[redrockcoulee]

Dude, Congress mandating stuff is what regulations are, which goes back to fix your government.

Actually what happens is Parliament passes a law and then bureaucrats make the regulations that the law enforces. Having said that I do not know what Winder is wanting if regulations but not from the government. But they do need to be able to better separate the politicians from the working government and lessening the influence of money is the main way to do that.

[Workingdog]

Congratulations jogiba. You get the "Most Misleading Thread Title of the Year" award.

...or this weeks "taking stuff out of context award.

[jogiba]

...or this weeks "taking stuff out of context award.

Oh paleeeze, the Republicans are the best at doing that.

[GeneV]

Most major birth control pills are now available in generic form. The patents have expired.... just like Aspirin. They could be made available OTC and would be much cheaper if that were the case. The regulation keeps the price higher. I don't think we have to worry about people abusing BC pills.

Then you think they should be available OTC? If so, why the deflection when I asked the question before?

This is actually not true. I went almost 10 years without health insurance, and only paid for what I needed when I went to the doctor. I was never refused care. This included paying for shoulder surgery.

Congratulations. I went 20 years without an auto accident. I suppose I didn't need auto insurance--until I did. My guess is that you were a male between 18 and 35-40 years old during the time you were uninsured, but everyone's story is different. I hardly saw a doctor for decades, but in 2010, while maintaining my fitness level on a bicycle (which had my physical age decades below chronology) I was injured and required 5 trips to the hospital (3 in an ambulance), 2 major surgeries and 1 minor one, and incurred six figure costs. Go figure. I guess I did need the health insurance.

Where do you find this "right" to healthcare? What can you base this on? Just saying so doesn't work. Wishful thinking doesn't work. Mankind existed for thousands of years before insurance ever existed. Insurance and healthcare are relatively new commercial products. They are not constitutional rights. Fear and marketing have done a great job creating demand for these commercial products and making these industries extremely rich.

Where does one find a requirement that every service the government provides must be based on a legal right? In fact, most of what it provides is not based on a constitutional or legal "right." This includes roads, schools, fire and police, airports, and maintaining a standing army, by the way. The vast majority of government services exist because they are deemed desirable and worthy of a nation's effort, together and further our well-being and prosperity. Is it not desirable that citizens be able to obtain good healthcare at a reasonable cost? Is this not part of living in a moral, civilized, society? Again, if you don't think it is a worthy endeavor to provide quality health care to our citizens, then there is not much point in talking about the specifics to which this thread is addressed.

Competition will benefit everyone who wants to purchase insurance. If people want "free" healthcare then competition will be of no benefit. There is no such thing as free. The things that government provides for "free" are usually extremely expensive.

I demonstrated how that was not true, but then you changed the subject without really responding.

I'm not saying exercise and diet cure everything, but the leading killers in this country are due to unhealthy lifestyles. Not bad luck or genes.

There is, to my knowledge, no consensus on the extent to which these causes relate to diet and exercise and not genetics or luck. FASTSTATS - Leading Causes of Death There is no doubt that we could improve health and the quality of our lives with better diet and exercise, and some incentives to improve fitness would be a good thing. The Mayo Clinic recommends diet and exercise as well as regular screenings to cut the risk of heart disease. Heart disease prevention: 5 strategies keep your heart healthy - MayoClinic.com However, they note at the outset of the article "Although you lack the power to change some risk factors — such as family history, sex or age — there are some key heart disease prevention steps you can take.." Apparently, drinking helps, too. Preventing Heart Disease The most optimistic information is that cancer risk might be cut by a third. Do 'Real' Exercise to Prevent Cancer Scientists really don't how much is genetic or whether good diet and exercise prevent heart disease or just delay its onset (a good thing), at which point the patient will still need expensive care.

Nevertheless, to waive off the need for medical care in that way seems rather callous.

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Last edited by GeneV; 03-06-2012 at 08:43 AM.

[normhead]

After careful consideration of the Cardinals words "You ought to visit a prostitute to help you.’, my considered reply is, "which one's have you used? are there any you'd recommend?"

[Parallax]

Oh paleeeze, the Republicans are the best at doing that.

Well, weather they were or not was arguable, until you started this thread with that title. You da king, now.






Who knew jogiba actually liked Republicans? Here's a direct quote:

jogiba: "Republicans are the best"

[Wheatfield]

Actually what happens is Parliament passes a law and then bureaucrats make the regulations that the law enforces. Having said that I do not know what Winder is wanting if regulations but not from the government. But they do need to be able to better separate the politicians from the working government and lessening the influence of money is the main way to do that.

I've always been of the opinion that the term "government" covers the bureaucrats that work for it, not just the elected and unelected officials.

[Parallax]

I've always been of the opinion that the term "government" covers the bureaucrats that work for it, not just the elected and unelected officials.

Absolutely it does.

[Wheatfield]

Congratulations. I went 20 years without an auto accident. I suppose I didn't need auto insurance--until I did. My guess is that you were a male between 18 and 35-40 years old during the time you were uninsured, but everyone's story is different. I hardly saw a doctor for decades, but in 2010, while maintaining my fitness level on a bicycle (which had my physical age decades below chronology) I was injured and required 5 trips to the hospital (3 in an ambulance), 2 major surgeries and 1 minor one, and incurred six figure costs. Go figure. I guess I did need the health insurance.

This mirrors my needs regarding health care. I went some 25 years with 3 doctors visits, one of which was a required physical exam prior to getting married (I never did figure out that particular regulation, and I believe it has since been repealed). The other two times were to treat staph infections from wasp stings.
Were I not a citizen of a country that provides health care as part of it's social contract, and had no health insurance, I suspect I wouldn't have found not having health insurance overly onerous.
OTOH, all it takes is one fairly major accident to make an uninsured person wish they had actually bought it.
If winder is telling the truth, he would be a fairly lucky person for getting away with not needing fairly expensive medical care for as long as he did.

Where does one find a requirement that every service the government provides must be based on a legal right?

This seems to be the argument of last resort for people who are against a national health care policy in your country.

[GeneV]

This mirrors my needs regarding health care. I went some 25 years with 3 doctors visits, one of which was a required physical exam prior to getting married (I never did figure out that particular regulation, and I believe it has since been repealed). The other two times were to treat staph infections from wasp stings.
Were I not a citizen of a country that provides health care as part of it's social contract, and had no health insurance, I suspect I wouldn't have found not having health insurance overly onerous.
OTOH, all it takes is one fairly major accident to make an uninsured person wish they had actually bought it.
If winder is telling the truth, he would be a fairly lucky person for getting away with not needing fairly expensive medical care for as long as he did.


This seems to be the argument of last resort for people who are against a national health care policy in your country.

Luckily, I had health insurance, and had purchased it for myself and my employees for many years. I paid my money into the system for years without using it, and that is how it should be. It kept the system for when I needed it. I won't dare change insurers until 2014, though.

We create legal "rights" with every law. The real question is not whether there is a legal right to health care already, but whether there should be one (as is the case in most industrialized countries).

[redrockcoulee]

I've always been of the opinion that the term "government" covers the bureaucrats that work for it, not just the elected and unelected officials.

Yes and no. I am not part of the Harper government even though I work for the Canadian people. What I was trying to say was the way people look at the government they do not look at their elected officials the same as they look at their public servants. I for example cannot even appear to be partisan nor should I be able to. Perhaps I should have said how people in the two countries looked at their elected representatives and how they look at their civil servants and that is the separation that I meant however when many say they do not want the government to have say on some thing like health care I believe they are speaking about the elected part of the government rather than a public health director.

After an election and a different party wins it is common to say there is a change in government and yet no civil servant other than perhaps those working in the Privy Council change or are affected unless there is a restructuring of departments. So in this sense the two parts are not looked at as being the same.

[Wheatfield]

Yes and no. I am not part of the Harper government even though I work for the Canadian people. What I was trying to say was the way people look at the government they do not look at their elected officials the same as they look at their public servants. I for example cannot even appear to be partisan nor should I be able to. Perhaps I should have said how people in the two countries looked at their elected representatives and how they look at their civil servants and that is the separation that I meant however when many say they do not want the government to have say on some thing like health care I believe they are speaking about the elected part of the government rather than a public health director.

After an election and a different party wins it is common to say there is a change in government and yet no civil servant other than perhaps those working in the Privy Council change or are affected unless there is a restructuring of departments. So in this sense the two parts are not looked at as being the same.

There are more than two tiers. There is the elected/appointment level, which would be MPs, senators and other political appointments (it's always bothered me that the GG is appointed by the PM, it seems to me that it should be appointed by non partisan consensus within the House), then there is the bureaucratic level, which would be the people who work directly for the elected/appointed level (these are the people who write the regulations that winder rails about), and then at some point, we get to the level where you are at, which is civil servants who are more or less just doing a job.
A garbage collector is technically a civil servant, but he has as much say about how things are done at city hall as I do. OTOH, his boss might have more say, and the boss of his boss certainly would.

[redrockcoulee]

The regulations I have to comply with are written from a variety of sources. An act of Parliament authorizes the regulations and the regulations are written by career bureaucrats and commented on by others. And the regs themselves refer to other sources. For example one of the regs refers to the portions of the National Fire Code which is also written by civil servants but also parts of the it are by a committee of all the environment ministers for the federal , provincial and territorial govt and their staff and part of the reg refers to appropriate industry standards and still others fall under ULC standards. And that is for one regulation that was started under a Liberal government phased in and not changed by the current Harper government nor do I know if the people who would have written it in the first place are not still in the public service.

[Wheatfield]

The regulations I have to comply with are written from a variety of sources. An act of Parliament authorizes the regulations and the regulations are written by career bureaucrats and commented on by others. And the regs themselves refer to other sources. For example one of the regs refers to the portions of the National Fire Code which is also written by civil servants but also parts of the it are by a committee of all the environment ministers for the federal , provincial and territorial govt and their staff and part of the reg refers to appropriate industry standards and still others fall under ULC standards. And that is for one regulation that was started under a Liberal government phased in and not changed by the current Harper government nor do I know if the people who would have written it in the first place are not still in the public service.

I'm not sure what this has to do with the discussion at hand.

[redrockcoulee]

I'm not sure what this has to do with the discussion at hand.

Trying to show that it is normally not the politicians nor their staff that make the regulations. They do compose the laws that make the regulations binding. My point was that it should not be politicians that decide what procedures or medications that are used. So it is health care professionals , including those employed by a government, that should decide on care and not either politicians nor employers.