Minutus

Your comments disturb me Ellen. They are not irrelevant as they resonate with many American attitudes about not creating social support programs.
I have to agree with your about how people do nothing till ill and then count on medical insurance. They also like to brag on all they get ‘free’ of charge
with insurance. An acquaintance says with pride that he got $50,000.00 of cancer treatment because he has insurance. As an independent, self-employed
person, I wonder how much personal income he has spent on the insurance over the years. I bet it was way more than $50,000.00 and those payments
were invested by the insurance companies to increase the payments many times over. It is a position that wears blinders on several levels. What got
me in this man’s case was how the medical industry told him NOT to take even Vit C or anything else.
Socialized medicine, free from control of the corporate interests would/should be able to make more independent decisions. That is where you would
find support for the holistic forms of nutrition and healing. The simplest argument, which is fiduciary, is that without insurance companies involvement
or giveaways to big pharma, administrative costs would drop significantly. This is shown by looking at all of the developed countries programs which
run much more cheaply for this reason alone. Being able to negotiate for drug costs or to really invest in independent research would lead to use of
homeopathy and nutrition and other holistic protocols. The Swiss govt report a couple years ago clearly showed the cost efficiency and healing success
of homeopathy but we hear virtually nothing about this long term study/report.
Under such an independent system, preventive care would/could/should take precedence over symptom manipulation and suppression. This type of system would
change its focus and priorities. Education for real health should be part of any socialized health care program. Schools would be feeding healthier
food. Govt food programs would provide for only healthy foods, not just cheap, HFCS, aspartame, drug laden products that cause disease. There is
no reason for people to think the government free of responsibility for providing for the well-being of the nation other than that position supports all
the sinister motives of the corporate moghuls who see the public only as economic frontiers for their increasing rates of profit.
If countries move away from the military/industrial neo-con model, there is more than enough money to fund all kinds of support programs as well as
decent education for ALL people.
t
From: Ellen Madono
Sent: Saturday, August 03, 2013 9:09 AM
To: minutus@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [Minutus] Pipe dreams

Hi,
My gut feeling is probably irrelevant to this arguement, but I always wonder what would happen if all social insurance refused to pay for fancy medical procedures and drugs. If basic care were the public responsiblity. Things like childcare, child birth, help with in home care for the sick, basic check ups and dental care. Alternative medicine is so cheap relatively speaking that it could be covered too. Then you would have to talk about what suffering is allowed and how people were allowed to die. Is it ok to die from cancer for example. Is it ok to live "dangerously" with fatal conditions? Is it ok to die before medical necessity dictates?
What an unpopular discussion. This discussion is irrelevant because it has no popular or economic base. But i think about this.
IMO, If people are totally covered, or covered very well, they treat good health as an economic barter chip. For example they wait until they are sick enough to get medical coverage before they take care of problems. Homeopathy is only popular and known in the US because medical insurance gives so little coverage to such a large part of the population. Most of us take care of ourselves because we know the economic burden of ignoring our health. Bad thinking, but probably better for our attitude toward wellbeing.
Best,
Ellen
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A whole lot of the public did NOT ignore this quote! Personally I noted it very clearly at the time, and thought it showed a lot of good sense. The office of presidency has very sharp limits on it -- by design.

There are a good number of grassroots (however we define that) organizations that have been trying to do exactly that, both to hold his "feet to the fire" and also to get support for those goals from other parts of the juggernaut.

He CAN'T just do whatever he wants to, good or bad; he HAS to work within the available structures.
Part of that structure does still leave room for "such as we" to exert some (albeit shrinking) influence.
It's urgent that we do.
Maybe.
So how do we disassemble or re-allocate the role in this of the insurance companies…
Sure, yet the phrase "tilting at windmills" comes to mind.
Dedicating oneself to the impossible is not necessarily a good business approach.
I suspect it would have been impossible; evidently you disagree. Who knows...

Yep, really important discussions!
And how to have that discussion with, for instance, the parents of a child who *might* benefit from horrendously expensive therapies which they cannot possibly pay for but (etc.)…

IMO we do need to have lots of serious, thoughtful, cultural discussions on subjects such as life, death, and the meaning thereof; acceptance, release, gratitude, and appropriate allocation of resources. No easy answers there!
? But if health care were very available, there would be no *need* to wait until "sick enough"… ?
Well, I disagree with that. Most unfortunately, people who don't have medical insurance are mostly "poor people", and they are the least likely to be able to afford homeopathic treatment.

Personally I have always (well, for decades anyway) both carried medical insurance on myself and my family (partly because it comes with my husband's job) and also paid out-of-pocket for nearly everything (except the occasional trauma episode), so that we can have the type of health care that actually *works* (homeopathy and etc.).

To me, "the bottom line" (money) is NOT the bottom line (not the most important factor) when it comes to one's health and well being. I trust I am not in too much of a minority there!
The economic burden, but also the practical burdens. If I don't take care of my health, I cannot take the best care of my family, for instance. Health is life!

Shannon,

What gives all of those institutions teeth is the government. The pharmaceutical companies (etc) could huff and puff all day long, but without the government their huffing and puffing would amount to nothing. Perhaps I am looking at it from a conservative perspective that considers anything governmental to be socialism. It is the government that says that you have to have your children vaccinated. If it was understood that it is not the place for government to tell people what they have to do with regard to health, then the businesses involved in health would not be using government to try to fulfill their ends, and they could go back to huffing and puffing. But we the people decided that it would be a good idea for the government to do all sorts of things, and so businesses said hey let's take advantage of this situation, let's take our congressman to lunch, let's lobby our senator, let's play golf with our president. And of course, you and I can't afford to do that sort of thing; have neither the time nor the money to do it.

Roger
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To: minutus@yahoogroups.com
From: shannonnelson@tds.net
Date: Sat, 3 Aug 2013 06:42:32 -0500
Subject: Re: [Minutus] Pipe dreams

Roger --
Why do you say we have socialized medicine? It is being run by insurance companies -- who determine what is covered and what it is worth (tho ObamaCare does put some IMO welcome strictures on that), and by the pharmaceutical companies (who make and supply its major tools; they decide what is offered -- what to "treat"; what risks are acceptable; what goals are being pursued).

The driving factors behind treatment -- at least, in too-large part -- has to do not with effectiveness, or "cure" or "health" or public good, but rather is about profits.

ObamaCare makes some *minor* (but IMO still useful) inroads, e.g. with positive changes regarding "preexisting conditions" and cost (minor) and availability (incomplete) of insurance. It doesn't loosen the grip of either pharmaceutical or insurance industries.

While IMO useful under the circumstances, this is not socialized medicine.
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Roger
You seem to have a serious lack of history here. Big business has always been the same.
It was their money and power that has bought the government. Further, they bought the
education system which was designed, intentionally, to keep people dumbed down, full
of mythology with very little real history. Your ‘conservative’ perspective is not based on
fact.
t
From: Roger B
Sent: Saturday, August 03, 2013 11:40 AM
To: mailto:minutus@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [Minutus] Pipe dreams

Shannon,

What gives all of those institutions teeth is the government. The pharmaceutical companies (etc) could huff and puff all day long, but without the government their huffing and puffing would amount to nothing. Perhaps I am looking at it from a conservative perspective that considers anything governmental to be socialism. It is the government that says that you have to have your children vaccinated. If it was understood that it is not the place for government to tell people what they have to do with regard to health, then the businesses involved in health would not be using government to try to fulfill their ends, and they could go back to huffing and puffing. But we the people decided that it would be a good idea for the government to do all sorts of things, and so businesses said hey let's take advantage of this situation, let's take our congressman to lunch, let's lobby our senator, let's play golf with our president. And of course, you and I can't afford to do that sort of thing; have neither the time nor the money to do it.

Roger
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To: minutus@yahoogroups.com
From: shannonnelson@tds.net
Date: Sat, 3 Aug 2013 06:42:32 -0500
Subject: Re: [Minutus] Pipe dreams

Roger --

Why do you say we have socialized medicine? It is being run by insurance companies -- who determine what is covered and what it is worth (tho ObamaCare does put some IMO welcome strictures on that), and by the pharmaceutical companies (who make and supply its major tools; they decide what is offered -- what to "treat"; what risks are acceptable; what goals are being pursued).
The driving factors behind treatment -- at least, in too-large part -- has to do not with effectiveness, or "cure" or "health" or public good, but rather is about profits.
ObamaCare makes some *minor* (but IMO still useful) inroads, e.g. with positive changes regarding "preexisting conditions" and cost (minor) and availability (incomplete) of insurance. It doesn't loosen the grip of either pharmaceutical or insurance industries.
While IMO useful under the circumstances, this is not socialized medicine.
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Hi Tamara,
Was in Vietman several years ago. Looking at their health care statistics. Wow, being the 3rd world socialist country rocks! At that time anyway. People were totally wary because they have seen so much suffering is my theory. No teacher like suffering. Me too. I never learn except the hard way.
Blessings,
Ellen
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Read Roger King's Love and Fatigue in America for insight into how truly expensive, scary, and nonsensical American medicine is. King is an Englishman who emigrated to the U.S., came down with chronic fatigue syndrome, and estimates his disorder has cost him over a million dollars (in direct healthcare costs and lost income).
It's the paperwork and fighting with insurance companies that appall King, who never had to deal with either in Britain. He's amazed that Americans put up with it.
Also he has written the best description of chronic fatigue syndrome I've seen.
Peace,
Dale
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I see this conversation has typical misunderstanding about socialism.
However, smaller countries that are not militaristic/colonialistic are more
willing to put their resources into social programs that build the national
wealth as well as provide care and health for the people. Socialism is
definitely a system that has a humanistic core to its philosophy. The
Jamaican experience reminds me of the victory gardens of WWII. Do
you remember them? It was considered patriotic for people to have their
own garden for fresh food as all of industry was co-opted into the ‘war
effort.’ After the war, these gardens disappeared as industry converted
to consumer goods and fast foods came into being. I can recall the
beginning of margerine—a white paste in a plastic bag with a red dot.
You kneaded the bag till the red dot colored the white paste yellow.
Voila! you had fake butter. Cheap food. Frozen dinners also came into
being with all the marketing spin imaginable. I won’t go down that
memory lane now. Commercial consumerism became the national
policy and food was part of it.
Jamaica is doing a great thing and becoming more independent by this
effort. However, it is not really Socialism as the people don’t seem to
have had any say in creating this program even tho it is a good one. It
is a program that benefits the people and the country and reflects a
gov’t that cares about the public and invests its time and resources into
programs for them.
t
From: Ellen Madono
Sent: Saturday, August 03, 2013 4:53 PM
To: minutus@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [Minutus] Pipe dreams

Hi Tamara,
Was in Vietman several years ago. Looking at their health care statistics. Wow, being the 3rd world socialist country rocks! At that time anyway. People were totally wary because they have seen so much suffering is my theory. No teacher like suffering. Me too. I never learn except the hard way.
Blessings,
Ellen
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A few yrs back during the battle over health vs medical care legislation,
there was a lengthy article written comparing Canada’s single payer systems
and the US. It tackled all the mythology that the right wing was putting out
here against single payer. The auther was someone who had lived in Canada
and then moved the US so she wrote from a lot of first hand experience as
well as research. It’s frustrating that article got lost when my computer crashed.
It is so completely clear that socialized health care is a better way to go for a
country as a whole, but under Capitalism the main interest is in profits and
power/control. People have no value under Capitalism except for their purpose
to make money for the wealthy. If you get the medical industry (big pharma
and insurance industries in particular) out of health care it would be a no-brainer
to set up a system based on real choices and real evidence. The satisfaction
rate for homeopathy is significantly higher in any survey taken than for allopathic
treatment.
Also, under a socialized system where medical personnel are hired by the govt,
attitudes and expectations can relax and change for the better. But all single
payer systems allow for independent practices to exist legitimately so even
if not covered under the system, people can have freedom of choice. Not
equitable, and still leaving homeopathy and other natural forms of healing
at a disadvantage, but at least available with the possibility to lobby it into
the system. But that can only happen if a govt run system is separated from
those industries.
t
From: DALE MOSS
Sent: Saturday, August 03, 2013 6:08 PM
To: Minutus
Subject: Re: [Minutus] Pipe dreams

Read Roger King's Love and Fatigue in America for insight into how truly expensive, scary, and nonsensical American medicine is. King is an Englishman who emigrated to the U.S., came down with chronic fatigue syndrome, and estimates his disorder has cost him over a million dollars (in direct healthcare costs and lost income).
It's the paperwork and fighting with insurance companies that appall King, who never had to deal with either in Britain. He's amazed that Americans put up with it.
Also he has written the best description of chronic fatigue syndrome I've seen.
Peace,
Dale
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Hi,
What I notice here is Japan is basic service are not as affected by political winds. The Japanese have a parlimentary system modeled after Germany. Their bureaucracy is stogy, unimaginative etc. But basic services such as medical checkups, "socialized " medicine type issues like child care, elder care, birthing etc. are not racy. They do not require the trappings of market economy medicine. They require sound and long term bureaucratic organnization. Not the sexy stuff of political rhetoric unless you believe that political control of birth can sustain a political party. These issues are essential to the mechanical upkeep of our organic needs as humans. These basics should to be separated from political movement. Career bureacrats should be making these long term plans not politicians. This is not the American way, but in the long run, I think the results are more reasonable.
Best,
Ellen