100,000 Patients are Killed Each Year from Shoddy Healthcare in US

[BridgeTroll]

You mean like...

Cato staffers have called for legalization of currently controlled substances,

and

Cato has characterized the Bush administration's encroachments on individual rights as being the actions of an "intrusive federal government."[2]

and

Cato staff have angered some conservative activists by strongly advocating the liberalization of immigration laws.[51][52]. The Cato Handbook calls for expanded immigration quotas and new visa programs for low-skilled as well as high-skilled workers, and for allowing more refugees to enter

and

Cato staff have criticized such the 2003 decision by U.S. President George W. Bush to go to war with Iraq, prosecution of the war on drugs, giving federal money to faith-based organizations, and the decision of President George H.W. Bush to fight the first Gulf war. The Cato Institute has argued repeatedly against the Republican party on spending issues.[5][6][7][8]

[Doctor_K]

Just *wait* until solar and wind become "Big Solar" and "Big Wind" and write checks to other think-tanks who support *their* standpoint and bottom line.  No difference, except that saving the planet is en vogue right now.

[JMac]

CrysG - I guess you and Faye would be experts on astroturf organizations

[CrysG]

Cato Institute, pointed out that smokers' premature deaths actually save taxpayers money,

and

Robert A. Levy, an independently wealthy businessman who became a senior fellow at the Cato Institute in his 50s,[44] has published numerous editorials criticizing higher tobacco taxes, lawsuits against the Tobacco Institute, and other anti-smoking policies

and

the health risks associated with secondhand smoke are debatable

http://www.accuracy.org/article.php?articleId=51

They claim to be pro free markets, Rupert Murdoch joined the board of directors at the Cato Institute, Cato praised him as "a strong advocate of the free market" and quoted his stirring words: "I start from a simple principle. In every area of economic activity in which competition is attainable, it is much to be preferred to monopoly." Meanwhile, in Murdoch's native Australia, his News Corp. dominates the mass media; in Britain he controls more than a third of daily newspaper circulation along with much of cable and satellite television.

Among the luminaries at Cato is Jose Pinera, co-chair of its Project on Social Security Privatization. Cato's latest annual report says that Pinera, a former minister of labor and welfare in Chile, "oversaw the privatization of Chile's pension system in the early 1980s" -- but does not mention that at the time the Chilean government was under the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet. Evidently, Cato's concern about intrusive government does not extend to torture and murder.

[jtwestside]

You can debate WHO and Cato all you want. Fact is WHO rankings have more to do with "fairness" and "equality" than they do with "quality." As with everything it's about evening the playing field. Either you believe that there are rewards for working hard and that healthcare is one of those rewards. Or you believe that that is unfair and that we need to even the playing field! Their can only be participation medals in life, no gold silver and bronze.

I'll take quality any day. Liberals would rather "everyone" have "OK" healthcare than most have good healthcare (which is what we have here.) I happen to be a working stiff who comes from a long line of working stiffs and have no problem with the healthcare system here. The fact that there are folks out there who can pay out of pocket and get awesome healthcare does not bother me. As a matter of fact I think it's great. These are the people pushing heathcare forward.

[BridgeTroll]

Thank you Crys... See... they equally offend both ends of the spectrum.  Sounds like a well balanced think tank to me.  Or are think tanks supposed to parrot... what you think only?

[CrysG]

JT,

I know it's so wrong to think being healthy is a write and not a privilege. Oh it's only the non hard working stiffs that are dying with the current system.

Ruess never expected to find herself in such a circumstance. She'd grown up in a comfortable, middle-class household; even after her husband died in 1998, she was able to remain an at-home mom because of his generous life insurance policy. She'd taken pains to make sure she and her sons were insured, first with a policy carried over from her husband's job (the federal COBRA law allows a spouse to continue coverage for three years after a death), and then by carefully researching and purchasing insurance at a cost of $350 a month for her and one of her sons. (She was able to get coverage for her asthmatic son from the state.)

In other words, she did everything right.

Juliann Delozier of Murphy, Texas, is a 32-year-old, nonsmoking mother of two â€" who, in every obvious respect, is in perfect health. UniCare, a Chicago insurer, approved coverage for her children but not for her. "They would not tell me over the phone why I had been denied; I had to wait to receive a letter in the mail," she says. The letter said the company would not offer her a policy because of her "history of infertility."

Delozier says she'd taken two drugs, Metformin and Actos, to help her ovulate so she could conceive both of her children. She doesn't know why having taken these drugs disqualifies her, especially as she's not planning to have any more children. A spokesman for UniCare declined to discuss it, saying only, "These are decisions made on a case-by-case basis." Delozier is angry. "Why am I, a hardworking citizen who wanted to bear children and needed the aid of a medication to do so, being penalized by health insurance companies? It is totally unfair," she says.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26664727

[Doctor_K]

LoL.  So get a different insurer.

[Shwaz]

LoL.  So get a different insurer.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

[CrysG]

Hebert thought about purchasing private insurance but was told that Katie wouldn't be accepted in her current condition. "I filled out an application, but an agent told me, 'You might not want to put it through because she'll have an official denial on her record.'" (The fact that a policy wasn't issued could telegraph to other insurers that she might be a bad risk.)

and

When confronted with an applicant who has any kind of medical history (including routine issues such as allergies, a past cesarean section delivery or acid reflux), insurers are usually perfectly free to charge much higher rates or to deny coverage altogether â€" leading to an entire category of women who are essentially uninsurable.

A woman might not realize she is uninsurable until she needs coverage and finds that no one will sell her a policy. Or she might be hit with this information after months or years of dutifully paying premiums, when filing a major claim provokes the insurer to review her records. Such practices are not only legal but, from the standpoint of the insurance companies, also entirely logical: They are good for business.

[BridgeTroll]

I know it's so wrong to think being healthy is a write and not a privilege.

Crys... How do you feel about actually making it a right.  I assume you would not be against a constutional amendment to make it so...  I am actually for this.  Many people wrongly believe it is or should be a right.

Our rights are clearly defined in our Constitution and a process is in place to make healthacare a right.

[CrysG]

BT,


I don't think we need a constitutional amendment. I'll point to the history of England's NHC.

The genesis of the NHS stretched back into the 19th Century.  Even then some believed that access to health care was part of the structure of a civilized society.

http://www.nhshistory.net/shorthistory.htm

[BridgeTroll]

Interesting... why would you not want healthcare to be a right?  I have heard you use the phrase "right to healthcare"... so I'm confused.  We take many constitutional freedoms for granted and hold many sacred... the women's right to vote for example was a right granted that previously did not exist.

If healthcare is not a right then you can be refused healthcare...

[CrysG]

Because for the people to truly feel that healthcare is right they have to commonly agree to it and not have it mandated by law. Everyone agreed that women had the right to vote before the constitution amendment was added.

Prior to WWII England had a health care system like ours is now, but after WWII they emergence of a view that health care was a right, not something bestowed erratically by charity, bipartisan agreement that the existing services were in a mess and had to be sorted out and in increasing view among the younger members of the medical profession that there was a better way of doing things.

[BridgeTroll]

Exactly... so why again should it NOT be a right??  You seem to want it mandated by law and forced upon people.  Sorry Crys... I am still confused.