I wish you were dead !

[.... callchet ....]

I believe that fighting against Universal Health Care is the same as saying "I wish you were dead" to the poor. If you don't have health insurance

and you are poor, you don't get to see a doctor after the emergency room visit, period. I am sure there are some exceptions to that, but I say

throwing a penny into a crowd of beggars does not relieve you of your moral responsibility. Go ahead and tell me how it is bad in Canada and I will

tell you it is not bad for the poor in Canada. Let's make UHC happen, you won't go to hell for supporting UHC, you might get a higher seat in heaven

or what ever kind of place rewards you. Most of us are going to lose everything any way. So why not help ourselves. Please feel free to email me to

tell me if I am going about this wrong or whatever help or criticsm you may have. I have been inactive for twenty five years, but I am ready to start

again.

[GliderGuider]

1. Not only is it not bad for the poor in Canada

It's not bad for the middle class or the rich either. I've been all three at various times in my life, and the Canadian health care system has met all my needs without exception.

[phantom power]

5. What is your opinion....

of the popularity of Canada's health-care system, among Canadians? I've got a couple neighbors who regale me with tales like "we have friends in Canada, and they hate their health-care, and wish they had our superior system!111111!." I suspect this is anywhere from 90-100% bullshit, but I really don't know much about how Canadians like or dislike their system. Any thoughts?

[GliderGuider]

6. As far as I can tell

Canadians are almost universally proud of the system. Some people who have unmet needs (waiting lists for joint replacement etc.) AND have a conservative outlook do make some noise. But from what I can tell those are a single-digit percentage of users. It really is part of our national identity.

[.... callchet ....]

7. And that is very true !

Referring to the Canadians that prefer our system.

And that is very true if you live here and have the right insurance. Wealthy Canadians come here quite often to take advantage of our pay as you play

health care. They buy there way to the front of the line and get our " excellent health care". Very true. But what about the USAmerican's that

don't have health insurance. And what about the Canadians that are not wealthy enough to get a " fast pass ", and take their turn like the rest of

the Canadians.

If you deny universal health care you're saying " I wish you were dead " to the poor. And I realize that those that already have health insurance

here are going to have their health care slow down if universal health care passes. I realize that there are families who have members that are

critically ill and they would have to worry if a system for the many could still serve the needs of a special few that are very ill. And I realize

that what little existence I have here is not going to be improved by what I say here. And I realize that this is a democracy and the majority rules

and if they do want universal health care that will be the law, but that doesn't make it right. Until the system quits fighting and works with: By

developing stream lined diagnostic principles, delegated health care workers and whatever it takes to provide health care. Money for new schools for

physician assistants and all the other specialties. Stimulus money that would best be served could be spent here. Bailout money that could better

be served by spending here. There already exist algorithms that can be made to diagnose a patient quicker and better than a physician.

[Hydra]

2. "I wish you were dead"

That's EXACTLY what the "elite" and even much of the "middle class" think. Better off without them.

[GliderGuider]

3. "Qu'ils mangent de la brioche!"

Or, in the famous translation of Marie Antoinette's dismissal of the the starving peasants, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_them_eat_cake">"Let them eat cake!"

[Citizen Number 9]

12. You are quite ill if you believe that.

Or is this just another undisciplined knee jerk post?

[.... callchet ....]

15. How else

can you describe denying helath care to a segment of the population ?

[Citizen Number 9]

17. What are you talking about?

It's not denied, it's given out to the limit of our ability.

On behalf of all the medical professionals and ancillary staff that care for people in this United States - How dare you?

[.... callchet ....]

19. "To the limit of our ability"

Are you saying that there are no people that can not get health care ?


"It's not denied, it's given out to the limit of our ability." I understand that it is not your fault that you cannot see everyone that wants to be

seen. But if you are one of the ones that can't be seen, then you are denied health care. Maybe you just don't know real life, but I hired a homeless

man that lived in the weeds by a boat yard. I see him every now and then. He got his leg almost severed working in the cleanup for Katrina. He got

it sewn back on at the emergency room. That was the last medical care he was able to get. He has the lower part of his leg below the knee just

hanging on. He was not able to get follow up work to put it in place and do what ever else was needed to make it somewhat normal and useful...

How dare you to how dare me ! Why are you taking offense anyways. It is not your fault. Its amazing how people will fight other people trying to

help the poor.

[Citizen Number 9]

42. We haven't put up any discriminatory blocks to health care.

It is available on an equal-opportunity basis.

[GliderGuider]

16. It's not expressed quite that openly

It's now disguised in such attitudes as a resistance to raising the minimum wage, a feeling that welfare is theft, or even that poverty is the result of moral failings on the part of the poor.

"Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?" is not so much behind us as simply better hidden than in Dickens' day.

[Citizen Number 9]

22. Or, one just might feel that it is a more healthy situation

if people have every encouragement and opportunity to provide for themselves.

[GliderGuider]

23. I'd feel more comfortable about that sentiment...

if it hadn't been so thoroughly subverted by Ayn Rand. Now it mostly feels like neocon camouflage.

Encouragement is one thing -- any decent PR firm can supply that. Opportunity is something else. How much of that opportunity depends on circumstances outside your control? What happens if, despite your best efforts, because of the vicissitudes of fate you are unable to avail yourself of any? It's all too easy to absolve yourself of guilt by blaming the victim.

I'm not saying people shouldn't expect to work for their supper. I'm just saying that social safety nets are also a good idea. They even make it more likely that entrepreneurs will be bold and daring, because they will have less fear of the starvation that might otherwise accompany failure.

[Citizen Number 9]

29. Keep an open mind. Don't let one philosopher or another

determine your entire outlook.

Encouragement consists of more than just words and pictures. All economics is about motivation and actions.

This society we live in is all about opportunity. So much of what we do in the Democratic Party is about preserving opportunity.

Bad choice of examples. Entrepreneurs can declare bankruptcy, like anyone else, but they can't get unemployment, for example.

[GliderGuider]

33. Rand didn't "determine my outlook"

My opinion has been coloured by those who toss around her ideas as though they were some kind of natural law, all in support of an "us vs. them" ideology about work.

Did you know that hunter-gatherers worked only about 16 hours a week, had about the same life expectancy as modern man, and were apparently a whole lot happier and less violent? What exactly is the sacred value of work qua work?

[Citizen Number 9]

35. Work as much (or as little) as you like.

Just don't worry about others and what they are doing so much.

Interesting theories about the Hunter-Gatherers. I wonder if they are correct.

What I know as a trained Biologist doesn't really support those notions. You may be thinking about modern interpretations of paleolithic diet.

[GliderGuider]

40. Marshall Sahlins

Sahlins is an anthropologist who turned the Hobbesian notion of paleolithic life upside down 40 years ago:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_affluent_society

A reprint of the relevant extract of his book "Stone-Age Economics" is available here:

http://www.eco-action.org/dt/affluent.html

[Citizen Number 9]

43. What I know as a trained Biologist still doesn't support those notions.

You can choose to believe anything you want, but the physical evidence we find is not supportive of your concept of Sahlins theories.

[GliderGuider]

46. Careful

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=114&topic_id=53079&mesg_id=53437

[Hannah Bell]

49. & the relevance of being a "trained biologist" to "how many hours hunter-gatherers work" is?

pretty self-evident that they put in less than a 40 hour week, on average.

and sahlins isn't the only anthropologist who got the results; most studies of hunter-gathering people found something similar.

Here's how you do it: you go to some tribe living in a fairly traditional manner (used to be easier) & log the hours adults spend working.

here's why they work less: they don't have to give 40% of what they produce to a class of non-working overseers whose only claim to it is that they "own" it.

[Hannah Bell]

48. they can if they paid themselves a salary.

[Hydra]

20. Oh, no

I work with the poor all the time, and more, I work with people who believe them to be the scum of the earth, the wretched dregs that foul the rest of the mix.

I find it highly amusing because the people who say such things are often the bottom feeders of our society, but they wear suits, so it's ok.

Judge not, lest ye be judged.

[Citizen Number 9]

21. Could it be that people are people

regardless of whether they wear suits or not?

[GliderGuider]

24. "Four legs good, two legs bad."

"All animals are equal but some are more equal than others."

[Citizen Number 9]

27. Confusing statement.

Equal HOW? No matter how many times someone shouts that statement, I know it isn't true and I'm not alone in that.

Are you saying that we'd LIKE them all to be equal?

Would it make things EASIER?

[GliderGuider]

32. You said, "people are people"

This set up a false equality. My point was that this egalitarianism was, and always will be, false - as Orwell pointed out. Some animals (the rich) are more equal than others (the poor). The subject of the post (4 legs good, 2 legs bad) also spoke to the fact that differences exist between people (such as rich/poor), and the value judgments we project onto on those differences prevent any true equality from emerging.

[Hydra]

25. Sure, it could be human nature(and probably is)

That leads us down the slippery slope of "expendable people," but the people with suits can do it without noticeable consequences, and indeed can be said to be "scholarly" about it- not unlike the pages of yesteryear which stated that non-whites were inferior creatures that were not capable of taking care of themselves, ergo Slavery was humane...until they figured out it was cheaper to pay them than to own/feed them.

[Citizen Number 9]

26. There have been anti-slavery voices since before "yesteryear".

You can't equate suits with slaveowners.

I'm good, but I can't bear the weight of all the issues people think they have.

[Hydra]

28. Well, it seems you have been priviledged never to witness such behavior

Or you simply ignore it. Either way, consider yourself lucky. You don't know just how bad humans can be on even a casual basis.

And your comment about anti-slavary is not relevant in this context- I spoke of behavior that happened and was considered almost "scientific" at the time that has a parallel to today. If the best you can come up with is "The better off are not all bad," then you have acknowledged that some of them are bad and in fact do these things.

Care to say anything else in their defense?

[Citizen Number 9]

30. I don't defend slaveowners. I could be offended that you assume I do.

People do these bad things. People are their own worst enemies. Trying to say they wear suits in order to identify them is useless and misleading.

[Hydra]

31. Oh, so their inherent power is no corrollary to their behavior?

I pointed out that many middle class and upper class people think of the poor as expendable, a societal cancer and a poison that infests our entire society. You have yet to dispute that with any evidence other than "I don't see it that way." You are entitled to that viewpoint, of course, but that doesn't make it so.

[Citizen Number 9]

36. That's right, I don't see it that way,

but, it's obvious that you do. I can't speak for others beyond what I see. You are welcome to feel that way, but in general, I would just feel sorry for you, the way I might for anyone else.

[Citizen Number 9]

37. THose ideas are sorta sociopathic

and while I do see a lot of bad behavior, I'm not sure I'm ready to agree that it's limited to middle and upper class people. Which puts us right back where I noted that people are people.

[Hydra]

41. Oh, I SEE!

You aren't reading what I'm saying. Sociopathic behavior belongs to all levels of society but you have yet to address the simple fact and what I have been asserting- that the "middle class" and above do it AND GET AWAY WITH IT PER SOCIETY'S RULES.

Don't feel sorry for me- feel sorry for yourself for not seeing the causes and effects behind those "bad people" you speak of.

[Citizen Number 9]

44. What behavior do they get away with?

I think you might be imagining things.

[GliderGuider]

45. Careful, you are failing your Turing test.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_test

It's certainly a clever program, but after a while the self-similarity of the response patterns gives it away: the lack of substantiating detail, the use of unsupported assertions, the sidesteps, and the redirection of the topic away from dangerous territory by trapping on single words in the message being replied to. It's a classic third-year AI programming technique, and it was jejune when it was first used at the Stanford AI lab in the '60s.

[Citizen Number 9]

47. I'm trying to sort this out.

(Sigh)

Let's recap what we have;

"I wish you were dead"
"That's EXACTLY what the "elite" and even much of the "middle class" think."

I said: "You are quite ill if you believe that."

Then, we got: "I work with people who believe them to be the scum of the earth...the people who say such things are often the bottom feeders of our society, but they wear suits, so it's ok."

So far we have an unsupported generalized statement and a single report from Hydra that his co-workers who "wear suits" say that.

That's an opinion and is not much to go on. It is not established that the "elite" and "much of the middle class" think that.

My proposal is that people can be like that, but it does not mean that the elite as a group or "suits" or the middle class can be fairly characterized as thinking that way.

[Hannah Bell]

50. let's see: george w bush started a war resulting in more than a million excess

deaths, & justified it with a pack of lies.

he & his buds then made billions selling war materials to the US gov, & making you pay for them.

One timely example.

Ordinary people have to do their murders one at a time, & are often jailed or executed for them. Rich, powerful people do them by the hundreds, & make $$ doing them, & are rarely jailed, executed, or even censured.

[GliderGuider]

34. You do realize that this usage of "suits" is synecdoche, right? nt

[Citizen Number 9]

38. Do you mean the poster could have just as easily used

"redheads" or "Irish women"?

[GliderGuider]

39. No.

[bvar22]

4. Universal Health Care....YES!!!!

Mandatory "For Profit" Private Insurance...NO!!!

[OneBlueSky]

8. "You Rascal You" . . . as performed by Louis Armstrong . . .

Transcribed from vocals by Wesley Wilson, recorded June 16, 1930,
From Coot Grant and Kid Wilson, Complete Recorded Works in Chronological Order, v. 2: 1928-1931, Document Records, DOCD-5564.

You sure is a rascal!

I'll be glad when you dead, you rascal, you!
I'll be glad when you dead, you rascal, you!
When you dead in your grave,
No more women will you crave.
I'll be glad when you dead, you rascal, you!

I trust you in my home, you rascal, you.
I trust you in my home, you rascal, you.
I trust you in my home,
You wouldn't leave my wife alone.
I'll be glad when you dead, you rascal, you!

I fed you since last fall, you rascal, you.
I fed you since last fall, you rascal, you.
I fed you since last fall,
Then you got your ashes hauled.
I'll be glad when you dead, you rascal, you!

You asked my wife to wash your clothes, you rascal, you.
You asked my wife to wash your clothes, you rascal, you.
You asked my wife to wash your clothes
And something else I suppose.
I'll be glad when you dead, you rascal, you!

You know you done me wrong, you rascal, you.
You know you done me wrong, you rascal, you.
You know you done me wrong,
You done stole my wife and gone.
I'll be glad when you dead, you rascal, you!

You asked my wife for a meal, you rascal, you!
You asked my wife for a meal, you rascal, you!
You asked my wife for a meal,
And something else you tried to steal.
I'll be glad when you dead, you rascal, you!

Please don't me find you, rascal, you.
Please don't let me find you, rascal, you!
Please don't let me find you
'Cause you'll leave this world behind you.
I'll be glad when you dead, you rascal, you!

Ain't no use to run, you rascal, you.
Ain't no use to run, you rascal, you.
Ain't no use to run,
I done bought a Gatling gun,
And you still having your fun, you rascal, you!

I'm gonna kill you just for fun, you rascal, you!
I'm gonna kill you just for fun, you rascal, you!
I'm gonna kill you just for fun;
The buzzards gonna have you when I'm done.
I'll be glad when you dead, you rascal, you!

You done messed with my wife, you rascal, you!
You done messed with my wife, you rascal, you!
You done messed with my wife,
And I'm gonna take your life.
I'll be glad when you dead, you rascal, you!

[pinqy]

9. contradicting yourself

"If you don't have health insurance and you are poor, you don't get to see a doctor after the emergency room visit, period. I am sure there are some exceptions to that..." If you say "period," that means there are no exceptions. If there are exceptions, you can hardly say "period."

If you do not have health insurance your options for health care outside the emergency room are more limited, but that's not the same as non-existent. A big question is whether or not you're considering Medicaid to be health insurance or not. Regardless of any complaints of its adequacy (which varies state by state), Medicaid does exist and is health insurance for a large portion of the poor. It's a little disingenuous to ignore Medicaid (and Medicare) when discussing existing public health provisions.

[.... callchet ....]

13. Exception proves or disproves morality or ethics

"throwing a penny into a crowd of beggars does not relieve you of your moral responsibility" why do you think there is even a call for Universal

Health Care ?

[pinqy]

18. Misusing the expression

I feel I'm just picking nits, here, but the semantics are important. "The exception proves the rule" uses the verb "to prove" in the sense of "to subject to a test, experiment, comparison, analysis, or the like," not in the sense of "to establish the truth or genuineness of, as by evidence or argument" You can't say that something is true with no exceptions, and then admit to exceptions. That's useless rhetoric.

The truth is that those without private health insurance have a much more difficult time obtaining health care. That's a "well, duh." But the complexity of the issue is what is the minimum that should be provided to aid the poor (assuming that they should be helped at all) and how does the cost balance out? If you have a thousand dolllars and give out $1 each to a thousand beggars, you are substantially worse off, but none of the beggars is substantially better off. So where does the balance lie, and how do you most effectively allocate available resources? You can shout all the slogans about how everyone has the right to adequate healthcare, but reasonable people can certainly disagree on what "adequate" is and how to balance that versus the cost.

The biggest problem is that comparisons fail. Even if UHC is the best possible in Canada, that does not mean that the same system would work at all in the US given the different natures of economy and demographics.

[RedEarth]

10. Good post .. you might have an interest in this website .. Physicians for a National Health Program

It's a great resource....

Physicians for a National Health Program

http://www.pnhp.org/

[.... callchet ....]

14. Thanks

I know what we have is wrong, I just don't know all the reasons why. Thanks for the link !

[Deja Q]

11. And are too wimpy to do the killing themselves.

They're rich enough.

Thanks in part due to the poor.