...

 BK>>>>  The only real problem is the lack of a real national health care
 BK>>>> plan to pick up the difference. All Americans should have full
 BK>>>> health coverage, which would eliminate the health
benefits  problem
 BK>>>> for all employers.

 BA>>> Oh baloney, Bob.  You keep harping on nationalizing the
 BA>>> health care system as if that were a good thing.  The only

 BK>>  It is, compared to what we have now.

 BA> Hardly.  Remember, *my* health care is provided by what is
 BA> effectively a nationalized system similar to what you want
 BA> - and the government has been cutting that back and at best
 BA> making it more inconvenient (and expensive) for a quarter
 BA> of a century, now.  Tricare does *NOT* pay the bills, it
 BA> pays between 20% and 40% of them.  It's the same for
 BA> Medicare.

 Yep, but it does pay for your medical care, and 45+ million
 Americans don't have that. Again, look at the most expensive
 foreign national health care. It takes 11.6% of the Swiss GDP.
 Our system takes 15.3%. Is our system better than the Swiss? Do
 even those Americans covered by insurance get better care than
 the Swiss? If not, just adopt the Swiss system, not the Canadian
 one.

 The insurance industry want's you to look at the worst foreign
 plans, or the ones they can paint worst, not the best. Yet the
 best is much cheaper than ours. Is it worse than ours?

 Also, remember, your coverage has been at the mercy of the
 republicans most of that quarter century. Tell me, why would
 someone with no medical insurance vote for better coverage for
 anyone else? If my child was dying because we did not have
 medical coverage, I'd say to hell with you. Wouldn't you?

 Universal coverage removes that objection.

 BTW, our cost was 8.8% of GDP in 1980, 11.9 in 1990, 13.3 in
 2000, 15.3 in 2005, and is projected to be 20% in the near
 future. Can we afford that under any system? How many more will
 lose their health care?

 Ran into one of my former neighbors while out walking today. He
 retired from a printing company, and started Medicare last
 year. His former employer just ended all insurance for all his
 employees. One more bites the dust.

 BA>>> thing nationalizing the health care system will accomplish
 BA>>> is the destruction of quality health care in this country

 BK>>  Not unless republicans are running it. America's health care
 BK>>  system in on the low end of evaluations of industrialized
 BK>>  countries. America even ranks low compared to Cuba. We have the
 BK>>  best medical technology, and about the worst delivery system.

 BA>>> (and vastly improving it along the US border in Mexico,
 BA>>> Bermuda, the Caribbean islands and probably Canada).

 BK>>  Funny you should mention Canada. And we are already sending
 BK>>  people to Mexico for health care, and India, and South East
 BK>>  Asia.

 BA> Nonsense.  We aren't sending anybody anyplace.  People are
 BA> *choosing* to go to Canada, Mexico and India for (certain)
 BA> health care procedures.  It's perfectly

 And sometimes they are sent. Catholic Charities has 6 hospitals
 in Mexico they send people to.

 And by "we are sending" I meant the US, and you are nit-picking
 the words to avoid the reality, we are sending them by making it
 too expensive for them to get it here.

 BA> true that for *some* procedures it's less expensive to
 BA> travel to India to have it
 BA> done than it is to have it done here; I don't deny that's a
 BA> problem, more of a symptom, actually.

 Yep. And Mexico etc.

 BA>>> You'll also see the best and brightest choosing careers
 BA>>> other than medicine; heck, for years physicians have been
 BA>>> advising their children *not* to go into medicine.

 BK>>  And that's under our current system.

 BA> Which will only get worse under any form of nationalization.

 Why? How would you know that? Look at the best of the national
 health care systems and tell me if that's true.

 BA>>> You're also inconsistent.  You want to have the government
 BA>>> take over the health care system but you don't demand that
 BA>>> the government *also* take over the food production and
 BA>>> distribution system.  After all, food is much more
 BA>>> necessary to continued existence than is health care.

 BK>>  And the food production and distribution system are not in the
 BK>>  trouble the medical care system is. If we had 45 million people
 BK>>  in this country who could not get food we would have riots in
 BK>>  the street.

 BA> Despite your propaganda, the health care system in this
 BA> country is NOT in trouble and never has been.  I can tell

 It's not? Why are people not getting care when they need it?

 BA> you how to reduce the price of health care in this country
 BA> by at least 1/3 and probably by 1/2, virtually overnight:
 BA> eliminate price discounting by insurors, specifically
 BA> including Medicare,

 Actually, that has been one of my crusades ever since I saw the
 $280 bill for an Xray I had, and the $100 the insurance paid for
 it.

 BA> and eliminate all the
 BA> government-imposed record keeping and reporting.  Neither
 BA> of those actions is going to happen.

 That one I oppose. That record keeping and reporting is the only
 way you have a medical history that will not only track that
 patient, but also track disease outbreaks and medical trends.

 You probably have heard of Cancer Clusters. Most of the time
 they are dismissed as statistical anomolies. One has been
 claimed for Clyde Ohio, a fairly small town south of here. Well,
 it has been confirmed. And that confirmation is from the record
 keeping and reporting. Without that you can suspect all you
 want, but you can't prove it.

 BA> You claim the food production system isn't in trouble?
 BA> Unless one has *the* winning Powerball ticket one cannot
 BA> afford to get into farming; one needs at least 4 million
 BA> dollars up front for the land and (used) equipment - and
 BA> that's for a fairly small operation.  The joke that one can

 It takes about $100 mill to build a factory like I work in, and
 that's not all that big. Farming is costly because it's become a
 factory operation. And around here animal mega-farms are the
 coming thing, and they put other farmers out of business.

 So, I don't see an answer to that, but we still have no problem
 getting food. If we reduce unemployment enough no one will have
 that problem. In that case, those who cannot afford sufficient
 food are casualties on the war on inflation. Collateral damage.

 And that's why food stamps are justified.

 BA> make a small fortune in farming - provided one starts with
 BA> a large fortune, is perfectly true.  Most farmers are
 BA> barely making enough to meet expenses.  The *average* age
 BA> of farmers in Nebraska is about sixty, and in Iowa is in
 BA> the late fifties; when I worked at a grain elevator in 2006
 BA> two of the farmers hauling in grain were in their eighties
 BA> (one of them lives 2-1/4 miles down the street from me).
 BA> Youngsters are still moving to the big cities.

 And farming is being taken over by corporate interests. That
 means few farm ownership opportunities. And they hire migrant or
 even illegal labor. Stop that and you change the whole equation.

 BA> Note also that the USA is importing increasing amounts of
 BA> food.  Fresh vegetables
 BA> are almost all imported during the winter months.  In
 BA> addition to the beef grown
 BA> here, the US imports beef from both Argentina and Australia.

 Another example of the race to the bottom. Yet we are still
 exporting enough to put Mexicans into poverty, and wipe out the
 economies of many third world countries. We have help from
 Europeans on that.

 BA> You might not be aware that several hundred US farmers have
 BA> emigrated to Brazil and Argentina, taking their knowledge
 BA> and experience with them.  And that John Deere (among

 I have heard of that. Japanese farmers did that long ago. Again,
 the race to the bottom.

 BA> others) now builds farm equipment in both Brazil and
 BA> Argentina. Another couple of decades and those two
 BA> countries will be outproducing the US in most farm products
 BA> - and underselling the US on the international markets.

 Yep, and the farm industry won't let us do a thing about it.

 Oh, and Brazil has a domestic content law on cars and trucks.
 Some manufacturers have found it more effective to build the
 cars and trucks in Brazil than to just produce the local content
 there and do the rest of the assembly elsewhere. Esp since they
 can then sell the Brazilian cars and trucks throughout South
 America. If they have the same rules for farm machinery, that
 would explain a lot.

 BA> Which means the price of farm products in this country
 BA> (i.e. food) will either go up or the farmers in this
 BA> country will go out of business, take your pick.

 The price of farm products needs to go up. And we need to
 realize, cheap is seldom good.

 BA>>>>> care benefits alone for GM amounted to over $1,300 of the
 BA>>>>> price of every vehicle GM made - and that was several years

 Addressed in another msg in more detail.



BOB KLAHN bob.klahn{at}sev.org   http://home.toltbbs.com/bobklahn

... Chilren sitting on an adults lap, in a car, are... organic airbags.
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