believe it, and the hospitals finally gets more money--money that goes
>straight into the hands of the unions and their member physicians.  Sounds like
>our education crisis, doesn't it?

Well I don't hear you complaining about public utilities or that
fact that food prices are kept stable through government subsidies.
How would you feel if all the sudden farmers got together and instituted
a famine so they could take all your money for some food.  This is
similar to what the AMA has done in the states.  They have limited
the number of doctors, they charge outrageous prices (there's not 
enough  competition to bring prices down) and you don't have any
choice.  If you need medical care you have to go to one and dish
it out.  They've got you by the balls and you support them.

>
>Possibly.  That depends on a few factors.  First, will it maintain *the same
>quality* as "evil capitalist" medicine?  Will the government, for the first
>time in its history, actually keep costs and bureaucracy down?  Given their
>track record, I wouldn't bet on it!

More is spent on health care per capita in the US than in any socialized
system in the world.  That's a pretty good indication that it would
probably cost less if instituted in the US as well.

>>>2. Less Malpractice
>
>I hope so.  Watch the lawyers lobby fight this tooth and nail if so.  There
>have been many attempts to reform malpractice and tort laws.  The lawyers and
>the elected officials (most of whom *are* lawyers) won't let it happen.
>

Oh, so we should just give up and bow down to the lawyers then.  You
sound like a fatalist.

>>>3. Less worry about greedy doctors doing unnessary operations.
>

>
>>>It's attitudes like yours which show a total lack of social consciousness
>>>and a total glut of self-centeredness which is screwing up California and
>>>were partly responsible for the LA Riots.
>
>Maybe so.  But *mostly* it's an attitude that government has to take care of
>every damn little thing we do, and when the government gravy train ever loses
>a wheel or derails, the people affected by the poverty pimps in Washington and
>Sacramento get mad.  I submit that it was a *welfare state mentality* which
>the government seems to *encourage*.  When a system gives of itself without
>expecting anything in return, why *should* the recipients give anything in
>return?  That leads to "Big Government" addicts.  Like those addicted to
>cocaine or alcohol, when the Government supply of free goodies is ever inter-
[Lots of ranting about the evils of Big government deleted]

I'm not asking you to pay more.  It will cost less. I'm asking
you to use your head and be sensible about it instead of producing
a bunch of brainwashed right-wing republican propaganda.  Deal with
reality man, the world doesn't fit your ideaoligcal picture.  Monoplies
need to be broken.  Doctors in the US have a monopoly.  They are getting
rich off of screwing the rest of us for something we have to have.
The traditional "Capitalist" way to deal with such situations is
to make it a public utility.  WHY IS IT OK TO HAVE THE POLICE 
AND FIRE BE PUBLIC, BUT NOT MEDICINE?  I KNOW WHY?  BECAUSE THERE'S
A BUNCH OF GREEDY RACIST WHITE PEOPLE IN AMERICA THAT DON'T WANT
THEIR TAX MONEY GOING TOWARDS POOR UNDERPRIVALGED MINORITIES.  


>
>Flames will be respectfully read, and then ignored...
>

Just more evidence to support that you are an ideologue and don't
care about facts or reality.
Newsgroups: alt.california