Go tell the Canadians and Brits waiting 6 months queued up to get an MRI
to see if they have a brain tumor that their health care is more
efficient and higher quality. *Any* good or service that you give away
for free will be rationed and of low quality. This is about as certain
as the law of gravity.

The reason we spend what we do on health care is because:

1.) As a country we are among the most affluent so we can afford to
spend high percentages of income on things like health care. We
actually spend a smaller percentage of income on things like housing,
food and fuel than other developed countries.

2.) We have a hybrid system that is not a true free market nor is it a
rationed nationalized service. Employer provided medical insurance
encouraged the consumer to be unconcerned with cost. A reasonable
system would be personal medical saving accounts combined with
catastrophic health coverage insurance. Our current system violates the
basic premise of insurance - i.e. you insure for things that are
relatively infrequent but expensive. By contributing to an insurance
fund you spread the risk and the cost. You don't use insurance for
routine events that are almost certain to happen, i.e. like going to the
doctor when you catch a cold. You can buy medical insurance with a $2k
annual deductible very cheap. Combine that with a $2k per year personal
medical saving account where you get to keep the unused funds after a
certain number of years. Now you are using insurance for relatively
rare catastrophic events like cancer and you give the consumer an
incentive to shop for price on the routine stuff.

The industrialized countries with nationalized health care are
economically in the crapper. France and Germany have chronic double
digit unemployment. Japan has been on a downturn for the last decade.
China is growing so fast because they are starting from such a low
point. As their wages rise they will become less attracive (remember,
Japan was once the country of choice for cheap labor).

Yes, some things in this country are broken (education certainly - a
goverment monopoly I might point out). We can compete with the world
though. We do have a lot of smart motivated people here.



USENET READER wrote:


Oscar_Lives wrote:

"Timothy" wrote in message
...

On Tue, 15 Feb 2005 01:57:39 +0000, Oscar_Lives wrote:



Umm, so what do you drive? Many forein car have major troubles after
100,000 mile while american cars are still chugging along. Your so
far off
the map about japanese steel. The coke and coal that they get mostly
comes
from china and it has so much sulfer in it that it creates **** poor
metal. Most all high quality steel in japan comes from our coke and ore.
You can try to argue, but the best steel in the world comes from usx and
weirton steel.



Bullshit. Everyone who has been awake for the last two decades knows
that the quality of US automobiles has been playing catch-up to the
Japanese and Koreans for years.

Japanese steel beats the crap out of US's for quality and production
costs. Why do you think so many US steel mills are closed? They
couldn't compete against the Japanese.


THe US steel mills have closed for a variety of reasons, some to do with
quality and most to do with greed on the part of the managers and
owners. Also there is something called dmuping - they are selling the
steel over here for less than it costs them to produce over there to
close our factories and get market share. That is illegal, but you seem
to think it is fine and dandy!



Where people aren't so ****ing greedy to demand $50,000 plus benefits a
year for a no-skill job like American workers do.


And what is soo bad that someone wants to be middle class and own their
own home, send their kids to college..etc? And *where* the hell can I
find
one of these $50,000 a year no skilled jobs? Well? When the american
worker's pay has risen 20% in the past 30 years while the ceo's pay has
risen 2,600% in the past 30 year, I just don't see the room for these
magical 50K a year non-skilled jobs.



Ha! No-skilled UAW jobs that average over $50k a year are what I am
talking about. However, you are right, they are getting harder and
harder to find, as these no skilled jobs go straight to mexico, china,
and other countries that have workers willing to work hard at high
quality and not be so ****ing greedy.


Sorry dickhead - those UAW jobs you claim are no-skilled jobs actually
require hand-eye coordination as well as computer and quality control
skills that make it worth paying those higher salaries.

The manufacturing jobs are going overseas, but the US quality is not
going with it - thne crappy tools you buy at Harbor Freight and thje
crappy clothes and damn near everything else you buy at Wal-Mart made in
China isn't higher quality. Once the foreign manufacturers have market
share, the quality goes down hill because they don't have any serious
competition - it merely becomes a race to the bottom in terms of price
and quality.



Pay more for poor service and no selection is more like it.


I get my tools from local sources and the selection is just as good
if not
better that the big box stores. It's truely amazing how well you can
talk
out your ass like that. Maybe you could take your show out on the
road....
see if you can earn 50K a year plus bennies doing it...lol



Maybe I could get idiots like you who believe the drivel that spews
out of their shop steward's asses to pay me 50K plus bennies. You
seem to be quite the idiot who parts easily with money and believes
that shit doesn't stink.


Is that Johnston County redneck logic - are you a Blog Cabin Republican?


Yeah, I could double my salary if I wanted a transfer to China. Too
bad I
don't like cat.


So what is it that you do in this world where the chinese would pay you
double than you make here? Please don't leave me hanging, I just got to
know. How much you making now? I highly doubt that you would dare answer
that question or you would tip your hand and show us how your BS'ing
yourself and the rest of us.



Industrial engineer with a hard-earned master's degree making $68k a
year. My US company would pay me double (tax free) to go to china to
help start up more plants.


And you would sell out for that? THat puts you in the same category as
the people who worked for Standard Oil and other US companies who did
business with Nazi Germany and gave them technology that ended up coming
back to bite us in the ass. You are a ****ing traitor if you sell out
and go work in China.


Go suck on this BS. Take your head out of your steward's ass and look
around and see what is going on in the world.



Have a nice trip, hope you don't get jet lag too bad on your flight to
china.



Go **** yourself and keep believing what your steward tells you that
the US is all powerful and that you are worth so much to him and your
employer, even though you have no skills.

I'll bet you think the government owes you free health care,
retirement, and air jordans.


NO - but why the **** are we paying 15% of GDP on health care and
****ing so much of it away on this free-market approach when the rest of
the industrialized first-world countries have government run health care
that is much more efficient, results in better overall health care for
their citizens and fewer chronic health problems for half the % of GDP?

The free market doesn't solve everything and in fact causes many
problems that better government regulation could fix.