Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez dead

Gravity's Silhouette wrote:

It is my responsibility to achieve my happiness and a fulfilling life; not Uncle Sam.

Easier said than done for many.

Python wrote:

So fuck anyone that can't afford healthcare.

No. "Healthcare on the other hand is an industry sector, subject to the vagaries of the market. It's ideally served by private insurers, and in a free and compassionate society, with a public option for those who can't pay preumiums. "
The challenge for any free society is keep the economy strong so that the need for a public option is kept to the minimum. ie keep people working. Employment is generated by vigorous economic activity and nothing else.

I think free healthcare can be achieved, but only truly done if there was more compassion. That's not reality, but it is something I think we should strive for. Sadly that's not much of an interest in the pocketbooks of politicians, and everyone else.

Python wrote:

Gravity's Silhouette wrote:

It is my responsibility to achieve my happiness and a fulfilling life; not Uncle Sam.

Easier said than done for many.

Indeed. The old Ayn Rand canard.

Largo's Shark wrote:

Python wrote:

Gravity's Silhouette wrote:

It is my responsibility to achieve my happiness and a fulfilling life; not Uncle Sam.

Easier said than done for many.

Indeed. The old Ayn Rand canard.

Okay then. If it's not my responsibility to achieve my own happiness, and if it's not my responsibility to determine what a fulfilling life is and plan for it, whose responsibility is it? I'd like to know so that I can begin to assess the blame and determine how much of it to assign to the government and society overall.

I'm reminded of The Obscurity Prayer from STRANGERS WITH CANDY:
Dear God, please give me the strength to blame those who did this to me, to accuse those who didn't, and the wisdom to know the difference.


Amen!

Man has climbed Mount Everest. Gone to the bottom of the ocean. He has fired rockets at the Moon. Split the atom. Achieved miracles in every field of human endeavour... except healthcare!!!

Python wrote:

Achieved miracles in every field of human endeavour... except healthcare!!!

Other than doubling the average life-expectancy in western countries over the past 50 years? Other than developing a vaccine for polio? Other than successfully performing quadruple heart bypass surgeries or transplants? Other than finding aggressive ways to treat some forms of cancer?

Puhleeze. America, England and France have literally had to drag "third world" countries kicking and screaming into the 21st century when it comes to medicine.

Supposedly, according to Michael Moore, Cuba has the best health care system in the world; Hugo Chavez went there for treatment and still he died.

NEWSFLASH: we're all gonna die!

Gravity's Silhouette wrote:

Loomis wrote:

Gravity's Silhouette wrote:

I don't know what kind of "mess" Largo feels he's in or would be in, but I can pick out one thing in his comments that is just dead-wrong: "free healthcare". There is no such thing. Somebody is paying for it. Maybe Largo's taxes pay for it (I don't know anything about London except what I see in the 007 films and Downton Abbey). And the truth is, if something is "free" it's usually not worth much, or eventually loses whatever value it may have had.

Are you okay with "free" policing and "free" national defence? If you're happy for those things to be provided through people's taxes, why not health care?

But there isn't "free policing" and "free national defense". There is a cost to it

Exactly. Hence my use of inverted commas. Brits pay for the National Health Services through their taxes.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/breaking-news/sea-of-venezuelans-view-chavez-remains/story-fn3dxix6-1226592853387

Quote :

VENEZUELANS have flocked to see President Hugo Chavez lying in state, as his heir revealed that he would be embalmed "like Lenin" and displayed in the barracks where he plotted a failed coup.

They're gonna need a bigger coffin.

CJB wrote:

They're gonna need a bigger coffin.

The man is dead. Okay? He just died. His body is barely cold and you're making insensitive and thoughtless comments about an entire nation's beloved leader! Love it. Keep it up :)

Largo's Shark wrote:

Python wrote:

Gravity's Silhouette wrote:

It is my responsibility to achieve my happiness and a fulfilling life; not Uncle Sam.

Easier said than done for many.

Indeed. The old Ayn Rand canard.

Who'd want Uncle Sam achieving one's "happiness and a fulfilling life" Since when does government welfare make anyone happy? It's a form of dependency. Better off flat broke I think and taking the best job available, even one you don't ideally want, than taking the government welfare, unless you absolutely have no other option, but how many people actually collecting welfare are actually in that situation. It seems that for many it's a chosen way of life, aided and abetted by government collaborators and a whole underground economy aimed at gaming the system and maxing any and all available benefits.

I have the solution to the American healthcare discussion. :idea: Government gets together with the various stakeholders and re-jigs the regulatory framework so that insurance premiums are more affordable. This might take some work, but I think its worth it.
Or go the single-payer government takeover of an entire industry, actually the largest economic sector in the entire country, and wallow in the inefficiency, skyrocketing costs and misery for all.
What I'd like to know though, is that if the American Health Care system goes in the dumper (single payer system) where do we in Canada, trying to escape our hopeless public system, go to get treatments and procedures that we can't get here without lining up around the block for a year or more.
What about the poor Canadian senior who needs treatment for her vericose veins but the public health-care won't pay for the laser surgery that older patients need, as the regular surgery is riskier for them. What does he/she do when the government won't even let them pay the difference. Well, you can either suffer or rustle up some cash and head to the States. You don't want to be a senior in Canada, depending on the Ontario Health Insurance Plan, but if we had private options :idea:
Currently we take our cash and go to the States rather than suffer and or die when waiting.
But actually, as public health care is bankrupting provincial treasuries, governments have been moving to a stealth private-public system. Governments can't openly discuss such things as the usual suspects will erupt, foaming at the mouth, accusing any poltician daring enough to question the sanctity of public health-care of high treason or crimes against humanity . Some things are better just done and not talked about. The Occupy crowd have enough on their protest plate already. :flower:
Btw I am not an uncompassionate hardass. I fully support free public health care for those that can't pay, but the rest of us with jobs or savings or even people we can bum money from, should have some private options!? Is that really too much to ask?!

tiffanywint wrote:

Who'd want Uncle Sam achieving one's "happiness and a fulfilling life" Since when does government welfare make anyone happy? It's a form of dependency. Better off flat broke I think and taking the best job available, even one you don't ideally want, than taking the government welfare, unless you absolutely have no other option, but how many people actually collecting welfare are actually in that situation. It seems that for many it's a chosen way of life, aided and abetted by government collaborators and a whole underground economy aimed at gaming the system and maxing any and all available benefits.

I have the solution to the American healthcare discussion. :idea: Government gets together with the various stakeholders and re-jigs the regulatory framework so that insurance premiums are more affordable. This might take some work, but I think its worth it.
Or go the single-payer government takeover of an entire industry, actually the largest economic sector in the entire country, and wallow in the inefficiency, skyrocketing costs and misery for all.
What I'd like to know though, is that if the American Health Care system goes in the dumper (single payer system) where do we in Canada, trying to escape our hopeless public system, go to get treatments and procedures that we can't get here without lining up around the block for a year or more.
What about the poor Canadian senior who needs treatment for her vericose veins but the public health-care won't pay for the laser surgery that older patients need, as the regular surgery is riskier for them. What does he/she do when the government won't even let them pay the difference. Well, you can either suffer or rustle up some cash and head to the States. You don't want to be a senior in Canada, depending on the Ontario Health Insurance Plan, but if we had private options :idea:
Currently we take our cash and go to the States rather than suffer and or die when waiting.
But actually, as public health care is bankrupting provincial treasuries, governments have been moving to a stealth private-public system. Governments can't openly discuss such things as the usual suspects will erupt, foaming at the mouth, accusing any poltician daring enough to question the sanctity of public health-care of high treason or crimes against humanity . Some things are better just done and not talked about. The Occupy crowd have enough on their protest plate already. :flower:
Btw I am not an uncompassionate hardass. I fully support free public health care for those that can't pay, but the rest of us with jobs or savings or even people we can bum money from, should have some private options!? Is that really too much to ask?!

Very well put! Welcome to the boards, Mark Steyn!

The problem with your logic, though, is that it allows people who have the means and the desire to "pay the difference" the ability to acquire health care services that other people, admittedly, could not afford, or that their government deemed non-essential or "risky". You'd be embarassing the government of Canada by going outside of their health care system to get treatment in the U.S., and you'd be embarassing the people who can't afford to pay the difference. By that same logic, no one should be allowed to vacation in Monaco because I can't afford to go there. The goal of civil rights and health care reform, according to Al Sharpton, was to make sure everything is "equal in everybody's house." It can't be equal if a person with means, desire and ability to afford something extra, something more, something different....is allowed to. Everyone in Canada should be equally poor, equally sick, and equally unable to get the best health care that they can. That's detente Tiffany.....you don't have it, I don't have it.

I'm also a little scared for the generation of people who believe it's not their responsibility to define their own happiness and seek it; that that responsibility lies with someone else.

I find the healthcare discussion a bit one sided currently the medical industry earnes a ridiculous amount of money on the healthprograms and unhealthy people through insurance, medication, procedures and equipment. Every time I read the amount of money an operation costs I am amazed by the amount and do wonder who actually gets all that cash.

The pharmacutical industry does make a shedload of cash of which they do put some of it into research for new medication but only if it is aimed at a large targetgroup. For smaller diseases they ask a ridiculous amount of cash instead of compensating it with their larger profit medication. I realize it is a business but they should be taken down a bit in order to make healthcare better affordable.

Healthcare should suffer less of capitalism and be perhaps a bit more social in order to make it more cost affordable.

And I gladly pay tax for a healthcare system for everybody than for buying the army a new flipping toy they can wage war with.

saint mark wrote:

And I gladly pay tax for a healthcare system for everybody than for buying the army a new flipping toy they can wage war with.

Just a friendly reminder that it was an American army with their American "toys" that helped liberate your people from the Nazis. It wasn't the Venezuelans.

Gravity's Silhouette wrote:

saint mark wrote:

And I gladly pay tax for a healthcare system for everybody than for buying the army a new flipping toy they can wage war with.

Just a friendly reminder that it was an American army with their American "toys" that helped liberate your people from the Nazis. It wasn't the Venezuelans.

And me stating that I prefer that my tax goes towards healthcare instead of ridiculous overpriced defense projects warrants your remark that we should be eternally gratefull for the US participation in a war that was bound to involve the US anyhow???

And currently we are drawn into 2 stupid wars that cost so much money we had better put into our economy and at the end of the war we are all stcuk with large bills and an outcome that does not favour us Western nations.

saint mark wrote:

And me stating that I prefer that my tax goes towards healthcare instead of ridiculous overpriced defense projects warrants your remark that we should be eternally gratefull for the US participation in a war that was bound to involve the US anyhow???

Depends upon whose "overpriced defense projects" you are referring to. If you want to slag off about The Netherlands and their defense budget, that's fine. That's your country. But if you're complaining about the United States and how much she spends on defense...well, then we've got a problem. You see, we live in a world that has borders. And those borders have to be guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it? You? Michael Moore? The U.S. has a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Iraq and Afghanistan and you curse the Marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know: that Saddam's death saved lives. And our existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives...You don't want the truth. Because deep down, in places you don't talk about at parties, you want us fighting these wars in the Middle East, the Korean Peninsula, South East Asia and in Europe. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom the U.S. provided you, then questions the manner in which we provide it! You want the truth? You can't handle the truth!

Didn't we go to Iraq for nonexistent WMDs?

Python wrote:

Didn't we go to Iraq for nonexistent WMDs?

Apparently.

Gravity's Silhouette wrote:

Quote :

Welcome to the boards, Mark Steyn!

Like Justin Bieber, Mark Steyn is a national treasure!

What with North Korea threatening a nuclear strike against the USA this week, I don't know that's it's so wrong to be taking out guys like Saddam well in advance, not to mention that the asshole was slaughtering his own people right left and sidewise. You are welcome Iraq. Saddam was a Bond villain waiting to be taken out. Who knows when he was planning to orchestrate an attack on the USA. You know he wanted to. Some of them actually do it (9/11)
I am looking forward to In the Garden of Beasts film which is in pre-production. It's based on the 2011 book which details the warnings of the American ambassador to Germany in the 1930's, that the Nazi's were intent on war. His warnings were ignored. The appeasers ruled the day, in both England and America. The rest is history. Clearly Germany should have been invaded long before the Nazi military buildup reached the point of no return. Those who were stationed in Berlin knew what was going on, as did the western Intelligence apparatus (notaby the quiet Canadian, Sir William Stephenson whose exploits are detailed in A Man Called Intrepid, which I think is a must read for Fleming fans)
The world is always at war, be it covert or overt. We must always be vigilant and maintain strong military and intelligence capacity or pay the price.
The USA health care solution should be obvious. Socialized healthcare is not the answer. That'a recipe for economic collapse and societal misery. And what is the point anyway? Many don't seem to understand that the USA already has fully funded medicare and medicaid. The easiest way to get free health care in the States is to be poor or old. The most vulnerabe are covered, but its those in the middle, who don't pass the means test, that need help with paying expensive premiums.
The solution should be obvious. The government needs to sit down with the industry stakeholders and review what's driving up costs. The regulatory framework needs to be reviewed and overhauled so that its more fiscally efficient and that consumers truly do have competitive options. It's a hell of a lot of work and its also ongoing, but its the way to go to keep everyone affordably covered and not collapse the economy.
Secondly, I would suggest health insurance be mandatory. If one doesn't voluntarily buy, they will be taxed accordingly and handed a government approved private plan. This might put me at odds with some of my conservative friends, who are not wrong really, contending that government shouldn't be forcing health insurance on anyone, as worst case, some 25 year old guy, that thinks he's beyond getting injured, ends up with $100K worth of medical bills. So he's now got monthly debt payments to make until he clears the debt over time which can be done, if he stays employed. But maybe better just to force the insurance on everyone, under the justification that we have to give everyone the treatment when they want it anyway, as denying treatment in a compassionate society is not an option.

Gravity's Silhouette wrote:

saint mark wrote:

And me stating that I prefer that my tax goes towards healthcare instead of ridiculous overpriced defense projects warrants your remark that we should be eternally gratefull for the US participation in a war that was bound to involve the US anyhow???

Depends upon whose "overpriced defense projects" you are referring to. If you want to slag off about The Netherlands and their defense budget, that's fine. That's your country. But if you're complaining about the United States and how much she spends on defense...well, then we've got a problem. You see, we live in a world that has borders. And those borders have to be guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it? You? Michael Moore? The U.S. has a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Iraq and Afghanistan and you curse the Marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know: that Saddam's death saved lives. And our existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives...You don't want the truth. Because deep down, in places you don't talk about at parties, you want us fighting these wars in the Middle East, the Korean Peninsula, South East Asia and in Europe. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom the U.S. provided you, then questions the manner in which we provide it! You want the truth? You can't handle the truth!

Saddams death saves lives?? I sincerely doubt that since with his death there is a serious power inbalance that seems to go well with their crazy neighbours. The two kept themselves busy and were opposites on the religious scale so were kicking each other behind without bothering to many other folks.

The Dutch were in AFghanistan too. Even if the goverment will return undoubtely to the Taliban when everybody leaves in the next years. All the former Soviet countries around it have always harbored these religious warriors as they were seen there. Even the US has no real intel in all those former Soviet states with rather long names that fell towards the Islamic religion due to the Soviet influence on religion. So I am not quite sure what freedoms there were to gain in Aghanistan, having read some books by experts Steve Coll & Ahmed Rashid you quickly find yourself wondering what the hell any army would be doing there already three worldpowers got their behinds kicked (UK, SOviet Union & the Aliied forces led by the US) and have left the area without gaining anything great.

But nowhere I did mention that the US is not allowed to spend so much money on defense that there is not a country in the world or even Europe & Japan combined who spends as much on that industry. I find it surprising that this is more important than the health of their own citizen something that would cost a fraction of what is spend on war in the name of peace. I do critise the health industry and how they earn their living while eearning excessivly on medication, procedures. I have no problem with medical people earning more than the average joe, they do spend a lot of time learning for their skill which should be awarded.

Now as to what you spend your tax on in the US, the richer you are the lesser percentage wise you seem to pay tax according to quite a few of your billionaires, is fair to critise.
However I stated that I rather see my tax go to health care than any idea that the Dutch army at any time is going to make a difference. They only spend too much money on status projects while sucking up to their big brothers. Our army is waste of taxpayers money and they too want cool toys and a war to play with them.

Python wrote:

Man has climbed Mount Everest. Gone to the bottom of the ocean. He has fired rockets at the Moon. Split the atom. Achieved miracles in every field of human endeavour... except healthcare!!!

My God, he was a good boy and died! Another dictator down. Can't say I'm happy, but I don't think he was a good person in ANY means!

His governing pals were accusing the CIA of causing great leader's illness. If so what took them so long? JFK tried to take out Castro fairly quickly. He failed but he did try at least.

tiffanywint wrote:

His governing pals were accusing the CIA of causing great leader's illness. If so what took them so long? JFK tried to take out Castro fairly quickly. He failed but he did try at least.

FACT: Fidel Castro impersonated Marilyn Monroe and gave President Kennedy a case of syphilis so severe that eventually it blew the back of his head off.

tiffanywint wrote:

His governing pals were accusing the CIA of causing great leader's illness.

http://www.hotflick.net/flicks/2006_Casino_Royale/006CSR_Jeffrey_Wright_007.jpg

"Much appreciated, brother!" ;) ;)

QOS-Bond is still in mourning for Chavez. He's consoling himself with coke and communism.