[PLUG-TALK] Re: Socialist Facism

[Darkhorse]

On Mon, 2004-11-15 at 01:42, Paul Johnson wrote:
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> Darkhorse <plug_0 at robinson-west.com> writes:
> 
> > Tell that to fortunate germans who buy private insurance because the
> > socialist medicine there is rationed.
> 
> So the Germans screwed up.  That doesn't mean the Brits and (while not
> European) Canadians got it right.
> 
> > You do realize that we tend to have more advanced medicines
> > available in the U.S. than there are in Europe?
> 
> What good is advancement when 1) most citizens need simple
> preventative medicine, not expensive, last ditch efforts, and 2) it's
> all more or less totally inaccessible for someone without insurance?
> Seems to me we shoot for inefficiency because it forces us to develop
> all those fancy, ultimately pointless permanent-vegetable life-support
> type bullshit that we get to brag about instead of just preventing
> people from going terminal to begin with.

As much as I hate Viagra, money probably is being made off of it.  The 
sad truth of these enhancers is, whose to know if they're creating a
medical nightmere for us down the road or not.  Most artifical birth
control is extremely bad for your health, it wouldn't surprise me if
the same were true of these enhancers.  Some of our advanced medicines
are better than their last generation counterparts though, specifically
some of our antidepressants fall under this category.  In many cases,
the number of side effects have been reduced.  It may be that drugs are
underpriced in socialist countries and overpriced here where they're
researched mostly.  If you set uniform international prices for drugs,
Americans would pay less, but drug costs in socialist countries
would rise.  Socialism's goal of making everyone equal can have a
chilling effect on the quality of medicine and care.  If you want good
medicine, there is a base price that you have to pay.