Joe wrote:

Until you compare it to the systems in other countries, hwich obviously
you haven't done or experienced. We have our problems, but nothing like
what Canada and Eurpopean countries have.

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with the letter 'x')

"Joe" <drinks (AT) five (DOT) org> wrote

It's more insidious than that. All of Europe's governments decided years
ago to tax fuel into oblivion. It wasn't just to make money (although they
do spend it), it's to force people to conserve. The taxation levels are so
ridiculous it has to be that.

I don't really know why they wanted to do that. I imagine it's because they
have few oil resources, and they were smart enough to see the national
security cost of being dependent on imported fuel. That's just me making it
up. I'd love to know the politics that went into that. If anybody knows
about that, please post it up.

In the US, we're very egalitarian-minded. A scheme to increase gasoline
prices would cause people to conserve, but not in an egalitarian way. The
poor would conserve most, because they couldn't afford it. Rich folks would
go right on driving 12 mpg vehicles they drive now. Stuff like that doesn't
seem right in the US, so we may never do it.

Really, rationing seems pretty good by comparison. If we all conserve by
choice, that's even better. When Americans seriously conserve, the price of
oil will plummet.

Hi Joe,

On Sun, 1 Apr 2007 23:36:04 -0400, "Joe" <Joe (AT) dontspam (DOT) net> wrote:

Regardless of whatever action we make take now, I'm convinced the age
of cheap oil (and, consequently, life as we know it) is quickly coming
to a close. Consumers (most of whom would rather sacrifice their
first born than give up their truck or SUV) can look forward to
increasingly higher pump prices and chronic supply shortages as
battles are won and lost over the world's remaining oil supplies.

And, no, corn-based ethanol and the Alberta tar sands won't save our
sorry asses either.

For a clearer picture of this, see: http://www.theoildrum.com/

Cheers,
Paul

In article <PQ_Ph.80$5E1.9 (AT) newsfe02 (DOT) lga>, "Joe" <Joe (AT) dontspam (DOT) net>
wrote:

I'm patiently waiting!

In article <euphk2$6d9$2 (AT) news (DOT) isdn.net>, Bill Putney <bptn (AT) kinez (DOT) net>
wrote:

system.
The USA hasn't got one, well in one state. I just read that Maine has
universal health care, but the cost is so high many opt out.
Interesting isn't it, that Maine is physically very close to Canada.

A friend of ours who teaches in S Carolina retires in a few years and is
terrified that her very good work health care coverage will stop the day
she retires. The cost of her buying private coverage is very high,
even though it has many limitations.

Things are so bad in the U.S., it's hard to describe in words:

My dad has Blue Cross/Blue Shield. He went to a "preferred provider"
hospital (one that is listed in their catalogue as being a hospital under
the contract). Guess what? The EMERGENCY ROOM IS A SEPARATE ENTITY and
the e.r. doctor "chooses not to be under the Blue Cross/Blue Shield
contract". So the doctor can charge whatever he damn pleases instead of
the reasonable fees under B-C/B-S contract. The insurance paid part, but
the overcharge of about $500 came out of his pocket.

The very same doctor "agrees" to do welfare cases and accept a fraction of
the B-C/B-S reimbursement with no further recourse (by law) against the
patient. IOW, he sticks it to the cash payors and the insured like you and
me and my old man.

Just in case you think its a private enterprise matter, think again. Dying
people don't have a choice like wide screen t.v. buyers. You can't and
don't shop around. You go to the preferred provider and expect insured
services, but you are more likely than not to get screwed.

One more thing: The doctor who is charging about $2000 an hour for his
services has a life or death responsibility, sure. But does this entitle
him to charge the sky and moon for his services at his arbitrary
discretion? So does your brake man have a life or death responsibility to
do a job on your brakes; but, he charges $100 an hour max. Doctors are
supposed to be good samaritans, save lives, and NOT BANKCRUPT OLD PEOPLE
AND CAUSE THEM TO LOSE THEIR HOUSES IF THEY CAN'T PAY EXORBINANT FEES.

In article <91e101ffec0696199db92c430bfd25be (AT) mixmaster (DOT) it>,
George Orwell <nobody (AT) mixmaster (DOT) it> wrote:

The solution to this is a Federal basic health care system as all other
modern countries have.

"George Orwell" <nobody (AT) mixmaster (DOT) it> wrote

Oh, that's an interesting dodge, I hadn't heard of that one before. I'll
have to keep an eye out on that.

He's lucky he got away with only $500. That's a teachable moment here.
The moral of the story is that once a year you should call around to the
different hospitals and to the insurance companies to find things like this
out.

By the way, this separate entity thing is common for stuff like x-rays. For
example, all the local hospitals here have x-ray machines. So, you catch a
cold and go to your family doctor who happens to
practice out of the medical office building attached to a local hospital.
At
the end of the physical the doctor asks you to get a chest x-ray as a
precaution, just so he can look and make sure there's no evidence of TB
or some such. He writes you a prescription and says just walk down the
hallway to Radiology and have it done. What do you do?

Well, here's the deal. If you take your prescription and drive across
town to a commercial imaging center, they charge you $100 and hand
you your chest X-ray and you drive back to your doctors office, and
hand them the X-ray and your doctor looks at it later that day, and
your done. But, if you walk down the hall to Radiology, they charge you
$200 for the same X-ray, plus, they have a mandatory "analysis fee"
of another $150 for one of their staff doctors to look at your X-ray,
then they charge you $50 transport fee for some jackoff to carry it
back down the hall after their staff doctor looks at it, to your own doctor,
who is perfectly competent to interpret a chest x-ray!

Guess how many people just walk down the hall to Radiology and
have the X-ray done?

It's all about taking charge of your own health care.

If you really and truly are unconscious and dying then you are going to be
routed to the closest emergency room. In that case, the extra 15-20 minutes
to drive
to the next hospital with a more favorable billing arraingement could easily
mean the difference of surviving or dying. Not to mention that depending on
the type of problem some hospitals specialize in trauma and that sort of
thing.

But one of these days, sit for a couple hours in any emergency waiting room
and watch the type of people that come in. The vast majority come in in
private cars, not ambulances. And they don't have life-threatening stuff,
they
have routine stuff. And a lot of them are there because they have no
insurance
whatsoever, and no means to pay the hospital bill. The regular hospital or
a regular doctors office won't admit them and the emergency room by law
cannot
refuse them.

And, then the other thing about the emergency room is that it's open 24x7.
You
just sometimes have bad luck in dealing with sickness. For example, one
time
my wife started having severe abdominal pains - late Friday night. So what
are you going to do? In our case we had no choice but to go to the E-room,
you cannot risk something serious like an appendix. It turned out to be
gallstones,
the sort of thing that should normally be run through a doctors office. She
got no better care in the E-room than if she had just stayed home - they
gave
her painkillers and sent her home. The bill was something like $150 for
basically
some Tylenol.

In our case, I had done the homework during the day, a year earlier and knew
which E-room to go to.

In a lot of cases it just depends on how much responsibility you want to
take
for doing the homework. If for example I got a call from the school and my
kid had falled off a swing and they thought that he might have broken an
arm, I'd refuse an ambulance, and drive him to the hospital myself, and I
know exactly where to take him. If it was a trauma situation like bones
were
poking out, I'd tell the school they had no permission to release him to the
paramedics for transport until I talked to them on the phone, and when I
got the paramedic on the phone I'd tell them where to take him. But
a lot of parents would just freak out and in those cases, what happens is
the ambulance takes them to the nearest hospital and you get what you
get.

If E-rooms only saw dying/trauma cases, or the occassional false alarm like
my wife's,
they wouldn't be pulling these kinds of dodges. What is cocking them up
are all the people without insurance that use them as their doctors office.

Ted

"Some O" <SO (AT) nospam (DOT) net> wrote

I have excellent health care in Michigan. My health insurance will continue
into my retirement.

"who" <i (AT) notaspammer (DOT) net> wrote

No, thank you.