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SVMc · Feb 24, 2004, 01:41 am

[/quote]<blockquote>Quote:<hr size="1" />Originally Posted by
You're implying that every doctor draws the line at life-and-death before treating a person who needs care and can't afford to pay the same rate as Bill Gates. That's not true. That sort of exaggeration amounts to an appeal to fear<hr size="1" /></blockquote>

It was / is my understanding that the hospitals in the United States cannot administer care unless the person (without insurance) is in danger of loosing life or limb. Those are the sources that I have found, so I'm not trying to engender fear. If you have sources that state more clearly when an uninsured person is able to obtain health care without being driven into debt or paying large sums of money please provide them.

Also it is no more fear mongering than your implications that every government / state, politician, lawyer, bureaucrate, public administrator, civil servant and anyone else who works in the public sector are all in a collusion to "rob" you of your money and provide you with nothing you use.

<blockquote>Quote:<hr size="1" />Originally Posted by
Originally Posted by (SVMc,)
You can take the Canadian health care system to court . . .
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. . .if they let you.
<hr size="1" /></blockquote>

There can be an extreme argument made for the collusion of judicial and executive branches of government. However Canada does have a much more seperated system than the United States.

<blockquote>Quote:<hr size="1" />Originally Posted by
Different use of the word "choice." That's equivocation.<hr size="1" /></blockquote>

Yes I did say "opinion" what you have presented has not been backed up by fact or figure or secondary source material (which I wouldn't consider proof of fact either merely concurrence). And unless you use a VERY narrow definition of the word choice as is the only choice is to participate or not, than no, we are not using a different definition. In fact that still applies. No one MUST live in Canada, even if you do live in Canada you can go live on the crown land and not pay property taxes, live off the land and you won't have to pay income tax. Use barter and trade systems.... If you choose to live in Canada on the grid you will pay taxes when you are a working adult above the poverty margin. Believe it or not people do choose to live in Canada because they know they will get health care. Sure I can choose not to pay my insurance in the United States, but that is no more of a free choice for me to make if I cannot afford insurancein the united states. Your definition of choice as it pertains to HMO's and the United States medical system only applies to those that have the economic wherewithall to choose.

<blockquote>Quote:<hr size="1" />Originally Posted by
Only a brain damaged jackass would say "yes."
<hr size="1" /></blockquote>

You are stepping dangerously close to an Ad Hominem attack. Lets keep this on the intellecual level and not resort to name calling in relation to each others view points.

<blockquote>Quote:<hr size="1" />Originally Posted by
"If health care should be monopolized in the hands of a bunch of lawyers on the grounds that it is a need and no one 'should' go without, then why shouldn't other 'needs' be monopolized?" The list of "needs" is endless<hr size="1" /></blockquote>

The reason you never get a satifactory answer to the above question is twofold from my perspective. First you seem to be employing the question as a slippery slope argument. As you recognized "needs" are endless. I'm assuming you are refereing to Maslow's heirarchy of needs (basic survival (food, shelter), procreation (sex), emotional support, intellectual stimulation etc... etc..). So you seem to be employing the argument that it is all or nothing. We either submit to providing all the needs via state centric institutions or we turn them all loose to market control. So long as you will never be satisfied with a "grey" area answer, one that views the world and it's issues as a diverse range. No one will be able to answer you to your own satisfaction, and that is because you have set your own range of satisfaction so that you will only be satisfied with your own answer. But I have no need to satisfy your criteria of a fair answer. So here goes (but for the above reasons you will not be satisfied). I say break the heirarchy at basic needs, we as a society have an obligation to try to provide the basic necessities for human survival and dignity as defined by the UN charter on Human Rights and measured by the UN Human Development Index. Typically these services are provided to the poorest in society via some sort of administered tax, it may be the worst system we have come up with, except for all the others. FYI, governments do control food via farm subsidies and price flooring as well as the administration of food banks. Restaurants need to be licenced here, and are graded on a three point level scale administered by the government. Some provinces have public health care, and while I am not in favour of government run media, our current CBC is being much more unbiased than our one family conglomerate that controls ALL of our other broadcast Media (Can-West Global). I'm not advocating all of these controls, I recognize controls can, have and are corrupt in some areas, but I don't think that that is a reason to unilaterally do away with them. You have proposed no situations that would provide for the worlds poorest in your arguments. I can't eat freedom.

<blockquote>Quote:<hr size="1" />Originally Posted by
You can write your politicians, even bribe them, like other special-interests do. The final decision is made by the gang with the guns and the presumed right to use them. What are you prepared to do if the state's mouthpiece says, "Sorry. You're just one little person. Reality dictates that our priorites be aligned for the good of all the people, and we decided that your suggestions while noble, aren't feasible at this time"? <hr size="1" /></blockquote>

The preoccupation with the gun is an interesting phenomena in America. Canadian history is very different, we achived our independance without the use of a single gun. It's called organization. And organization does not have to mean revolt or full revolution. If popular input had no effect on government, we wouldn't have public health care, public pension plans, public auto insurance, public water, infrastructure, affordable housing (we need more), hydro etc... etc... I cannot change the policy direction of government, but that would be an equally dangerous slippery slope if each individuals inputs would alter the course of government action.

<blockquote>Quote:<hr size="1" />Originally Posted by
Imposing one party's narrow beliefs on others under threat of force is an abdication of responsibility<hr size="1" /></blockquote>

Again, the implication that if one does not agree with state actions the state will beat you into compliance. You have the choice to move accross the boarder, you have the choice to live on crown land. We don't have debtors prisons any more. And if the government cannot hold people socially responsible who will?

<blockquote>Quote:<hr size="1" />Originally Posted by
In fact, the entire impetus toward state solutions to individual problems is based on taking responsibility away from the individual<hr size="1" /></blockquote>

So you are arguing that the government, by providing public health care (welfare or any other social programs) is taking responsibility away from the individual? How by giving them what they need to survive? Ideally you think the person should be able to haul themselves up by thier own boot straps and create their own market base economy solution to thier socio-economic position regarless of any social barriers imposed by a pre-exisiting society? I will just never understand how this is a logical argument to people. It has been proven so many times that if we increase the security and wealth of the bottom decile of the population the entire society does better on all HDI scales.

Everytime you use a derogutory connotation of the government you slide toward regulations on: grocers, lanlords, animal testing, toilet water level (I'm guessing that recently came through in the U.S.) but you avoid the topic at hand the provision of medically necessary health care. Perhaps the state shouldn't have to regulate the level of water in our toilet tanks... but do you really trust every individual out there to use thier water responsibly enough that we will not run out of clean water if not administered through large national bodies? As much as you might I look at what we have done to our environment in the pass and remain skeptical. And I'm not a nihilist so I won't indulge those arguments as viable alternatives.

<blockquote>Quote:<hr size="1" />Originally Posted by
There are better ways than mass theft to help them.
<hr size="1" /></blockquote>

Okay lets hear your social policy.

<blockquote>Quote:<hr size="1" />Originally Posted by
According to popular opinion, there are 40,000,000 people in America who have no health insurance. That looks like we have a choice to me. You know, not everyone who doesn't have health insurance are poor downtrodden exploited peons<hr size="1" /></blockquote>

Actually I finally got that figure off of the UNDP report on Health and Education 2003 - it equates to 15% of the population. And while I realize that not all of those people do not have health insurance because they cannot afford it that lucky group only amounts to 3% of that original 15% or less than 1% in total according to the UNDP report. The rest of those people do not have a choice. Close to half of them are considered just above the poverty line and will go into sever debt if they require emergency health care. That leaves close to 20 million Americans who are living below the povety line (approximately 7% of the population which corresponds to long term unemployment levels - real unemployment hovering around 9% for 2002).

So lets talk numbers. In your bio I remember something about military service. Lets talk colleteral damage figures in the case of first strike capability during the cold war. Are you familiar with these? These always baffle me and they become important again as we visit the rebirth of the TMD and NMD systems. How do you arrive at a figure of how many people it is acceptable to slip through the cracks? How many die for how many others to live?

Sure health care is not viewed a equivilent with traditional security dilemmas however it is getting increasing attention. As we approach a broadening and deepening of security (see the ICISS report on the reponsibility to protect) these issues are comming to acheive recognition as human security issues. When we do not protect those who cannot protect themselves we are making a life or death choice for them.

<blockquote>Quote:<hr size="1" />Originally Posted by
maybe you believe politicians are really good guys who have your best interest at heart. I don't believe it. I see them as crooks, thieves, con artists, and thugs, and I haven't seen any reason here to change my mind.
<hr size="1" /></blockquote>

Again I don't see this as a black and white issue, as in they are either allturistically good or crooks. Yes, some politicians, public servants etc... have been crooks, but some have not. I measure the effectiveness of public service according to the HDI, ICISS human security agenda, economic well-being etc...If all politicians were unilaterally crooks we'd all be living in despotisms. We have to acknowledge the good our governments have been able to do in some areas. This is of course contrasted by the bad they have done in other areas. It's not an either or, all or nothing, black and white assessment.

<blockquote>Quote:<hr size="1" />Originally Posted by
I never said the state has the power to shut down corporations.
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It does, though. Are you denying it?
<hr size="1" /></blockquote>

legally no, pragmatically yes... corporations have the economic power to protect themselves.

<blockquote>Quote:<hr size="1" />Originally Posted by
So, let me get this straight -- you're saying the corporations really rule over the state?<hr size="1" /></blockquote>

You're really an all or nothing person aren't you? Currently I believe that in many countries the corporations have the ear of the governments more than the population does. However this is also a reflection of socico-economic positioning that places those who become members of he political class in the same socio-economic class as those who are members of the corporate class. This will also be reflected in educational standards and access to socio-economic institutions largely denied to lower classes. Does this mean the population has no recourse - No. Governments and corporations tend to listen to popular unrest. Again we place this on a scale of effectiveness. Blood diamonds in the Great Lakes regions of Africa are examples of failed states who cater exclusively to the interests of corporate interests. Canada, Norway, Switzerland do not fall into the same range of the scale.

<blockquote>Quote:<hr size="1" />Originally Posted by
Bad things happen in the world. Injustice, poverty, and people getting sick without having insurance. The solution is to get to work doing what you can to fix what you can. Asking politicians to save you by robbing your neighbors is a case of "two wrongs don't make a right."
<hr size="1" /></blockquote>

This is again I repeat the ideological impass. You see it as theivery I don't.

And you completely ducked my question about consensus means of community governing and tried to turn that into another yes/no either/or you/me debate. How about addressing consensus mechanisms?

Jackney Sneeb · Feb 24, 2004, 02:27 am

<blockquote>Quote:<hr size="1" />Originally Posted by (Bayou,)
<blockquote>Quote:<hr size="1" />Originally Posted by (Jackney Sneeb)
I agree with cooperation. That is the opposite of the state. The state is coercion. <hr size="1" /></blockquote>
Except capitalism isnt cooperation,<hr size="1" /></blockquote>
Straw man. I didn't say anything about "capitalism."

--Jackney Sneeb

Jackney Sneeb · Feb 24, 2004, 02:59 am

<blockquote>Quote:<hr size="1" />Originally Posted by (SVMc,)

It was / is my understanding that the hospitals in the United States cannot administer care unless the person (without insurance) is in danger of loosing life or limb.<hr size="1" /></blockquote>
Well, your understanding is just wrong.
<blockquote>Quote:<hr size="1" />Originally Posted by (SVMc,)
Also it is no more fear mongering than your implications that every government / state, politician, lawyer, bureaucrate, public administrator, civil servant and anyone else who works in the public sector are all in a collusion to "rob" you of your money and provide you with nothing you use.<hr size="1" /></blockquote>
a) I didn't say all those people were in collusion to rob us. I said lawyers and politicians and con artists and thugs of the state are, and it's true.

b) I didn't say they provide "nothing," I said they decide what they will provide, and that's also true.

'a' and 'b' have no correlation with one another.
<blockquote>Quote:<hr size="1" />Originally Posted by (SVMc,)
There can be an extreme argument made for the collusion of judicial and executive branches of government.<hr size="1" /></blockquote>
Why is everything I say that you have to agree with "extreme"? You don't see mass extortion as extreme . . .
<blockquote>Quote:<hr size="1" />Originally Posted by (SVMc,)
Yes I did say "opinion" what you have presented has not been backed up by fact or figure or secondary source material . . .
<hr size="1" /></blockquote>
Hold it. Since when is it my obligation to prove why I don't want politicians having a monopoly on my health care? YOU are the one trying to convince me it's a good idea. YOU need to show why I should submit to something YOU think is so wonderful. So far I have seen nothing that would convince me that the ASSHOLES in Washington DC SHOULD have a blank check written against our wages so they can enjoy a MONOPOLY on something as important to us as our health care! The burden of proof is on YOU, my friend.

<blockquote>Quote:<hr size="1" />Originally Posted by (SVMc,)
<blockquote>Quote:<hr size="1" />Originally Posted by
There are better ways than mass theft to help them.
<hr size="1" /></blockquote>
Okay lets hear your social policy.<hr size="1" /></blockquote>

I'm going to offer a compromise, to see where your heart truly lies on the issue of coercion, monopolies, capitalism, and mass extortion:

Since corporations enjoy special protection from the state, to protect themselves from unlimited liability in return for acting as a tax collector for the state; and since they actually do have an explicit agreement -- a contract -- with the state to do x in return for y, why not tax corporations to fund health care for all? I'll be happy to support free choice in health care as YOU describe it, i.e., everyone has access to health care, and those who want to pay extra for better (or worse*) care than the state provides can do so.

Now, unless you are just another corporate lackey trying to protect the CEOs and their wealthy shareholders from the people, or unless you just have a fetish for forcing your narrow views down everyone's throat via the dictum of "might makes right," it would only be reasonable for you to accede to this generous compromise.

--Jackney Sneeb

*Who would want "worse" care you ask? Some people believe in homeopathic medicine, for example. They don't trust the traditional system run by the AMA. They have a right to choose other alternatives, even if they aren't the kind you like, you see. It doesn't cost anyone else anything to let them choose.

Bayou · Feb 24, 2004, 05:50 am

<blockquote>Quote:<hr size="1" />Originally Posted by (jackney sneebs)
Hold it. Since when is it my obligation to prove why I don't want politicians having a monopoly on my health care? YOU are the one trying to convince me it's a good idea. YOU need to show why I should submit to something YOU think is so wonderful. So far I have seen nothing that would convince me that the ASSHOLES in Washington DC SHOULD have a blank check written against our wages so they can enjoy a MONOPOLY on something as important to us as our health care! The burden of proof is on YOU, my friend<hr size="1" /></blockquote> Nooo we never asked you to become part of this conversation in fact.....Isnt the title of the thread called OPINIONS OF CANADIANS?
We dont want our health system to become a luxury, though in the long run to succeed at that would be to replace the capitalist system all toghether.
Deal with the fact that the majority of canadians dont share your point of view and dont reply here again then if you truly feel the way you do in the above quote.

<blockquote>Quote:<hr size="1" />Originally Posted by (jackney sneebs)
I'm going to offer a compromise, to see where your heart truly lies on the issue of coercion, monopolies, capitalism, and mass extortion:
Since corporations enjoy special protection from the state, to protect themselves from unlimited liability in return for acting as a tax collector for the state; and since they actually do have an explicit agreement -- a contract -- with the state to do x in return for y, why not tax corporations to fund health care for all? I'll be happy to support free choice in health care as YOU describe it, i.e., everyone has access to health care, and those who want to pay extra for better (or worse*) care than the state provides can do so.
Now, unless you are just another corporate lackey trying to protect the CEOs and their wealthy shareholders from the people, or unless you just have a fetish for forcing your narrow views down everyone's throat via the dictum of "might makes right," it would only be reasonable for you to accede to this generous compromise.
*Who would want "worse" care you ask? Some people believe in homeopathic medicine, for example. They don't trust the traditional system run by the AMA. They have a right to choose other alternatives, even if they aren't the kind you like, you see. It doesn't cost anyone else anything to let them choose.Hold it. Since when is it my obligation to prove why I don't want politicians having a monopoly on my health care? YOU are the one trying to convince me it's a good idea. YOU need to show why I should submit to something YOU think is so wonderful. So far I have seen nothing that would convince me that the ASSHOLES in Washington DC SHOULD have a blank check written against our wages so they can enjoy a MONOPOLY on something as important to us as our health care! The burden of proof is on YOU, my friend.<hr size="1" /></blockquote>

Okay now that you have mentioned elements like MONOPOLY and CORPORATIONS and TAXES which are products of a capitalist system, answer my original questions.
The absence of a real choice that forces a person to participate in the capitalist system or starve, a system that predetermines that a persons worktime spent is not equivalent to the capital value of the worktime received.
So in reality business or the capitalist system takes your worktime, or its ideal value money 1st before government ever does and places it in the hand of the bourgoise. Thus the defense that it is stealing when taking money from the bourgoise, when this money has been proven to be already stolen is laughable.
The government is the only force that can moderate the capitalist systems inherent deviation towards greed and selfishness.
So Jackney you havent proven that the money you make hasnt been stolen from someone else or more likely, stolen by the employee 1st and the government is really only getting second dibs, though 1st dibs of the entrepeneur or business man, so how is stealing worktime okay?

Jackney Sneeb · Feb 24, 2004, 07:36 am

<blockquote>Quote:<hr size="1" />Originally Posted by (Bayou,)
<blockquote>Quote:<hr size="1" />Originally Posted by (jackney sneebs)
Hold it. Since when is it my obligation to prove why I don't want politicians having a monopoly on my health care? YOU are the one trying to convince me it's a good idea. YOU need to show why I should submit to something YOU think is so wonderful. So far I have seen nothing that would convince me that the ASSHOLES in Washington DC SHOULD have a blank check written against our wages so they can enjoy a MONOPOLY on something as important to us as our health care! The burden of proof is on YOU, my friend<hr size="1" /></blockquote> Nooo we never asked you to become part of this conversation . . .<hr size="1" /></blockquote>
Is your name SVMc?

--Jackney Sneeb

Bayou · Feb 24, 2004, 07:39 am

<blockquote>Quote:<hr size="1" />Originally Posted by (Jackney Sneeb)
Is your name SVMc?<hr size="1" /></blockquote>

Are you Canadian, do you live in Canada?

Jackney Sneeb · Feb 24, 2004, 07:48 am

<blockquote>Quote:<hr size="1" />Originally Posted by (Bayou,)
<blockquote>Quote:<hr size="1" />Originally Posted by (Jackney Sneeb)
Is your name SVMc?<hr size="1" /></blockquote>
Are you Canadian, do you live in Canada?<hr size="1" /></blockquote>
Are you the administrator, are you kicking all the other non-Canadians off the thread?

--Jackney Sneeb

Bayou · Feb 24, 2004, 07:58 am

ooookay back again to where this started:
<blockquote>Quote:<hr size="1" />Originally Posted by (jackney sneebs)

Hold it. Since when is it my obligation to prove why I don't want politicians having a monopoly on my health care? YOU are the one trying to convince me it's a good idea. YOU need to show why I should submit to something YOU think is so wonderful. So far I have seen nothing that would convince me that the ASSHOLES in Washington DC SHOULD have a blank check written against our wages so they can enjoy a MONOPOLY on something as important to us as our health care! The burden of proof is on YOU, my friend<hr size="1" /></blockquote>
Since when was it your obligation to inform us of your attitudes towards our system?
We are not trying to convince you of anything, you keep coming in this thread an shiiting on our government institutions, we fight back with statistics and ethical arguments while, you respond with moral garbage that has something to do with stealing....but giving it back in another form doesnt seem to count.
You want a fight, we got plenty of it honey- so keep coming back with the *whatsa gun* remarks we will gladlly fill in the blanks of the real questions you try to distort.
So which post of mine should I bring up again in which you havent answered adequately, Ghandi knows theirs been more then a few of them.

Jackney Sneeb · Feb 24, 2004, 08:11 am

<blockquote>Quote:<hr size="1" />Originally Posted by (Bayou,)
Since when was it your obligation to inform us of your attitudes towards our system?<hr size="1" /></blockquote>
I'm sure you feel that way. Frankly, I'm not interested in your opinion.

--Jackney Sneeb

SVMc · Feb 24, 2004, 10:40 am

<blockquote>Quote:<hr size="1" />Originally Posted by
It was / is my understanding that the hospitals in the United States cannot administer care unless the person (without insurance) is in danger of loosing life or limb.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well, your understanding is just wrong.
<hr size="1" /></blockquote>

Prove it. I will admit I am not an expert in the bureaucratic management of the American health care system and the procedures to obtain health care when one in uninsured, but everything I have come accross so far has indicated that an uninsured person is not entitled to health care they cannot pay for out of pocket unless life or limb is in danger.

<blockquote>Quote:<hr size="1" />Originally Posted by
Why is everything I say that you have to agree with "extreme"? You don't see mass extortion as extreme . . .
<hr size="1" /></blockquote>

I say that most things you are arguing are extreme because you seem to see everything in an either or context. Sure I think mass extortion is extreme. But I don't think that in this context mass extortion is happening. Just try to take universal health care away from Canadians and you will hear the public voices you claim politicians don't listne to loud and clear. Witness the booting of the recent conservative party from Ontario (the most conservative province). They slashed health care for four years, tried to chage thier tune jut before the election and got booted out of office in one of the biggest political landslides in Canadian history.

<blockquote>Quote:<hr size="1" />Originally Posted by
Hold it. Since when is it my obligation to prove why I don't want politicians having a monopoly on my health care? YOU are the one trying to convince me it's a good idea. YOU need to show why I should submit to something YOU think is so wonderful. So far I have seen nothing that would convince me that the ASSHOLES in Washington DC SHOULD have a blank check written against our wages so they can enjoy a MONOPOLY on something as important to us as our health care! The burden of proof is on YOU, my friend.
<hr size="1" /></blockquote>

First: your bio says you have two masters degrees you should be familiar with principles of academic honesty and proper citations. You claim that mass extortion and theft are occurring. Show me the numbers, show me the people who concur with you. It's general principle if you are trying to cite fact as opposed to opinion. If it's just your opinion you are entitiled to yours as I am to mine.

Second: I am not trying to prove to you why universal health care should be brought to America. I and other Canadian's on this board are defending our universal health care system to an American who felt the need to disparage our system as not publicially responsible and theft. This debate is an old one in Canada. But every Canadian know universal health care is not going to stop here anytime soon, and most don't want it to. I would really like to get some opinions of other Canadians on the 6 provinces that are considering moving to PR voting, the current attorney general's report on the Quebec sponsorship program and some other local issues.

Third: If you don't want universal health care there's a really simple solution. Stay in the United States. That's why there are two different countries. The United States is in about as much jeopardy of getting universal health care as Canada is of stopping it.

In regards to your social policy. Capitalism run by coporations is not a choice, people cannot choose to opt out of a capitalist system when basic needs become subject to the market. Giving people the choice of paying for health care or not getting it doesn't equate to choice.

Okay Bayou,

Lets start with some topics that remain uncovered in each of our own posts. If Jack won't respond to them we can respond to each other here are mine from my last post in summary (go back and look at full text) if you put up the one's you want covered I'll reply to them.

1) Maslow's heirarchy of needs as a measurment for social administration feasible or not?

2) re: organization, socail movements in Canada, what kind of impact have they had? Vancouver, Quebec were they effective? Why? Why not?

3) Is the UNDP HDI an adequate measure for social responsibility? Why? Why not?

4) What did you think about the social equivilant of colleteral damage? Are you familiar with Lloyd Axoworthy's Human Security iniative? If so, do you think it really tackles human security or is it still aimed at traditional security? Can human security really be used for what has traditionally been socio-economic root causes of conflict?

5) Nunavut and Iqualuit the transition to consensus government, can it only work in remote locations?

Jackney Sneeb · Feb 24, 2004, 11:58 am

<blockquote>Quote:<hr size="1" />Originally Posted by (SVMc,)
<blockquote>Quote:<hr size="1" />Originally Posted by
It was / is my understanding that the hospitals in the United States cannot administer care unless the person (without insurance) is in danger of loosing life or limb.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Well, your understanding is just wrong.
<hr size="1" /></blockquote>
Prove it.<hr size="1" /></blockquote>
"Care for underserved patients. UCI Family Health Center in Santa Ana provides primary and preventive care to low-income and uninsured patients. As the county’s only Federally Qualified Health Center, the facility ensures that people living in medically underserved areas have access to health care."
<blockquote>Quote:<hr size="1" />Originally Posted by (SVMc,)
<blockquote>Quote:<hr size="1" />Originally Posted by
Why is everything I say that you have to agree with "extreme"? You don't see mass extortion as extreme . . .
<hr size="1" /></blockquote>
I say that most things you are arguing are extreme because you seem to see everything in an either or context.<hr size="1" /></blockquote>
Saying, "either taking someone else's stuff without his permission is theft or it isn't," is what you call an "extreme" position? How is there any middle ground there?
<blockquote>Quote:<hr size="1" />Originally Posted by
Sure I think mass extortion is extreme.<hr size="1" /></blockquote>
Uh . . YOU advocate that, not me. Why aren't YOU the extremist??
<blockquote>Quote:<hr size="1" />Originally Posted by (SVMc,)
<blockquote>Quote:<hr size="1" />Originally Posted by
Hold it. Since when is it my obligation to prove why I don't want politicians having a monopoly on my health care? YOU are the one trying to convince me it's a good idea. YOU need to show why I should submit to something YOU think is so wonderful. So far I have seen nothing that would convince me that the ASSHOLES in Washington DC SHOULD have a blank check written against our wages so they can enjoy a MONOPOLY on something as important to us as our health care! The burden of proof is on YOU, my friend.
<hr size="1" /></blockquote>
First: your bio says you have two masters degrees you should be familiar with principles of academic honesty and proper citations. You claim that mass extortion and theft are occurring. Show me the numbers, show me the people who concur with you. It's general principle if you are trying to cite fact as opposed to opinion. If it's just your opinion you are entitiled to yours as I am to mine.<hr size="1" /></blockquote>
Gack. "Show me the people who agree with you" -- is that what makes something right?? Also, "it's just your opinion"? Of course it's my opinion. I thought this was an opinion forum . . .

Here's why it's my opinion that the income tax is extortion. I have asked several authoritarians to explain the difference between a) "Give us your money or we won't protect you from us," and b) "Give us your money or we won't protect you from us," where 'a' is the Mafia and 'b' is the IRS. I could switch 'a' and 'b' and there's no difference. So far no one can tell which is which (other than the name of the gang making the threat). (It is irrelevant to the nature of the act what the two gangs intend to do with the money, by the way.)
<blockquote>Quote:<hr size="1" />Originally Posted by (SVMc,)
Second: I am not trying to prove to you why universal health care should be brought to America. I and other Canadian's on this board are defending our universal health care system to an American who felt the need to disparage our system as not publicially responsible and theft.<hr size="1" /></blockquote>
If you think literally everyone in Canada agrees that it's not theft, you're ignoring statistical probability, at least. I know some Canadians who think taxation is theft, so I don't have to guess. That doesn't make me right, of course. It does impeach any claim on your part that I'm all alone in my opinion, and you ought to be able to objectively evaluate whether you are reacting to my opinion out of logic or emotional attachment to your security blanket -- or even worse, a blind faith in the inherent goodness of politicians.
<blockquote>Quote:<hr size="1" />Originally Posted by (SVMc,)
In regards to your social policy. Capitalism run by coporations is not a choice, people cannot choose to opt out of a capitalist system when basic needs become subject to the market. Giving people the choice of paying for health care or not getting it doesn't equate to choice.<hr size="1" /></blockquote>
I tried to offer a way to compromise. You completely snubbed the essence of it in favor of dredging up the old straw man of "capitalism." This tells me you're only interested in dogmatically hanging on to your position, right or wrong. Fine. Choice to me means "choice," not coercion, force, theft, taxation, monopoly, and fraud.

--Jackney Sneeb

Mathieu · Feb 25, 2004, 12:38 am

NEW YORK TIMES
Cover Story, Special Small Business Section

February 24, 2004

Soaring Health Care Costs Leave Little Companies in a Bind

By EDMUND L. ANDREWS

LIKE thousands of other business owners around the country, Dwight Messinger got the bad news last fall. As the owner of Power Curbers Inc., a manufacturer of paving equipment in Salisbury, N.C., Mr. Messinger had already seen his company's health insurance premiums jump 25 percent in 2003 while benefits were trimmed. His own wife had been denied reimbursement for a precautionary colonoscopy.

Now, shopping desperately for lower prices, Mr. Messinger learned that premiums for his 94 employees would rise another 19 percent this year — to $749 a month from $634 a month last year.

Unable to raise prices on his products, Mr. Messinger is doing what thousands of other business owners are doing: asking employees to pay more, accept less, or both. This year, workers will have to pay a bigger share of the premiums for family health coverage. Down the road, he worries about cutting costs by eliminating coverage for routine doctors' visits.

"I never thought the day would ever come when I would say this, but we will be heading to socialized medicine, and pretty quick, if we don't do something about this," said Mr. Messinger, who describes himself as a lifelong conservative.

Among small-business owners, health care costs are issue No. 1, and the reason is simple. While those costs are rising at double-digit rates for almost everybody, leading to higher numbers of people without insurance, they have climbed even faster than the average for small companies, which were already less likely than large employers to offer any kind of health insurance.

Only about 47 percent of small companies offer health insurance, according to surveys by the National Federation of Independent Business, an advocacy group in Washington — though the figure is significantly higher, above 70 percent, for companies with more than 20 employees. By contrast, 98 percent of businesses with more than 200 employees offer coverage.

A survey of 2,800 companies by the Kaiser Family Foundation last fall found that insurance premiums increased 15.5 percent in 2003 for those with fewer than 200 employees and 13.2 percent for larger enterprises.

Because they are rated largely on the age and health experience ratings of their workers, businesses with a slightly older work force or a handful of employees with significant medical bills can see their rates soar 20 or 30 percent.

"If you are a company with two or three employees, there is no one you can really go and talk to," said Gary Clasko, vice president of the Kaiser Foundation. "It really feels like it's outside of your control."

According to the foundation's survey, 26 percent of companies with fewer than 200 workers reported rate increases of more than 20 percent last year, compared with 20 percent at large corporations.

Horror stories are everywhere. John Seeger Jr., the chief executive of Dayton Rogers in Minneapolis, a manufacturer of precision metal products with more than 300 employees, will pay 24 percent more for health insurance this year. One reason is that a handful of employees required expensive hospital care, including one dependent of an employee who needed $1.2 million in medical care over the previous two years.

The National Association of Manufacturers, a trade group in Washington whose members include hundreds of small employers like Power Curbers, estimated that health care costs now account for a far higher share of labor costs in the United States than in most other countries, putting companies here at a disadvantage competitively.

The National Federation of Independent Business, which represents 600,000 small companies, now places health costs at the top of its political agenda. "The smaller the company, the bigger the problem," said Dan Danner, the federation's executive vice president and top lobbyist.

But there are no easy solutions. Hospitalization costs and prescription drugs are responsible for much of the soaring rates. President Bush, prodded by small-business lobbying groups, has thrown his support behind the concept of "association health plans," which would be federally certified insurance programs that would pool the risks of many small companies and allow them to gain more clout in bargaining for better rates with insurance companies.

"It's a jobs issue, it's a competitiveness issue and it's a human issue," said Senator Jim Talent, Republican of Missouri, an advocate of legislation to permit association health plans.

But even ardent supporters acknowledge that these plans would provide only partial relief. And the politics are treacherous. Most governors and state insurance regulators oppose the idea, because they do not want to weaken individual state requirements for minimum health care coverage and financial standards for insurers. In fact, one reason many small companies like the idea is that it would free them from state requirements to cover things like chiropractic care or routine checkups.

Opposition is also intense from Blue Cross Blue Shield, which is the largest provider of insurance to small employers and has thousands of employees across the country.

Finally, Democratic presidential candidates and many Democratic lawmakers are calling for a more sweeping expansion of government-financed health care.

Both of the leading Democratic candidates have proposed big increases in federal spending on health care as well as specific measures aimed at small businesses. Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, the front-runner, would allow businesses with fewer than 50 employees to buy insurance through the system that covers federal employees. He has also proposed a tax credit of 50 percent for the health coverage costs of small businesses.

His chief rival, Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, has proposed giving federal money to states for the creation of insurance pools for companies with fewer than 50 workers, and tax credits for small companies with low-income work forces.

If Congress fails to pass any new health care legislation this year, which is likely, employers will face a grim choice: absorb higher costs at a time when they cannot raise their prices, or alienate employees with cuts in benefits.

Entrepreneurs who employ only a few dozen people or fewer find themselves devoting big chunks of time to the intricacies of competing health insurance proposals. And though many companies say their business has improved along with the national economy, they do not feel they can pass along rising health care costs to customers.

Starbak Communications, a company in Waltham, Mass., that makes equipment to transmit video signals over the Internet, is expecting sales to jump to about $7 million this year from $4.5 million last year. But the company's chief executive, Gregory L. Casale, is cutting back on health care benefits to reduce the impact of a 10 percent rise in premiums to about $514 a person each month. That translates into an overall increase of $240,000 a year at a time when the company is still not making a profit.

Mr. Casale, who recently relocated many of his employees to Waltham from Columbus, Ohio, is trying to keep costs down without losing workers who are already struggling with Waltham's higher cost of living.

"You hire a good employee, but then they say they aren't getting what they're looking for," he said. "Retention wasn't a concern over the past few years, when jobs were hard to find, but we saw that changing in the last part of last year. They are looking much more closely at perks and benefits, at what's being offered by our company compared to what's being offered by rivals to lure them away."

To reduce the company's costs, Mr. Casale is considering requiring his employees to pay 20 percent of the cost of health insurance premiums. To ease the sting, the company would offset part of the added expense to its workers by offering them new benefits for life insurance and disability insurance.

Even companies larger than Starbak find themselves in the same situation. Those with several hundred workers are big enough to self-insure, often setting up their own health care plan and hiring a traditional insurance carrier to administer it. Self-insurance gives some companies an alternative to the prices demanded by insurance companies, but it is no panacea.

Mr. Seeger, of Dayton-Rogers, operates a self-insured program of health benefits. But he still needs to buy backup insurance to cover costs if expenses exceed the amount his company has allocated in its self-insurance plan. Because of a handful of very expensive medical cases in the last few years, those additional insurance costs are climbing rapidly.

Thus far, surveys by the National Federation of Independent Business indicate that few small companies are ending health insurance benefits entirely. But many are relying more on temporary workers and part timers, who do not necessarily get any insurance, or are outsourcing work to foreign countries. That trend is unlikely to end this year.

Nytimes

How nice it is to have privatized system...

SVMc · Feb 25, 2004, 01:51 am

<blockquote>Quote:<hr size="1" />Originally Posted by
"Care for underserved patients. UCI Family Health Center in Santa Ana provides primary and preventive care to low-income and uninsured patients. As the county’s only Federally Qualified Health Center, the facility ensures that people living in medically underserved areas have access to health care."
<hr size="1" /></blockquote>

While that link is welcome to see because it demonstrates that there are some things being done; the problem is that it is the last paragraph in an article that pre-empts itself with the discription of a boy who received treatment after being thrown 230 ft. when impacted by a car, the quality of the level 1 trauma unit and a burn centre. All of which constitute life or limb conditions for treatment. Furthermore it tells us nothing about the prevelence of this occurance in any other region. How many Americans have access to primary and preventative care? Under what conditions? Provided by whom?

<blockquote>Quote:<hr size="1" />Originally Posted by
Saying, "either taking someone else's stuff without his permission is theft or it isn't," is what you call an "extreme" position? How is there any middle ground there?
<hr size="1" /></blockquote>

Well that's exactly the problem. You are incapable of creating any middle ground in your mind. In your analytical scope you believe that you have not given express permission for the government to demand taxes from you as an individual therefore the government must be committing an act of theft against you. You ignore all arguments to the contrary. If you insist on following an X = X linear equation you will get the result you want. But that's because you are only considering one variable and the problem is that more than one exist. You and the government do not exist as amorphous entities juxtaposed to each other. You and society do not exist seperate from each other. You ignore history, sociology and social psychology that inform us of how and why we have constructed societies and to what benefits and detrements. You have decided that by your definition taxes are theft. Then you universalize theft as wrong. So there are two problems first you have to be extreme enough to buy into the tax = theft equation. Then you need to employ a universal moral of theft = wrong. Many people hold a range of moderate views regarding taxiation that do not go to the extreme of total systemic tax (all income is systemically distributed) or to your extreme of no tax should exist because tax = theft. These are two extreme views at either side of the spectrum. There are many debates inbetween on method, purpose, use and distribution of taxes that are not at the margins of the argument, hence not as extreme. If you don't want to be defined as extreme then show some reflexive reasoning capabilities.

<blockquote>Quote:<hr size="1" />Originally Posted by
You don't see mass extortion as extreme . . .

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sure I think mass extortion is extreme. But I don't think that in this context mass extortion is happening. <hr size="1" /></blockquote>

You really tried to use that one line out of context. You originally accused me of not "see[ing] mass extortion as extreme". I agreed that mass extortion is extreme in response to your attempt to bait, and then qualified as above that while I would believe that mass extortion is extreme I do not think that taxiation as issued by the Canadian government in respect to health care qualifies as mass extortion. So you are accusing me of advocating mass extortion and therefore I hold extreme views. The problem is that if the majority of the population truly believed that taxation was the equivilent of mass extortion we would be having riots and reveloutions by now, which we are not. So there have to be a number of people (at least in Canada and I expect in the states) that while they may not agree with aspects of taxiation do believe it plays a role in our society as a positive enough force not to advocate it's entire decimation. That would be a moderate view (where I fall). Then there are those who advocate total taxiation and redistribution (that would be the other extreme). If the best argument you can come up with is that tax = theft = mass extortion. You've made it and you don't seem to have convinced many people, this might be symptomatic of the lack of proof you have provided. After all you are an American on a Canadian thread trying to convince Canadians that the Canadian system equates to mass extortion. I think the burden of proof is on you to make that case.

<blockquote>Quote:<hr size="1" />Originally Posted by
Gack. "Show me the people who agree with you" -- is that what makes something right?? Also, "it's just your opinion"? Of course it's my opinion. I thought this was an opinion forum . . .
<hr size="1" /></blockquote>

I thought you were supposed to be an educated person, if you are you are familiar with citation and will take no offense to it. Everyone is entitled to opinion, and you can advocate unsubstantiated opinions till the sky falls, providing citation doesn't make and opinion right or wrong it enriches the debate by providing outside sourcing and fresh arguments so that people on either side of the debate and those following the debate can gain from each participants knowledge and further develope their opinions by either strenghening their origninal position or modifying it accoriding to new evidence presented.

For example here are some academic sources that advocate public health care in Canada:

Theories of justice in health care : philosophical and legal issues
Lance Hotz.
Hotz, Glyn Lance.

Private highway, one-way street : the deklein and fall of Canadian medicare? / Robert G. Evans

Delivering health care services: public, not-for-profit, or private?
Raisa B. Deber.

The law of consent to treatment in Ontario / Brian F. Hoffman.

The fight for public health : principles and practice of media advocacy / Simon Chapman, Deborah Lupton.

I did find one article that agrees with your equation of the state as similar to the mafia.... although they are addressing militarism, defense budgets and policing not taxiation and health care.

The politics of collective violence / Charles Tilly

He makes a strong argument to see the state as running a protection racket to keep people scared and funding militaries and police forces, but considering his work on social movements and revolutionary causes I think he might lean towards social taxiation. But if you think not please offer your views. I'm specifically referring to the chapter entitled "war making and states making as organized crime".

<blockquote>Quote:<hr size="1" />Originally Posted by
If you think literally everyone in Canada agrees that it's not theft, you're ignoring statistical probability<hr size="1" /></blockquote>

I never said that ALL Canadians think alike, on the subject of private Health Care I'd bet Ralph Klein, Mike Harris and Earnie Eves have some different views from mine although it's interesting that Stephan Harper and Belinda Stronarch refuse to throw into the same pool. However, I have provided refereed sources above of numerous people beyond myself and the other Canadians on this board who do advocate public health care.

<blockquote>Quote:<hr size="1" />Originally Posted by
Since corporations enjoy special protection from the state, to protect themselves from unlimited liability in return for acting as a tax collector for the state; and since they actually do have an explicit agreement -- a contract -- with the state to do x in return for y, why not tax corporations to fund health care for all? I'll be happy to support free choice in health care as YOU describe it, i.e., everyone has access to health care, and those who want to pay extra for better (or worse*) care than the state provides can do so.
<hr size="1" /></blockquote>

I fail to see how this is drastically different from the current private health care system. So I fail to see how this is not a private enterprise solution that would exclude the poorest elements of society from obtaining health care, and would most definately let certain economically priviledged individuals receive better health care than others. Hence the comment about capitilist driven interests being counter intutive to universal coverage. First of all how would a state tax a corporation for providing health coverage to all people? Why would a corporation be inclined to offer health care to all people if they would have to service people who could not pay them? If they had to service people who could not pay them (the free rider problem) then wouldn't the fees have to go up for the people who could pay them to compensate for the free riders so that the people who do use the system are paying for those who can't pay... how is this different from taxiation? How would you prevent line jumping for medically necessary procedures based on ability to pay instead of need?

koi · Feb 25, 2004, 03:12 am

meh... none.
I don't vote and won't vote. I refuse to condone the violation of rights, the acts of aggression and the committing of Theft by cohersion and force.
by voting I am accepting a system which promotes all of these to a single extent; to achieve and maintain power.
come election day, I shall stand outside my ballot hall handcuffed and gagged with a sign reading "cry freedom" around my neck.

View Poll Results: how would you vote in the next Canadian Fed Election?
Liberal	4	18.18%
Conservative	4	18.18%
NDP	6	27.27%
Bloq	0	0%
Green	3	13.64%
other	5	22.73%
Voters: 22. You may not vote

Feb 24, 2004, 01:41 am	#101 (permalink) (top)
SVMc Lazy Sniper Location: Toronto, Canada Posts: 513	[/quote]</span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by You're implying that every doctor draws the line at life-and-death before treating a person who needs care and can't afford to pay the same rate as Bill Gates. That's not true. That sort of exaggeration amounts to an appeal to fear<hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'> It was / is my understanding that the hospitals in the United States cannot administer care unless the person (without insurance) is in danger of loosing life or limb. Those are the sources that I have found, so I'm not trying to engender fear. If you have sources that state more clearly when an uninsured person is able to obtain health care without being driven into debt or paying large sums of money please provide them. Also it is no more fear mongering than your implications that every government / state, politician, lawyer, bureaucrate, public administrator, civil servant and anyone else who works in the public sector are all in a collusion to "rob" you of your money and provide you with nothing you use. </span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by Originally Posted by (SVMc,) You can take the Canadian health care system to court . . . -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- . . .if they let you. <hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'> There can be an extreme argument made for the collusion of judicial and executive branches of government. However Canada does have a much more seperated system than the United States. </span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by Different use of the word "choice." That's equivocation.<hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'> Yes I did say "opinion" what you have presented has not been backed up by fact or figure or secondary source material (which I wouldn't consider proof of fact either merely concurrence). And unless you use a VERY narrow definition of the word choice as is the only choice is to participate or not, than no, we are not using a different definition. In fact that still applies. No one MUST live in Canada, even if you do live in Canada you can go live on the crown land and not pay property taxes, live off the land and you won't have to pay income tax. Use barter and trade systems.... If you choose to live in Canada on the grid you will pay taxes when you are a working adult above the poverty margin. Believe it or not people do choose to live in Canada because they know they will get health care. Sure I can choose not to pay my insurance in the United States, but that is no more of a free choice for me to make if I cannot afford insurancein the united states. Your definition of choice as it pertains to HMO's and the United States medical system only applies to those that have the economic wherewithall to choose. </span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by Only a brain damaged jackass would say "yes." <hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'> You are stepping dangerously close to an Ad Hominem attack. Lets keep this on the intellecual level and not resort to name calling in relation to each others view points. </span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by "If health care should be monopolized in the hands of a bunch of lawyers on the grounds that it is a need and no one 'should' go without, then why shouldn't other 'needs' be monopolized?" The list of "needs" is endless<hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'> The reason you never get a satifactory answer to the above question is twofold from my perspective. First you seem to be employing the question as a slippery slope argument. As you recognized "needs" are endless. I'm assuming you are refereing to Maslow's heirarchy of needs (basic survival (food, shelter), procreation (sex), emotional support, intellectual stimulation etc... etc..). So you seem to be employing the argument that it is all or nothing. We either submit to providing all the needs via state centric institutions or we turn them all loose to market control. So long as you will never be satisfied with a "grey" area answer, one that views the world and it's issues as a diverse range. No one will be able to answer you to your own satisfaction, and that is because you have set your own range of satisfaction so that you will only be satisfied with your own answer. But I have no need to satisfy your criteria of a fair answer. So here goes (but for the above reasons you will not be satisfied). I say break the heirarchy at basic needs, we as a society have an obligation to try to provide the basic necessities for human survival and dignity as defined by the UN charter on Human Rights and measured by the UN Human Development Index. Typically these services are provided to the poorest in society via some sort of administered tax, it may be the worst system we have come up with, except for all the others. FYI, governments do control food via farm subsidies and price flooring as well as the administration of food banks. Restaurants need to be licenced here, and are graded on a three point level scale administered by the government. Some provinces have public health care, and while I am not in favour of government run media, our current CBC is being much more unbiased than our one family conglomerate that controls ALL of our other broadcast Media (Can-West Global). I'm not advocating all of these controls, I recognize controls can, have and are corrupt in some areas, but I don't think that that is a reason to unilaterally do away with them. You have proposed no situations that would provide for the worlds poorest in your arguments. I can't eat freedom. </span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by You can write your politicians, even bribe them, like other special-interests do. The final decision is made by the gang with the guns and the presumed right to use them. What are you prepared to do if the state's mouthpiece says, "Sorry. You're just one little person. Reality dictates that our priorites be aligned for the good of all the people, and we decided that your suggestions while noble, aren't feasible at this time"? <hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'> The preoccupation with the gun is an interesting phenomena in America. Canadian history is very different, we achived our independance without the use of a single gun. It's called organization. And organization does not have to mean revolt or full revolution. If popular input had no effect on government, we wouldn't have public health care, public pension plans, public auto insurance, public water, infrastructure, affordable housing (we need more), hydro etc... etc... I cannot change the policy direction of government, but that would be an equally dangerous slippery slope if each individuals inputs would alter the course of government action. </span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by Imposing one party's narrow beliefs on others under threat of force is an abdication of responsibility<hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'> Again, the implication that if one does not agree with state actions the state will beat you into compliance. You have the choice to move accross the boarder, you have the choice to live on crown land. We don't have debtors prisons any more. And if the government cannot hold people socially responsible who will? </span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by In fact, the entire impetus toward state solutions to individual problems is based on taking responsibility away from the individual<hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'> So you are arguing that the government, by providing public health care (welfare or any other social programs) is taking responsibility away from the individual? How by giving them what they need to survive? Ideally you think the person should be able to haul themselves up by thier own boot straps and create their own market base economy solution to thier socio-economic position regarless of any social barriers imposed by a pre-exisiting society? I will just never understand how this is a logical argument to people. It has been proven so many times that if we increase the security and wealth of the bottom decile of the population the entire society does better on all HDI scales. Everytime you use a derogutory connotation of the government you slide toward regulations on: grocers, lanlords, animal testing, toilet water level (I'm guessing that recently came through in the U.S.) but you avoid the topic at hand the provision of medically necessary health care. Perhaps the state shouldn't have to regulate the level of water in our toilet tanks... but do you really trust every individual out there to use thier water responsibly enough that we will not run out of clean water if not administered through large national bodies? As much as you might I look at what we have done to our environment in the pass and remain skeptical. And I'm not a nihilist so I won't indulge those arguments as viable alternatives. </span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by There are better ways than mass theft to help them. <hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'> Okay lets hear your social policy. </span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by According to popular opinion, there are 40,000,000 people in America who have no health insurance. That looks like we have a choice to me. You know, not everyone who doesn't have health insurance are poor downtrodden exploited peons<hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'> Actually I finally got that figure off of the UNDP report on Health and Education 2003 - it equates to 15% of the population. And while I realize that not all of those people do not have health insurance because they cannot afford it that lucky group only amounts to 3% of that original 15% or less than 1% in total according to the UNDP report. The rest of those people do not have a choice. Close to half of them are considered just above the poverty line and will go into sever debt if they require emergency health care. That leaves close to 20 million Americans who are living below the povety line (approximately 7% of the population which corresponds to long term unemployment levels - real unemployment hovering around 9% for 2002). So lets talk numbers. In your bio I remember something about military service. Lets talk colleteral damage figures in the case of first strike capability during the cold war. Are you familiar with these? These always baffle me and they become important again as we visit the rebirth of the TMD and NMD systems. How do you arrive at a figure of how many people it is acceptable to slip through the cracks? How many die for how many others to live? Sure health care is not viewed a equivilent with traditional security dilemmas however it is getting increasing attention. As we approach a broadening and deepening of security (see the ICISS report on the reponsibility to protect) these issues are comming to acheive recognition as human security issues. When we do not protect those who cannot protect themselves we are making a life or death choice for them. </span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by maybe you believe politicians are really good guys who have your best interest at heart. I don't believe it. I see them as crooks, thieves, con artists, and thugs, and I haven't seen any reason here to change my mind. <hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'> Again I don't see this as a black and white issue, as in they are either allturistically good or crooks. Yes, some politicians, public servants etc... have been crooks, but some have not. I measure the effectiveness of public service according to the HDI, ICISS human security agenda, economic well-being etc...If all politicians were unilaterally crooks we'd all be living in despotisms. We have to acknowledge the good our governments have been able to do in some areas. This is of course contrasted by the bad they have done in other areas. It's not an either or, all or nothing, black and white assessment. </span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by I never said the state has the power to shut down corporations. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It does, though. Are you denying it? <hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'> legally no, pragmatically yes... corporations have the economic power to protect themselves. </span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by So, let me get this straight -- you're saying the corporations really rule over the state?<hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'> You're really an all or nothing person aren't you? Currently I believe that in many countries the corporations have the ear of the governments more than the population does. However this is also a reflection of socico-economic positioning that places those who become members of he political class in the same socio-economic class as those who are members of the corporate class. This will also be reflected in educational standards and access to socio-economic institutions largely denied to lower classes. Does this mean the population has no recourse - No. Governments and corporations tend to listen to popular unrest. Again we place this on a scale of effectiveness. Blood diamonds in the Great Lakes regions of Africa are examples of failed states who cater exclusively to the interests of corporate interests. Canada, Norway, Switzerland do not fall into the same range of the scale. </span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by Bad things happen in the world. Injustice, poverty, and people getting sick without having insurance. The solution is to get to work doing what you can to fix what you can. Asking politicians to save you by robbing your neighbors is a case of "two wrongs don't make a right." <hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'> This is again I repeat the ideological impass. You see it as theivery I don't. And you completely ducked my question about consensus means of community governing and tried to turn that into another yes/no either/or you/me debate. How about addressing consensus mechanisms? Capitalism is: Man exploiting man. Socialism is the other way around.

Feb 24, 2004, 02:27 am	#102 (permalink) (top)
Jackney Sneeb Igneous Magma Posts: 240	</span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by (Bayou,) </span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by (Jackney Sneeb) I agree with cooperation. That is the opposite of the state. The state is coercion. <hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'> Except capitalism isnt cooperation,<hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'> Straw man. I didn't say anything about "capitalism." --Jackney Sneeb

Feb 24, 2004, 02:59 am	#103 (permalink) (top)
Jackney Sneeb Igneous Magma Posts: 240	</span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by (SVMc,) It was / is my understanding that the hospitals in the United States cannot administer care unless the person (without insurance) is in danger of loosing life or limb.<hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'> Well, your understanding is just wrong. </span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by (SVMc,) Also it is no more fear mongering than your implications that every government / state, politician, lawyer, bureaucrate, public administrator, civil servant and anyone else who works in the public sector are all in a collusion to "rob" you of your money and provide you with nothing you use.<hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'> a) I didn't say all those people were in collusion to rob us. I said lawyers and politicians and con artists and thugs of the state are, and it's true. b) I didn't say they provide "nothing," I said they decide what they will provide, and that's also true. 'a' and 'b' have no correlation with one another. </span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by (SVMc,) There can be an extreme argument made for the collusion of judicial and executive branches of government.<hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'> Why is everything I say that you have to agree with "extreme"? You don't see mass extortion as extreme . . . </span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by (SVMc,) Yes I did say "opinion" what you have presented has not been backed up by fact or figure or secondary source material . . . <hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'> Hold it. Since when is it my obligation to prove why I don't want politicians having a monopoly on my health care? YOU are the one trying to convince me it's a good idea. YOU need to show why I should submit to something YOU think is so wonderful. So far I have seen nothing that would convince me that the ASSHOLES in Washington DC SHOULD have a blank check written against our wages so they can enjoy a MONOPOLY on something as important to us as our health care! The burden of proof is on YOU, my friend. </span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by (SVMc,) </span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by There are better ways than mass theft to help them. <hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'> Okay lets hear your social policy.<hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'> I'm going to offer a compromise, to see where your heart truly lies on the issue of coercion, monopolies, capitalism, and mass extortion: Since corporations enjoy special protection from the state, to protect themselves from unlimited liability in return for acting as a tax collector for the state; and since they actually do have an explicit agreement -- a contract -- with the state to do x in return for y, why not tax corporations to fund health care for all? I'll be happy to support free choice in health care as YOU describe it, i.e., everyone has access to health care, and those who want to pay extra for better (or worse) care than the state provides can do so. Now, unless you are just another corporate lackey trying to protect the CEOs and their wealthy shareholders from the people, or unless you just have a fetish for forcing your narrow views down everyone's throat via the dictum of "might makes right," it would only be reasonable for you to accede to this generous compromise. --Jackney Sneeb Who would want "worse" care you ask? Some people believe in homeopathic medicine, for example. They don't trust the traditional system run by the AMA. They have a right to choose other alternatives, even if they aren't the kind you like, you see. It doesn't cost anyone else anything to let them choose.

Feb 24, 2004, 05:50 am	#104 (permalink) (top)
Bayou Igneous Magma Location: Calgary Alberta Canada Posts: 154	</span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by (jackney sneebs) Hold it. Since when is it my obligation to prove why I don't want politicians having a monopoly on my health care? YOU are the one trying to convince me it's a good idea. YOU need to show why I should submit to something YOU think is so wonderful. So far I have seen nothing that would convince me that the ASSHOLES in Washington DC SHOULD have a blank check written against our wages so they can enjoy a MONOPOLY on something as important to us as our health care! The burden of proof is on YOU, my friend<hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'> Nooo we never asked you to become part of this conversation in fact.....Isnt the title of the thread called OPINIONS OF CANADIANS? We dont want our health system to become a luxury, though in the long run to succeed at that would be to replace the capitalist system all toghether. Deal with the fact that the majority of canadians dont share your point of view and dont reply here again then if you truly feel the way you do in the above quote. </span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by (jackney sneebs) I'm going to offer a compromise, to see where your heart truly lies on the issue of coercion, monopolies, capitalism, and mass extortion: Since corporations enjoy special protection from the state, to protect themselves from unlimited liability in return for acting as a tax collector for the state; and since they actually do have an explicit agreement -- a contract -- with the state to do x in return for y, why not tax corporations to fund health care for all? I'll be happy to support free choice in health care as YOU describe it, i.e., everyone has access to health care, and those who want to pay extra for better (or worse) care than the state provides can do so. Now, unless you are just another corporate lackey trying to protect the CEOs and their wealthy shareholders from the people, or unless you just have a fetish for forcing your narrow views down everyone's throat via the dictum of "might makes right," it would only be reasonable for you to accede to this generous compromise. Who would want "worse" care you ask? Some people believe in homeopathic medicine, for example. They don't trust the traditional system run by the AMA. They have a right to choose other alternatives, even if they aren't the kind you like, you see. It doesn't cost anyone else anything to let them choose.Hold it. Since when is it my obligation to prove why I don't want politicians having a monopoly on my health care? YOU are the one trying to convince me it's a good idea. YOU need to show why I should submit to something YOU think is so wonderful. So far I have seen nothing that would convince me that the ASSHOLES in Washington DC SHOULD have a blank check written against our wages so they can enjoy a MONOPOLY on something as important to us as our health care! The burden of proof is on YOU, my friend.<hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'> Okay now that you have mentioned elements like MONOPOLY and CORPORATIONS and TAXES which are products of a capitalist system, answer my original questions. The absence of a real choice that forces a person to participate in the capitalist system or starve, a system that predetermines that a persons worktime spent is not equivalent to the capital value of the worktime received. So in reality business or the capitalist system takes your worktime, or its ideal value money 1st before government ever does and places it in the hand of the bourgoise. Thus the defense that it is stealing when taking money from the bourgoise, when this money has been proven to be already stolen is laughable. The government is the only force that can moderate the capitalist systems inherent deviation towards greed and selfishness. So Jackney you havent proven that the money you make hasnt been stolen from someone else or more likely, stolen by the employee 1st and the government is really only getting second dibs, though 1st dibs of the entrepeneur or business man, so how is stealing worktime okay? <span style='font-size:16pt;line-height:100%'><span style='font-family:Impact'><span style='color:green'>Vote NDP "The independence of art for the revolution. "The revolution for the complete liberation of art!"</span></span></span>

Feb 24, 2004, 07:36 am	#105 (permalink) (top)
Jackney Sneeb Igneous Magma Posts: 240	</span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by (Bayou,) </span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by (jackney sneebs) Hold it. Since when is it my obligation to prove why I don't want politicians having a monopoly on my health care? YOU are the one trying to convince me it's a good idea. YOU need to show why I should submit to something YOU think is so wonderful. So far I have seen nothing that would convince me that the ASSHOLES in Washington DC SHOULD have a blank check written against our wages so they can enjoy a MONOPOLY on something as important to us as our health care! The burden of proof is on YOU, my friend<hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'> Nooo we never asked you to become part of this conversation . . .<hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'> Is your name SVMc? --Jackney Sneeb

Feb 24, 2004, 07:39 am	#106 (permalink) (top)
Bayou Igneous Magma Location: Calgary Alberta Canada Posts: 154	</span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by (Jackney Sneeb) Is your name SVMc?<hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'> Are you Canadian, do you live in Canada? <span style='font-size:16pt;line-height:100%'><span style='font-family:Impact'><span style='color:green'>Vote NDP "The independence of art for the revolution. "The revolution for the complete liberation of art!"</span></span></span>

Feb 24, 2004, 07:48 am	#107 (permalink) (top)
Jackney Sneeb Igneous Magma Posts: 240	</span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by (Bayou,) </span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by (Jackney Sneeb) Is your name SVMc?<hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'> Are you Canadian, do you live in Canada?<hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'> Are you the administrator, are you kicking all the other non-Canadians off the thread? --Jackney Sneeb

Feb 24, 2004, 07:58 am	#108 (permalink) (top)
Bayou Igneous Magma Location: Calgary Alberta Canada Posts: 154	ooookay back again to where this started: </span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by (jackney sneebs) Hold it. Since when is it my obligation to prove why I don't want politicians having a monopoly on my health care? YOU are the one trying to convince me it's a good idea. YOU need to show why I should submit to something YOU think is so wonderful. So far I have seen nothing that would convince me that the ASSHOLES in Washington DC SHOULD have a blank check written against our wages so they can enjoy a MONOPOLY on something as important to us as our health care! The burden of proof is on YOU, my friend<hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'> Since when was it your obligation to inform us of your attitudes towards our system? We are not trying to convince you of anything, you keep coming in this thread an shiiting on our government institutions, we fight back with statistics and ethical arguments while, you respond with moral garbage that has something to do with stealing....but giving it back in another form doesnt seem to count. You want a fight, we got plenty of it honey- so keep coming back with the whatsa gun remarks we will gladlly fill in the blanks of the real questions you try to distort. So which post of mine should I bring up again in which you havent answered adequately, Ghandi knows theirs been more then a few of them. <span style='font-size:16pt;line-height:100%'><span style='font-family:Impact'><span style='color:green'>Vote NDP "The independence of art for the revolution. "The revolution for the complete liberation of art!"</span></span></span>

Feb 24, 2004, 08:11 am	#109 (permalink) (top)
Jackney Sneeb Igneous Magma Posts: 240	</span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by (Bayou,) Since when was it your obligation to inform us of your attitudes towards our system?<hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'> I'm sure you feel that way. Frankly, I'm not interested in your opinion. --Jackney Sneeb

Feb 24, 2004, 10:40 am	#110 (permalink) (top)
SVMc Lazy Sniper Location: Toronto, Canada Posts: 513	</span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by It was / is my understanding that the hospitals in the United States cannot administer care unless the person (without insurance) is in danger of loosing life or limb. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Well, your understanding is just wrong. <hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'> Prove it. I will admit I am not an expert in the bureaucratic management of the American health care system and the procedures to obtain health care when one in uninsured, but everything I have come accross so far has indicated that an uninsured person is not entitled to health care they cannot pay for out of pocket unless life or limb is in danger. </span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by Why is everything I say that you have to agree with "extreme"? You don't see mass extortion as extreme . . . <hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'> I say that most things you are arguing are extreme because you seem to see everything in an either or context. Sure I think mass extortion is extreme. But I don't think that in this context mass extortion is happening. Just try to take universal health care away from Canadians and you will hear the public voices you claim politicians don't listne to loud and clear. Witness the booting of the recent conservative party from Ontario (the most conservative province). They slashed health care for four years, tried to chage thier tune jut before the election and got booted out of office in one of the biggest political landslides in Canadian history. </span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by Hold it. Since when is it my obligation to prove why I don't want politicians having a monopoly on my health care? YOU are the one trying to convince me it's a good idea. YOU need to show why I should submit to something YOU think is so wonderful. So far I have seen nothing that would convince me that the ASSHOLES in Washington DC SHOULD have a blank check written against our wages so they can enjoy a MONOPOLY on something as important to us as our health care! The burden of proof is on YOU, my friend. <hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'> First: your bio says you have two masters degrees you should be familiar with principles of academic honesty and proper citations. You claim that mass extortion and theft are occurring. Show me the numbers, show me the people who concur with you. It's general principle if you are trying to cite fact as opposed to opinion. If it's just your opinion you are entitiled to yours as I am to mine. Second: I am not trying to prove to you why universal health care should be brought to America. I and other Canadian's on this board are defending our universal health care system to an American who felt the need to disparage our system as not publicially responsible and theft. This debate is an old one in Canada. But every Canadian know universal health care is not going to stop here anytime soon, and most don't want it to. I would really like to get some opinions of other Canadians on the 6 provinces that are considering moving to PR voting, the current attorney general's report on the Quebec sponsorship program and some other local issues. Third: If you don't want universal health care there's a really simple solution. Stay in the United States. That's why there are two different countries. The United States is in about as much jeopardy of getting universal health care as Canada is of stopping it. In regards to your social policy. Capitalism run by coporations is not a choice, people cannot choose to opt out of a capitalist system when basic needs become subject to the market. Giving people the choice of paying for health care or not getting it doesn't equate to choice. Okay Bayou, Lets start with some topics that remain uncovered in each of our own posts. If Jack won't respond to them we can respond to each other here are mine from my last post in summary (go back and look at full text) if you put up the one's you want covered I'll reply to them. 1) Maslow's heirarchy of needs as a measurment for social administration feasible or not? 2) re: organization, socail movements in Canada, what kind of impact have they had? Vancouver, Quebec were they effective? Why? Why not? 3) Is the UNDP HDI an adequate measure for social responsibility? Why? Why not? 4) What did you think about the social equivilant of colleteral damage? Are you familiar with Lloyd Axoworthy's Human Security iniative? If so, do you think it really tackles human security or is it still aimed at traditional security? Can human security really be used for what has traditionally been socio-economic root causes of conflict? 5) Nunavut and Iqualuit the transition to consensus government, can it only work in remote locations? Capitalism is: Man exploiting man. Socialism is the other way around.

Feb 24, 2004, 11:58 am	#111 (permalink) (top)
Jackney Sneeb Igneous Magma Posts: 240	</span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by (SVMc,) </span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by It was / is my understanding that the hospitals in the United States cannot administer care unless the person (without insurance) is in danger of loosing life or limb. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Well, your understanding is just wrong. <hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'> Prove it.<hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'> "Care for underserved patients. UCI Family Health Center in Santa Ana provides primary and preventive care to low-income and uninsured patients. As the county’s only Federally Qualified Health Center, the facility ensures that people living in medically underserved areas have access to health care." </span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by (SVMc,) </span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by Why is everything I say that you have to agree with "extreme"? You don't see mass extortion as extreme . . . <hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'> I say that most things you are arguing are extreme because you seem to see everything in an either or context.<hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'> Saying, "either taking someone else's stuff without his permission is theft or it isn't," is what you call an "extreme" position? How is there any middle ground there? </span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by Sure I think mass extortion is extreme.<hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'> Uh . . YOU advocate that, not me. Why aren't YOU the extremist?? </span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by (SVMc,) </span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by Hold it. Since when is it my obligation to prove why I don't want politicians having a monopoly on my health care? YOU are the one trying to convince me it's a good idea. YOU need to show why I should submit to something YOU think is so wonderful. So far I have seen nothing that would convince me that the ASSHOLES in Washington DC SHOULD have a blank check written against our wages so they can enjoy a MONOPOLY on something as important to us as our health care! The burden of proof is on YOU, my friend. <hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'> First: your bio says you have two masters degrees you should be familiar with principles of academic honesty and proper citations. You claim that mass extortion and theft are occurring. Show me the numbers, show me the people who concur with you. It's general principle if you are trying to cite fact as opposed to opinion. If it's just your opinion you are entitiled to yours as I am to mine.<hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'> Gack. "Show me the people who agree with you" -- is that what makes something right?? Also, "it's just your opinion"? Of course it's my opinion. I thought this was an opinion forum . . . Here's why it's my opinion that the income tax is extortion. I have asked several authoritarians to explain the difference between a) "Give us your money or we won't protect you from us," and b) "Give us your money or we won't protect you from us," where 'a' is the Mafia and 'b' is the IRS. I could switch 'a' and 'b' and there's no difference. So far no one can tell which is which (other than the name of the gang making the threat). (It is irrelevant to the nature of the act what the two gangs intend to do with the money, by the way.) </span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by (SVMc,) Second: I am not trying to prove to you why universal health care should be brought to America. I and other Canadian's on this board are defending our universal health care system to an American who felt the need to disparage our system as not publicially responsible and theft.<hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'> If you think literally everyone in Canada agrees that it's not theft, you're ignoring statistical probability, at least. I know some Canadians who think taxation is theft, so I don't have to guess. That doesn't make me right, of course. It does impeach any claim on your part that I'm all alone in my opinion, and you ought to be able to objectively evaluate whether you are reacting to my opinion out of logic or emotional attachment to your security blanket -- or even worse, a blind faith in the inherent goodness of politicians. </span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by (SVMc,) In regards to your social policy. Capitalism run by coporations is not a choice, people cannot choose to opt out of a capitalist system when basic needs become subject to the market. Giving people the choice of paying for health care or not getting it doesn't equate to choice.<hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'> I tried to offer a way to compromise. You completely snubbed the essence of it in favor of dredging up the old straw man of "capitalism." This tells me you're only interested in dogmatically hanging on to your position, right or wrong. Fine. Choice to me means "choice," not coercion, force, theft, taxation, monopoly, and fraud. --Jackney Sneeb

Feb 25, 2004, 12:38 am	#112 (permalink) (top)
Mathieu Igneous Magma Location: Montreal Posts: 216	NEW YORK TIMES Cover Story, Special Small Business Section February 24, 2004 Soaring Health Care Costs Leave Little Companies in a Bind By EDMUND L. ANDREWS LIKE thousands of other business owners around the country, Dwight Messinger got the bad news last fall. As the owner of Power Curbers Inc., a manufacturer of paving equipment in Salisbury, N.C., Mr. Messinger had already seen his company's health insurance premiums jump 25 percent in 2003 while benefits were trimmed. His own wife had been denied reimbursement for a precautionary colonoscopy. Now, shopping desperately for lower prices, Mr. Messinger learned that premiums for his 94 employees would rise another 19 percent this year — to $749 a month from $634 a month last year. Unable to raise prices on his products, Mr. Messinger is doing what thousands of other business owners are doing: asking employees to pay more, accept less, or both. This year, workers will have to pay a bigger share of the premiums for family health coverage. Down the road, he worries about cutting costs by eliminating coverage for routine doctors' visits. "I never thought the day would ever come when I would say this, but we will be heading to socialized medicine, and pretty quick, if we don't do something about this," said Mr. Messinger, who describes himself as a lifelong conservative. Among small-business owners, health care costs are issue No. 1, and the reason is simple. While those costs are rising at double-digit rates for almost everybody, leading to higher numbers of people without insurance, they have climbed even faster than the average for small companies, which were already less likely than large employers to offer any kind of health insurance. Only about 47 percent of small companies offer health insurance, according to surveys by the National Federation of Independent Business, an advocacy group in Washington — though the figure is significantly higher, above 70 percent, for companies with more than 20 employees. By contrast, 98 percent of businesses with more than 200 employees offer coverage. A survey of 2,800 companies by the Kaiser Family Foundation last fall found that insurance premiums increased 15.5 percent in 2003 for those with fewer than 200 employees and 13.2 percent for larger enterprises. Because they are rated largely on the age and health experience ratings of their workers, businesses with a slightly older work force or a handful of employees with significant medical bills can see their rates soar 20 or 30 percent. "If you are a company with two or three employees, there is no one you can really go and talk to," said Gary Clasko, vice president of the Kaiser Foundation. "It really feels like it's outside of your control." According to the foundation's survey, 26 percent of companies with fewer than 200 workers reported rate increases of more than 20 percent last year, compared with 20 percent at large corporations. Horror stories are everywhere. John Seeger Jr., the chief executive of Dayton Rogers in Minneapolis, a manufacturer of precision metal products with more than 300 employees, will pay 24 percent more for health insurance this year. One reason is that a handful of employees required expensive hospital care, including one dependent of an employee who needed $1.2 million in medical care over the previous two years. The National Association of Manufacturers, a trade group in Washington whose members include hundreds of small employers like Power Curbers, estimated that health care costs now account for a far higher share of labor costs in the United States than in most other countries, putting companies here at a disadvantage competitively. The National Federation of Independent Business, which represents 600,000 small companies, now places health costs at the top of its political agenda. "The smaller the company, the bigger the problem," said Dan Danner, the federation's executive vice president and top lobbyist. But there are no easy solutions. Hospitalization costs and prescription drugs are responsible for much of the soaring rates. President Bush, prodded by small-business lobbying groups, has thrown his support behind the concept of "association health plans," which would be federally certified insurance programs that would pool the risks of many small companies and allow them to gain more clout in bargaining for better rates with insurance companies. "It's a jobs issue, it's a competitiveness issue and it's a human issue," said Senator Jim Talent, Republican of Missouri, an advocate of legislation to permit association health plans. But even ardent supporters acknowledge that these plans would provide only partial relief. And the politics are treacherous. Most governors and state insurance regulators oppose the idea, because they do not want to weaken individual state requirements for minimum health care coverage and financial standards for insurers. In fact, one reason many small companies like the idea is that it would free them from state requirements to cover things like chiropractic care or routine checkups. Opposition is also intense from Blue Cross Blue Shield, which is the largest provider of insurance to small employers and has thousands of employees across the country. Finally, Democratic presidential candidates and many Democratic lawmakers are calling for a more sweeping expansion of government-financed health care. Both of the leading Democratic candidates have proposed big increases in federal spending on health care as well as specific measures aimed at small businesses. Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, the front-runner, would allow businesses with fewer than 50 employees to buy insurance through the system that covers federal employees. He has also proposed a tax credit of 50 percent for the health coverage costs of small businesses. His chief rival, Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, has proposed giving federal money to states for the creation of insurance pools for companies with fewer than 50 workers, and tax credits for small companies with low-income work forces. If Congress fails to pass any new health care legislation this year, which is likely, employers will face a grim choice: absorb higher costs at a time when they cannot raise their prices, or alienate employees with cuts in benefits. Entrepreneurs who employ only a few dozen people or fewer find themselves devoting big chunks of time to the intricacies of competing health insurance proposals. And though many companies say their business has improved along with the national economy, they do not feel they can pass along rising health care costs to customers. Starbak Communications, a company in Waltham, Mass., that makes equipment to transmit video signals over the Internet, is expecting sales to jump to about $7 million this year from $4.5 million last year. But the company's chief executive, Gregory L. Casale, is cutting back on health care benefits to reduce the impact of a 10 percent rise in premiums to about $514 a person each month. That translates into an overall increase of $240,000 a year at a time when the company is still not making a profit. Mr. Casale, who recently relocated many of his employees to Waltham from Columbus, Ohio, is trying to keep costs down without losing workers who are already struggling with Waltham's higher cost of living. "You hire a good employee, but then they say they aren't getting what they're looking for," he said. "Retention wasn't a concern over the past few years, when jobs were hard to find, but we saw that changing in the last part of last year. They are looking much more closely at perks and benefits, at what's being offered by our company compared to what's being offered by rivals to lure them away." To reduce the company's costs, Mr. Casale is considering requiring his employees to pay 20 percent of the cost of health insurance premiums. To ease the sting, the company would offset part of the added expense to its workers by offering them new benefits for life insurance and disability insurance. Even companies larger than Starbak find themselves in the same situation. Those with several hundred workers are big enough to self-insure, often setting up their own health care plan and hiring a traditional insurance carrier to administer it. Self-insurance gives some companies an alternative to the prices demanded by insurance companies, but it is no panacea. Mr. Seeger, of Dayton-Rogers, operates a self-insured program of health benefits. But he still needs to buy backup insurance to cover costs if expenses exceed the amount his company has allocated in its self-insurance plan. Because of a handful of very expensive medical cases in the last few years, those additional insurance costs are climbing rapidly. Thus far, surveys by the National Federation of Independent Business indicate that few small companies are ending health insurance benefits entirely. But many are relying more on temporary workers and part timers, who do not necessarily get any insurance, or are outsourcing work to foreign countries. That trend is unlikely to end this year. Nytimes How nice it is to have privatized system...

Feb 25, 2004, 01:51 am	#113 (permalink) (top)
SVMc Lazy Sniper Location: Toronto, Canada Posts: 513	</span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by "Care for underserved patients. UCI Family Health Center in Santa Ana provides primary and preventive care to low-income and uninsured patients. As the county’s only Federally Qualified Health Center, the facility ensures that people living in medically underserved areas have access to health care." <hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'> While that link is welcome to see because it demonstrates that there are some things being done; the problem is that it is the last paragraph in an article that pre-empts itself with the discription of a boy who received treatment after being thrown 230 ft. when impacted by a car, the quality of the level 1 trauma unit and a burn centre. All of which constitute life or limb conditions for treatment. Furthermore it tells us nothing about the prevelence of this occurance in any other region. How many Americans have access to primary and preventative care? Under what conditions? Provided by whom? </span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by Saying, "either taking someone else's stuff without his permission is theft or it isn't," is what you call an "extreme" position? How is there any middle ground there? <hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'> Well that's exactly the problem. You are incapable of creating any middle ground in your mind. In your analytical scope you believe that you have not given express permission for the government to demand taxes from you as an individual therefore the government must be committing an act of theft against you. You ignore all arguments to the contrary. If you insist on following an X = X linear equation you will get the result you want. But that's because you are only considering one variable and the problem is that more than one exist. You and the government do not exist as amorphous entities juxtaposed to each other. You and society do not exist seperate from each other. You ignore history, sociology and social psychology that inform us of how and why we have constructed societies and to what benefits and detrements. You have decided that by your definition taxes are theft. Then you universalize theft as wrong. So there are two problems first you have to be extreme enough to buy into the tax = theft equation. Then you need to employ a universal moral of theft = wrong. Many people hold a range of moderate views regarding taxiation that do not go to the extreme of total systemic tax (all income is systemically distributed) or to your extreme of no tax should exist because tax = theft. These are two extreme views at either side of the spectrum. There are many debates inbetween on method, purpose, use and distribution of taxes that are not at the margins of the argument, hence not as extreme. If you don't want to be defined as extreme then show some reflexive reasoning capabilities. </span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by You don't see mass extortion as extreme . . . -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sure I think mass extortion is extreme. But I don't think that in this context mass extortion is happening. <hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'> You really tried to use that one line out of context. You originally accused me of not "see[ing] mass extortion as extreme". I agreed that mass extortion is extreme in response to your attempt to bait, and then qualified as above that while I would believe that mass extortion is extreme I do not think that taxiation as issued by the Canadian government in respect to health care qualifies as mass extortion. So you are accusing me of advocating mass extortion and therefore I hold extreme views. The problem is that if the majority of the population truly believed that taxation was the equivilent of mass extortion we would be having riots and reveloutions by now, which we are not. So there have to be a number of people (at least in Canada and I expect in the states) that while they may not agree with aspects of taxiation do believe it plays a role in our society as a positive enough force not to advocate it's entire decimation. That would be a moderate view (where I fall). Then there are those who advocate total taxiation and redistribution (that would be the other extreme). If the best argument you can come up with is that tax = theft = mass extortion. You've made it and you don't seem to have convinced many people, this might be symptomatic of the lack of proof you have provided. After all you are an American on a Canadian thread trying to convince Canadians that the Canadian system equates to mass extortion. I think the burden of proof is on you to make that case. </span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by Gack. "Show me the people who agree with you" -- is that what makes something right?? Also, "it's just your opinion"? Of course it's my opinion. I thought this was an opinion forum . . . <hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'> I thought you were supposed to be an educated person, if you are you are familiar with citation and will take no offense to it. Everyone is entitled to opinion, and you can advocate unsubstantiated opinions till the sky falls, providing citation doesn't make and opinion right or wrong it enriches the debate by providing outside sourcing and fresh arguments so that people on either side of the debate and those following the debate can gain from each participants knowledge and further develope their opinions by either strenghening their origninal position or modifying it accoriding to new evidence presented. For example here are some academic sources that advocate public health care in Canada: Theories of justice in health care : philosophical and legal issues Lance Hotz. Hotz, Glyn Lance. Private highway, one-way street : the deklein and fall of Canadian medicare? / Robert G. Evans Delivering health care services: public, not-for-profit, or private? Raisa B. Deber. The law of consent to treatment in Ontario / Brian F. Hoffman. The fight for public health : principles and practice of media advocacy / Simon Chapman, Deborah Lupton. I did find one article that agrees with your equation of the state as similar to the mafia.... although they are addressing militarism, defense budgets and policing not taxiation and health care. The politics of collective violence / Charles Tilly He makes a strong argument to see the state as running a protection racket to keep people scared and funding militaries and police forces, but considering his work on social movements and revolutionary causes I think he might lean towards social taxiation. But if you think not please offer your views. I'm specifically referring to the chapter entitled "war making and states making as organized crime". </span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by If you think literally everyone in Canada agrees that it's not theft, you're ignoring statistical probability<hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'> I never said that ALL Canadians think alike, on the subject of private Health Care I'd bet Ralph Klein, Mike Harris and Earnie Eves have some different views from mine although it's interesting that Stephan Harper and Belinda Stronarch refuse to throw into the same pool. However, I have provided refereed sources above of numerous people beyond myself and the other Canadians on this board who do advocate public health care. </span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by Since corporations enjoy special protection from the state, to protect themselves from unlimited liability in return for acting as a tax collector for the state; and since they actually do have an explicit agreement -- a contract -- with the state to do x in return for y, why not tax corporations to fund health care for all? I'll be happy to support free choice in health care as YOU describe it, i.e., everyone has access to health care, and those who want to pay extra for better (or worse) care than the state provides can do so. <hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'> I fail to see how this is drastically different from the current private health care system. So I fail to see how this is not a private enterprise solution that would exclude the poorest elements of society from obtaining health care, and would most definately let certain economically priviledged individuals receive better health care than others. Hence the comment about capitilist driven interests being counter intutive to universal coverage. First of all how would a state tax a corporation for providing health coverage to all people? Why would a corporation be inclined to offer health care to all people if they would have to service people who could not pay them? If they had to service people who could not pay them (the free rider problem) then wouldn't the fees have to go up for the people who could pay them to compensate for the free riders so that the people who do use the system are paying for those who can't pay... how is this different from taxiation? How would you prevent line jumping for medically necessary procedures based on ability to pay instead of need? Capitalism is: Man exploiting man. Socialism is the other way around.*

Feb 25, 2004, 03:12 am	#114 (permalink) (top)
koi Molten Ash Location: Edmonton Alberta Posts: 63	meh... none. I don't vote and won't vote. I refuse to condone the violation of rights, the acts of aggression and the committing of Theft by cohersion and force. by voting I am accepting a system which promotes all of these to a single extent; to achieve and maintain power. come election day, I shall stand outside my ballot hall handcuffed and gagged with a sign reading "cry freedom" around my neck. "Optimisim is the madness of insisting that all is well when we are miserable" Voltaire "The point of sacrifice is giving up something you didn't want in the first place"