The new BO health care plan (Page 3)

I don't know any better?  Seriously...  Do know that you pay more per capita for health care in the US then we do in Canada.  More of your tax dollars pay for health care then mine.   And added to that Canadians know perfectly well that they pay taxes for the health care they get and we don't consider it free.  That comment is insulting.  

And no I don't trust you.  I would gladly wait 6 weeks for an MRI for something non life treatening if it means that all of my fellow citizens have access to health care.  We are a privlaged country with a high standard of living.  The least we can do for our citizens who help build and shape this country is let them live thier lives knowing that when they need care it wont bankrupt them.  Some take advantage but most people are good people who make our country the great nation that it is.  There will always be those that take advantage.  You can design your system to punish them or have faith that most people are honest and want whats best for themselves and their neighbour (which is more often the not the same thing). 

I don't know any better?  Seriously...  Do know that you pay more per capita for health care in the US then we do in Canada.  More of your tax dollars pay for health care then mine.   And added to that Canadians know perfectly well that they pay taxes for the health care they get and we don't consider it free.  That comment is insulting.  

And no I don't trust you.  I would gladly wait 6 weeks for an MRI for something non life treatening if it means that all of my fellow citizens have access to health care.  We are a privlaged country with a high standard of living.  The least we can do for our citizens who help build and shape this country is let them live thier lives knowing that when they need care it wont bankrupt them.  Some take advantage but most people are good people who make our country the great nation that it is.  There will always be those that take advantage.  You can design your system to punish them or have faith that most people are honest and want whats best for themselves and their neighbour (which is more often the not the same thing). 

I do not think Glens intent was to insult, but that is how you make it sound, IMO.

After Uncle Sam takes close to 45% of my pay in taxes now, it doesn't sound to me like my lifestyle would change that much by living off the government.

I guess I just don't understand what incentive will be left to go to work.  Why bust my tail day in and out when I could still be fully insured, receive unemployment pay, get food stamps, etc. and have all of my free time to myself.  After Uncle Sam takes close to 45% of my pay in taxes now, it doesn't sound to me like my lifestyle would change that much by living off the government.

I don't have an answer on how to lower costs.  I guess I just do not fundamentally believe that it is a RIGHT to have health care coverage.  You should have to earn that just as you earn your paycheck.  I believe it's still considered a "benefit" and part of my total compensation package for the job I do and I'm ok with that.

Reality is people just are not that lazy.  Given the choice most people wont just sit and coast by.  Canada like the US is a country where if you work hard you can be fortunate and have many opportunities and choices.  The standard of living that you can achieve working is vastly different then what you can achieve sitting on your a$$.  The people who want to coast by always will and they are the minority.  Incentive to work for most people is knowing that if you choose to you can better your position. 

I think you'd be shocked to see how many people are taking advantage and living off the system here in the States.  It is sickening.

I agree that most people want better and will work to do so.  But when you're already working your tail off and are told that the only way to fix health care is to shove a bill through as fast as possible that will mandate health care for everyone and it's going to be paid for by taxing me more...it sucks dude. 

Btw...I love Canadians.

I don't know any better?  Seriously...  Do know that you pay more per capita for health care in the US then we do in Canada.  More of your tax dollars pay for health care then mine.   And added to that Canadians know perfectly well that they pay taxes for the health care they get and we don't consider it free.  That comment is insulting.  

And no I don't trust you.  I would gladly wait 6 weeks for an MRI for something non life treatening if it means that all of my fellow citizens have access to health care.  We are a privlaged country with a high standard of living.  The least we can do for our citizens who help build and shape this country is let them live thier lives knowing that when they need care it wont bankrupt them.  Some take advantage but most people are good people who make our country the great nation that it is.  There will always be those that take advantage.  You can design your system to punish them or have faith that most people are honest and want whats best for themselves and their neighbour (which is more often the not the same thing). 

Two ways in my opinion;

If there is potential profit in it someone will do it just as the drug companies are currently doing.

2nd Not for profits would and are currently funding some of it.

I am against the federal government taking money from me and deciding which charity I will fund. 

The purpose of biomedical research is to a) find out things that nobody knew before, which then can b) hopefully be transformed into cures for diseases.  In this case, (a) has to come before (b), because if you don't know how the system works, then you can't come up with a way to fix it.  The free market system generally results in investors putting their money into things that they feel are likely to realize a profit.  Look at private pharmacological research firms for an example.

As I mentioned I think it's a worthy cause and I think you can ask for donations on a voluntary basis instead of confiscating money from the general public at large.

The federal government is terribly inefficient and politics play too big of a role as to who gets what. Non profits would be more efficient.

Most of the drugs that only Buffett and Gates can afford are produced by pharmacological companies, which have extremely active R&D facilities.  This is true market-driven biomedical research, with financial power and technological resources that far outstrips what is available to even the richest academic lab with a ton of big R01 federal grants.  (This is why a lot of academic scientists end up in partnering with drug companies.)  The reason that the cures cost so much money is that the drug companies pour vast amounts of money into outcompeting each other to find a new cancer drug, or a new anti-baldness drug, or a new drug that cures a really common disease.  Frequently, they don't even know how their drug actually works (for example, everyone says they know how psychiatric drugs work, but in many cases, they really don't understand their actions at the most basic levels.)  They basically run high-throughput screening assays to see which drugs affect which pathway.  Then, because they have to recoup their expenses and realize a profit, they price their new drugs as high as the traffic will bear.  In industrialized countries, this is very high indeed.  It's easy to villiainize Big Pharma, but they are doing the only thing they can do in order to maximize shareholder value, which is the key to running a successful business in a free-market economy.

If all scientific research was turned over to the free market, the problem wouldn't get any better.  We would keep seeing drugs targeted to cure people of the same highly prevalent illnesses, or drugs targeted to treat chronic illnesses (sufferers of a chronic disease are a perfect captive audience for a drug), or "convenience drugs" that a wide variety of people would take (cold remedies, cosmetic drugs to treat baldness, drugs to treat erectile dysfunction or speed weight-loss).  All the drugs would be really high-cost.

Furthermore, axing government-supported basic science research would mean that if your disease wasn't REALLY common, nobody would do any research on it at all.  This would not only be dubiously ethical (the world has the resources to potentially find cures or treatments for many relatively rare diseases, but instead their sufferers are doomed to painful, lingering, premature deaths?), but also would potentially mean that really essential molecular mechanisms by which our bodies function would not get discovered.

I think that rather than axing the NIH research budget, which is what you are in effect proposing, a better plan might be to overhaul the NIH goals.  Right now, the NIH allocations are extremely politically-driven.  When people are clamoring for cures for cancer, diabetes, and AIDS, which research programs do you think will be funded?  It would probably be way cheaper for the NIH to instead fund more studies about how to avoid getting cancer, diabetes, and AIDS in the first place, or how to mitigate chronic diseases in their earliest stages, or how to manage chronic conditions without medicating them.  Studies geared towards preventative medicine would be WAY more cost-effective, but would never be funded by a free-market economy (what business is going to conduct studies into finding ways for people to never have to buy their product?)  Unfortunately, this will never happen, because the American populace has decided that they can somehow do whatever they want while avoiding the consequences (living outside their means and becoming astonished when the overinflated economy collapses, eating crap and being appalled that half the country is fat and diabetic, and assuming that they can ruin their health however they want and that a magic pill will appear to fix the consequences of their own poor choices.)

Sorry for the rant.  I just feel that there are some things, such as basic scientific research, that the government needs to fund.  It's both an issue of national security and essential to improving the general health of the American people.  If the general population voted in a referendum to abolish the NIH and NSF, then I would accept that American anti-intellectualism had reached a peak or nadir, and that my contributions to society were no longer valued here.  Then I would move to India, China, or Singapore to pursue my career, and employ 5-20 Indians, Chinese, or Singaporeans in my lab instead of Americans. 

Pushing anything that comprehensive and far reaching so quickly is definatly not a good approach.  I would have no arguements with you there.  Your country has the fortunate position of looking at many different universal systems from around the world and picking the things that work well and leaving out the things that don't.  That takes time and I would be furious with my government if they thought they could hammer out a complex issue so quickly.  Obviously it will only lead to mistakes that you may have a hard time taking back. 

I don't think that I would be shocked to see how many people try and live off the system.  I pretty sure the % would be similar to what it is here.  My view is those people will always be there and if they are content living at the bottom rung so be it.  No society will ever have 100% participation and you shouldn't halt progress for the masses just to try and punish the few.  I doubt giving them more or less does much of anything at all to motivate them.  I say forget they are even there and worry about the 98% of people who want to better themselves and participate in all your country has to offer. 

That's why I like you Canucks.  Because you're smart and you brought us the great sport of hockey (and Brian Adams).

Good point.

Which is more important to our daily lives, health care or food?