Death Panels

[Skipjack]

The person I know who is currently getting dialysis has smoked for the last 40 years, and is still smoking! Refuses to stop! I know another person who had to keep taking the Oxygen mask off just to pull a drag on her cigarette! (she died) I know another person who's nose is being eaten off by cancer, (half of it is gone.) and still keeps smoking! I know several people who have died of lung and throat cancer, but smoked all the way to the end!

This is where our government is smart, because they are spending money on prevention. They tax cigarettes very highly too. That did help with reducing the amount of smokers in the country and it did help finance the treatment of smokers with lung cancer.
I do not quite get the connection between dialysis and smoking though. Dialysis is for people with destroyed kidneys, usually from diabetes.
In regards to diabetes, it is again good to make people get checked up regularily. If you catch it early and the patient is willing to follow doctors orders (some are not, but education programmes here have helped), you can prevent exepensive treatments later on and the patient will be effectively healthier. Both parties win.
But, with healthcare being too expensive, people can not afford getting routine checkups, or going to the doctor to look into those "lttle leg problems" and other early signs of something being wrong.
Here is Austria, we have mandatory checkups for becoming mothers and for young children. Those include child vaccinations too. Otherwise mothers loose government support money. Again, it is preventative medicine that helps prevent expensive treatments later.
Since our health insurance system tries to reduce cost, they have invested a lot into these kinds of programmes. They do work. Very little of that exists in the US.

[MSimon]

In the US we are starting to see cash clinics. You go in get the treatment you want and pay cash on exit.

The costs are about 1/4 to 1/3 of what you pay in the "normal" system. If the government doesn't crush them we will eventually wind up with the lowest cost medical system in the world.

An MRI at an MRI clinic runs about 1/4 the hospital cost. Similarly for other procedures.

The slang term for these is "Doc In A Box" after our fast food establishments called "Jack In A Box".

http://seniorjournal.com/NEWS/Features/ ... -a-Box.htm

[MSimon]

Skipjack,

I am nominally retired at age 65. It is one of the things that has allowed me to focus on small fusion. I put in 12 to 14 hours a day. I hope I am worth the pittance my government pays me.

I wouldn't stop working even if I could because I want to leave the planet a better place than I found it.

And I did my part to keep the population up. 4 kids. (two of them on their war to be engineers).

[Skipjack]

I am nominally retired at age 65. It is one of the things that has allowed me to focus on small fusion. I put in 12 to 14 hours a day. I hope I am worth the pittance my government pays me.
I wouldn't stop working even if I could because I want to leave the planet a better place than I found it.
And I did my part to keep the population up. 4 kids. (two of them on their war to be engineers).

Yupp, you are a lot like what I want to be when I am your age (if I reach your age, which is not so certain). I just want to be a bit more moderate in my political views. But then being less willing to compromise comes with the age, I think
Btw, you are the same age as my father. He plans to be working until he is 70 or so, but with a little less pressure...

[Diogenes]

Further, I think you are mixing up multiple issues. I think that you have to separate health care and other social services. Most of the abuse, that you quoted has nothing to do with healthcare. These are more social insurance issues.

It is an illusion that there are boundaries between these things.

Also, from what I gather, the people that you are affraid will abuse the system, are getting medicaid already, so how would that get worse, when there is a public options for healthcare?

They are creating what I refer to as "Economic Pollution." By engaging in activities which damage the natural economics of the market, they are making me swim in a polluted economic stream.

In other words, My costs are 10 times what they would be naturally if the government didn't make it possible for these individuals to parasite off the system.

[Diogenes]

The person I know who is currently getting dialysis has smoked for the last 40 years, and is still smoking! Refuses to stop! I know another person who had to keep taking the Oxygen mask off just to pull a drag on her cigarette! (she died) I know another person who's nose is being eaten off by cancer, (half of it is gone.) and still keeps smoking! I know several people who have died of lung and throat cancer, but smoked all the way to the end!

This is where our government is smart, because they are spending money on prevention. They tax cigarettes very highly too. That did help with reducing the amount of smokers in the country and it did help finance the treatment of smokers with lung cancer.
I do not quite get the connection between dialysis and smoking though. Dialysis is for people with destroyed kidneys, usually from diabetes.

I didn't mean to imply that the Dialysis was caused by her smoking. I'm pretty sure the kidney damage is the result of 6 Dr. Peppers (Do they have Dr. Pepper in Austria?) per day for the last 30 years. The Individual in question also Claims to have Schlerederma, respiratory problems, and a heart condition. The person is fat and indolent, lays in bed smoking and drinking Dr. Pepper, day after day for years, and refuses to exercise, even to simply go for a walk.

The idea behind the smoking reference is that if you have something seriously wrong with you medically, why wouldn't you want your body to be as healthy as possible so that you might have a better chance of recovery?

They have been raising the taxes on Cigarettes here for quite a while, and it might be helping. Of course the Government is using the money to finance government expansion, and if they finally succeed in stopping everyone from smoking, they are going to have a major hole in their budget! (Dumb @sses.)

What galls me about the whole thing is that individuals continue to take no responsibility for engaging in health damaging behavior, and then expect, nay DEMAND! the taxpayers foot the medical bills they created as a result.

They ought to be made to pay some sort of price. There is no negative feedback, and there needs to be.

[Diogenes]

Skipjack,

I am nominally retired at age 65. It is one of the things that has allowed me to focus on small fusion. I put in 12 to 14 hours a day. I hope I am worth the pittance my government pays me.

I wouldn't stop working even if I could because I want to leave the planet a better place than I found it.

And I did my part to keep the population up. 4 kids. (two of them on their war to be engineers).

"two of them on their war to be engineers".

Ha! You got that part right !

[Diogenes]

Yupp, you are a lot like what I want to be when I am your age (if I reach your age, which is not so certain). I just want to be a bit more moderate in my political views. But then being less willing to compromise comes with the age, I think

"Moderate" is just splitting the difference between the peaks. Wouldn't you rather figure out what is correct and advocate that?

[Skipjack]

It is an illusion that there are boundaries between these things.

Actually, there are boundaries between these things here. On my quarterly bill from the insurance company, I have a very clear distinction of what goes where. My unemployment fund thingy is even with a completely separate, private financial institution (just mandatory that I have one, but it is my choice where I have it). I still dont like it though. I would always be able to find some work somewhere quick enough to having to rely on something like that.
So yes, I think that these things can be separated very easily.

I didn't mean to imply that the Dialysis was caused by her smoking. I'm pretty sure the kidney damage is the result of 6 Dr. Peppers (Do they have Dr. Pepper in Austria?) per day for the last 30 years. The Individual in question also Claims to have Schlerederma, respiratory problems, and a heart condition. The person is fat and indolent, lays in bed smoking and drinking Dr. Pepper, day after day for years, and refuses to exercise, even to simply go for a walk.

Well yeah that is no good, I agree. In part you have to thank Mr Morris for that and his denial of the ill effects of smoking for so long. Thats what you get, when you let corporations define what is good for the people.
The diabetes could have been prevented though, had the person gotten frequent checkups before it actually turned into a full blown diabetes.
Now she has to have expensive dialysis. Maybe this could have been prevented. Of course if the person in question is not willing, then there is nothing that can be done for her.
But then, how much of the population is that really?
It is not that much here and I am sure it is much less in the US.
In Austria the biggest problems are with people that retire early, that get high pensions and high golden handshakes for having done little to no work in jobs that only exist, because some socialist, or conservative bastard in our government had to create yet another place for his fellows to "earn" tax money in. That is one problem.
The other problem is that unemployment money and wellfare is given to long and to easily. And then you have all those asylum applicants that get even more than an unemployed Austrian, who has at least worked once in his life for 6 months and has at least once in his life put money into the system for 6 months. Then they go and sell drugs to our children to make them incapable of persuing a regular job, which also costs me money.
These are the issues we have here, but both socialists and conservatives here are to blame for those. They are both the same pest.

[Diogenes]

I didn't mean to imply that the Dialysis was caused by her smoking. I'm pretty sure the kidney damage is the result of 6 Dr. Peppers (Do they have Dr. Pepper in Austria?) per day for the last 30 years. The Individual in question also Claims to have Schlerederma, respiratory problems, and a heart condition. The person is fat and indolent, lays in bed smoking and drinking Dr. Pepper, day after day for years, and refuses to exercise, even to simply go for a walk.

Well yeah that is no good, I agree. In part you have to thank Mr Morris for that and his denial of the ill effects of smoking for so long.

I think Sir Walter Raleigh et al probably has more responsibility for taking the vile habit from America back to Europe and making it popular in the culture.

Thats what you get, when you let corporations define what is good for the people.

D@mn those Wiskey and Beer companies for fooling the people into drinking it!

The diabetes could have been prevented though, had the person gotten frequent checkups before it actually turned into a full blown diabetes.
Now she has to have expensive dialysis. Maybe this could have been prevented. Of course if the person in question is not willing, then there is nothing that can be done for her.
But then, how much of the population is that really?
It is not that much here and I am sure it is much less in the US.

I have met, and know an awful lot of them.

In Austria the biggest problems are with people that retire early, that get high pensions and high golden handshakes for having done little to no work in jobs that only exist, because some socialist, or conservative bastard in our government had to create yet another place for his fellows to "earn" tax money in. That is one problem.
The other problem is that unemployment money and wellfare is given to long and to easily. And then you have all those asylum applicants that get even more than an unemployed Austrian, who has at least worked once in his life for 6 months and has at least once in his life put money into the system for 6 months. Then they go and sell drugs to our children to make them incapable of persuing a regular job, which also costs me money.
These are the issues we have here, but both socialists and conservatives here are to blame for those. They are both the same pest.

Do conservatives in Austria not oppose expansion of government and entitlements? Here in America you cannot BE a conservative without opposing Government expansion and entitlements. (Ronald Reagan summed it up. "Government is too big, and it spends too much." )

[MSimon]

I am nominally retired at age 65. It is one of the things that has allowed me to focus on small fusion. I put in 12 to 14 hours a day. I hope I am worth the pittance my government pays me.
I wouldn't stop working even if I could because I want to leave the planet a better place than I found it.
And I did my part to keep the population up. 4 kids. (two of them on their war to be engineers).

Yupp, you are a lot like what I want to be when I am your age (if I reach your age, which is not so certain). I just want to be a bit more moderate in my political views. But then being less willing to compromise comes with the age, I think ;)
Btw, you are the same age as my father. He plans to be working until he is 70 or so, but with a little less pressure...

I was always uncompromising. It made me a good engineer (I was willing to make the right compromises - but management was often willing to make foolish ones. I lost many jobs because of it. And was appreciated on others.)

I did not suddenly become the way I am in my transition from 40 to 60. My basic personality has not changed much. My views have. My mate tells me (often) that I am hard to get along with. Have been since she first got to know me 35 years ago.

[MSimon]

They have been raising the taxes on Cigarettes here for quite a while, and it might be helping.

To create a black market.