I think this is a huge part of the problem. The pharma industry has sculpted a health care system that leans very heavily on its products, even when simple, cheaper treatment methods are available and as effective or more effective.

The very thought of pharmaceutical companies marketing to patients, I find obscene. They train us to suggest pharmaceuticals asus l8 battery,asus l8400 battery to our doctors. As Bill Maher points out, if you’re telling your doctor what drugs to give you, doesn’t that just make him your dealer?

Cheers,

Up is down
War is peace
black is white
failure is progress

It really confuses me how they can talk about cutting the funding to a program that we have to pay taxes to specifically fund.

What i really don`t get is that these ignorant neocons want for more years of this with john 100years McCain.John Mc is going to keep perpetuating this kind of anti americanism with his foriegn policy and his anti american home agenda.He will keep lining the pockets of these neocons that call themselves americans(cronyism,contradiction and corruption).

Comment by Roger_Roger — February 5, 2008 @ 9:14 am

Or rescind some of the tax cuts he gave the ultra-rich?

Comment by WaltTheMan

I’m an MS Excel type myself…….I still should have caught that.
thanks for helping me not look quite so foolish.

Comment by Roger_Roger — February 5, 2008 @ 9:14 am

yes, he could have easily cut that from the Pentagon budget, the biggest entitlement of all.

Should the basis for the latter number be 1000?

Comment by WaltTheMan

Walt, I just fininshed my morning coffee and was reading your posts. I see now what you were talking about and if you go to the link below you will see that it is in fact based on 1000 instead of 100,000. That makes more sense…….sorry I caused confusion on this…..Thanks for catching it….I will correct my information.

http://www.cdc.gov/od/oc/media/pressrel/2007/r070502.htm

We are reporting a $400 billion deficit for this budget. Why didn’t he make larger cuts in entitlement programs to balance the budget?

As for the apparent disparity in the infant mortality statistics, perhaps the lower numbers are based on total population, vs. live births for the 772 figure. In any case, infant mortality here is nearly double what it is elsewhere in the developed world. Paying twice as much for half the performance. There has to be something seriously wrong with you to think that this is a good health care system.

One other remark: the health care system in Britain is indeed bad, possibly the only country with health care as bad as here. There are two reasons: the British system truly is socialized medicine, in that all health care workers are government employees (unlike any single-payer system elsewhere), and more importantly, Britain spends only 40% of what we spend here. Imagine how awful our health care would be if we cut spending by 60% under our current system! So if a pathetic freak brings up Britain as a benchmark, point out that they are just lowering the bar to an absurdly easy level to beat. Just like they do for their guy Chimpy, who still can’t step over the bar even when it is on the ground.

In my city one of the hospitals has free sandwiches and drinks while Bubba visits the ER to get a Tylenol to cure that headache he’s had for the past half hour. Don’t even have to waste your time with a doctor’s appointment. Can’t get any better service than that.

(Shoot! Even hospital employees have been known to grab a free meal from the ER from time to time).

Comment by WaltTheMan

how could you think this was an error……….it seems dead on to me and with the links from the cdc you can verify it for everyone and back me up on it……….

curious as to why you think the numbers are off……..Americans don’t care much about black babies……obviously

Comment by Fred — February 4, 2008 @ 10:22 pm

Lets make the math simple:
If blacks are having infant mortality at a rate of 14 per 100, 000 and whites are experiencing them at a rate of 6 per 100,000 while the total population is experiencing same at a rate of 714 per 100,000, some group has to account for the residual 694 deaths per 100,000 for the total population and that group that accounts for the remaining 694 deaths per 100,000 can not consist of more than 34% of the population (Hispanics?), ergo they must be experiencing an infant mortality rate of 694/.34 (or 2041) per 100,000. If we are talking about SE Asians, the number would rise to one in five births.

“Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we,” Bush said. “They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.”

That says it all.