>>> Part 1 of 2...
 -=> Quoting Bucky Carr to Robert Keith <=-
 
 RK> A typical Republican/libertarian specious argument....
 
 RK> There are some things only a government can do. Health care is one of
 RK> them.
 BC> Talk about specious argument...
 
On your part? Certaijnly not on mine!
 RK> The health care nonsystem in the US needs drastic reform, and
 RK> IMO, a single payer system is the only war to go.
 BC> A Freudian slip, perhaps?
Not on my poart!
 RK> Your statement, "The magnitude of the 'profit' is immaterial...."
 RK> typifies the greed of some people. Tell me why do we have anti-trust
 RK> laws?
 BC> All laws exist to protect one or more defined groups, almost always at
 BC> the expense of one or more other defined groups.  I offer you the
 BC> McKerron-Ferguson Act as an example of heinous silliness.  Are you
 BC> prepared to say that all anti-trust legislation is good?  If so, a
 BC> pissing contest could easily ensue.
 
 RK> No! My complaint is that "profit" many times is the driver instead of
 RK> the needs of the patient.
 BC> Who decides the needs of the patient?
I always thought, naively perhaps, the MD's took an oath to make that
decision.
Are you familiar with the
 BC> pre-COBRA legislation which directed that the *only* determiner of
 BC> what constitutes an emergency was the patient?  Any surprise that the
 BC> cost of Medicaide zoomed through the roof when the number of providers
 BC> accepting Medicaide patients fell constantly so the patients presented
 BC> to the ERs for care?
Are you suggesting that bean counters make the decisions affection the
health of patients? What are MD's for and what do they do?
 BC> Take what I do for a living, for example (anesthesia).  Females of all
 BC> species have been birthing offspring without benefit of anesthesia
 BC> intervention for millenia.  Are you ready to say that a person's
 BC> merely demanding such additional care is grounds for providing it?
 
Are you an MD?
 RK> Neither does turning health care over to the greed of insurance
 RK> companies "moralize" the service.
 BC> No one is being forced to engage the payor services of an "insurance
 BC> company".  Besides, one doesn't moralize a postulate.  One can surely
 BC> demoralize a situation, however.  This is akin to the fact that it is
 BC> impossible for a government to raise everyone's life experiences to
 BC> that of the wealthy but it is quite possible for a government to lower
 BC> virtually everyone's situation to that of poverty.
 
Sounds like you've been sniffing too much gas.
 RK> Just what in the hell has "religious fervor" have to do with providing
 RK> health care? And preaching as you do, that "we as a nation" should not
 RK> give a damn about our fellow citizens speaks volumes about your
 RK> self-aggrandizement.
 BC> ROFL.
 BC> You make my argument for me, even if by employing pendulous swing of
 BC> reason.
 BC> I say that I owe you no duty whatsoever.  You say that my saying such
 BC> bespeaks raising my importance over that of others (you, for example).
 BC> I've got news for you.  Number One is always more important than any
 BC> other.  If you aren't taking care of Number One first, then I don't
 BC> want you trying to take care of me under any conditions.  The person
 BC> who has self-decayed to the point where self-importance is unimportant
 BC> can't possibly provide for others what he won't provide for himself.
 BC> It is fairly apparent to me that we will likely never agree on the
 BC> route to improving the system.  My first and foremost requirement would
 BC> be the utter and complete removal of the government, which hands down
 BC> has caused the enormous increase in the cost of the system thus far,
 BC> from any hand in the healthcare system at all.  From your above
 BC> statement, I take it that the state should be the provider, 100%, in
 BC> your estimation. 
 BC> We are worlds apart.
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