On this date in 1903, the Ford Motor Company sold its first customer vehicle. Ford is the only worldwide automotive company to survive both the great depression and the current economic downturn without government assistance.
1903 Ford Model A
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I look at a beautiful piece of machinery like the one above, and as much of an achievement as the restoration was, I can’t help but admire that the original craftsmen had to create it with much less sophisticated equipment.
And you didn’t need a college degree and about $10k worth of tools to work on it.
That is a beautiful car.
Here’s what socialized medicine can do for people.
Hello All, I don’t know whether I will be around for much longer, there are bad thunderstorms around again (as most days nowadays) and I like to turn off the computer then. I don’t want it damaged in case lightning hits the electrical grid. It may be an urban legend that this can happen, but I’m rather safe than sorry. walt would surely know if my fears are justified.
See you later!
Actually EV, I do the same thing. I have no faith in surge protectors.
prim8, there is a second reason to do this. I step up to my boys my face all earnest and tell them to unplug their computers and the tv set, because of the thunderstorm. I forget to mention that the thunderstorm is gone as long as there is distant thunder to be heard. Helps to “motivate” them to read a book for a change. Mostly they get hooked and realize the thunderstorm is over only an hour or so later. Wicked mom, me.
Cats,
Unfortunately, this is also what socialized medicine can do for people.
Pretty car…
The banking industry, especially Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase, wasn’t happy about the language in Waxman-Markey outlawing OTC derivatives and called for it to be removed. Eighteen members of the business-friendly New Democrat Coalition in the House proved receptive to these concerns. They wrote to Waxman and Markey to say they were “concerned about requiring all OTC derivatives and swaps to be centrally cleared and settled.” The writers included nine members of the financial services committee, as well as some of the House’s top recipients of money from the financial industry. Rep. Scott Murphy of New York and Rep. Melissa Bean of Illinois, for instance, are respectively the second and fifth leading beneficiaries of donations from the finance, insurance and real estate sector this election cycle.
Hacker Bob:
Unfortunately, this is also what socialized medicine can do for people.
Is that really the best you’ve got? Take a look at the contraindications for liver transplant, right here in the US of A.
Really hackerbob you’re just being silly. I know three men who died in this country years ago because they were unable to qualify for liver transplants. They all had insurance. We don’t have an unlimited supply of organs. It has nothing to do with socialism. They won’t give a heart transplant to a single man who has no family to take care of him. They give them to the people who they believe have the best chance of survival.
John Amato has a very good post over at C&L, defining the real agenda of the Anti-Choice movement. As I have believed for years, the real agenda is to control how Americans have sex.
Who is having sex?
Shayne, anyone for ‘socialized organ doning’ then?
We could redistribute the livers and stuff from those who have more to those have less?
To each according to their needs from each according to their means….!
/silly off
If not having sex makes one holy, I better be careful. I might be up for sainthood soon.
I’ve always thought it just made you cranky.
med, all those saints were really cranky people.
I think by now I’m a born-again virgin.
True, Ev. Except St. Francis de Assisi but then, he had his animals.
Oh, I am soooo going to hell.
med sez: True, Ev. Except St. Francis de Assisi but then, he had his animals.
I’ll join you in the hot place.
Shayne,
In the case of the story I linked to, they wouldn’t even put the kid on the list for a liver because he had not been 6 months clean. Absence of a donor liver was never the issue. They just decided that he did not rate a replacement. From the several articles I have read about the situation, there was a fear that he may drink again.
How does this have anything to do with socialized medicine? In a system where the government has control, the government can dictate who recieves what treatment based on lifestyle choices rather than need.
And you think this sort of thing doesn’t happen in our pay-to-play system? You truly are naive.
Seriously, HB, this happens everyday in our own system — unless you have lots and lots of money.
med,
Shouldn’t it be doctors, not the government making those decisions?
HB, the doctors do make those decisions. It’s the insurance companies who stand in the way of those decisions.
Surely you know this.
Zooey,
So you would exchange the insurance companies for the government?
I don’t think I would be doing that, HB.
Health care should not be “for profit.” That’s my position.
Triage is one of the toughest and heart rending aspects of medical treatment and it should not ever be in the hands of bureaucrats, whether they are government or insurance company.
And if you had paid attention you would have noticed that was one of the primary points of reform the President is pushing for. Get the medical decisions back in the hands of the medical professionals.
Zooey,
I agree that costs are way out of hand and something has to change. I just don’t think the government needs to take over the industry.
But for the sake of arguement: Why not?
Doesn’t profit lead to more innovation?
Don’t the shareholders deserve the highest possible rate of return on their investment?
HB, I do not like the idea that a glorified clerk with no medical training who’s pay includes bonuses for denying claims has any right to decide my medical treatment. But I would much rather have a clerk who has no such incentives and is answerable to me as a private citizen who can raise holy hell with his boss if the job isn’t done right.
Zooey is right. Profit has no place in health care.
Doesn’t profit lead to more innovation?
If this worn out lie were true America would have the best medical system in the world instead of being in 37th place.
If saving lives and making them better isn’t enough incentive, go sell used cars.
And no, no one should make a profit off the pain and suffering of others.
I agree with what Med has said.
HB, since you’re in the military, and have been so for a long time, maybe you don’t understand exactly what we have to deal with out here.
Med,
So you would rather have a glorified clerk who has no medical training and is answerable to another bureaucrat making those decisions for you?
I take it you are not a veteran. Have you seen the type of treatment people get a the VA? Have you seen the wait times for a procedure?
And you want to give that to the rest of the nation?
HB sez:
So you would rather have a glorified clerk who has no medical training and is answerable to another bureaucrat making those decisions for you?
That is already happening, HB!
When I gave birth to my youngest son, it was a frackin’ nightmare because he was so big. I won’t go into the gory details, but my doctor recommended that I stay in the hospital an extra day so they could keep an eye on me. Well, the insurance company — a glorified clerk with no medical training — said NO. Absolutely not. Not even after the doctor called to speak to them himself.
We couldn’t pay for a day in the hospital on our own, so I went home. Guess who was back in the doctor’s office the next day with problems? I was lucky I didn’t bleed to death.
That was 21 years ago, and it certainly hasn’t gotten any better.
Zooey,
You forget, I do have family that have to deal with the same issues you do.
Z, Med,
Thanks for the exchange. I’ll check back later. Gotta’ take the kids to the shopping.
hb, if I may join in. I have lived all my life in countries with a public health care system. I wouldn’t want to have it any other way. All the rumours are simply not true. Even after many “reforms” that watered down the patient’s claims it is still the doctor’s decision what kind of treatment you get. My father was a doctor. I worked in his surgery as a cleric during my summer breaks. Not once did I see a necessary treatment questioned or postponed or not given because of bureaucracy or lack of funding.
Try again, HB. I am a veteran and I have dealt with the VA system for medical. And it isn’t really all that different than the nonmilitary side. But the reason for that is because the Republicans have a long history of liking to make messes and not cleaning them up.
When I had to deal with the VA back in the early 80′s the system was much better than it is today. What I want is for all of America to have good health care in a timely fashion. That means cleaning all of it up and realizing that if we keep playing profit games over quality of human life it is all going down the tubes.
HB, thanks for the discussion.
HB,
I changed from private insurance to public insurance. It’s called Medicare, and yes, I am much better off for the experience. It provides a wider choice of care providers, avoids pre-approvals, covers preconditions and costs less.
Ford Motor Company reported a profit of $2.3 billion the last quarter and is not staked by the government.
Zooey,
I guess that we are lucky as well.
There you have the ultimate argument. Not that medical treatment is humane and decent. Not that it is obscene to withhold it unless their is money involved. Not even that a healthy populace is much more likely to work harder and be happier.
Because the world would be a lesser place without a Zoo and we can’t always trust to luck.
And a last one for the road. Have any of you girls ever worked as a waitress?
EV, no one would ever trust me with a large pot of coffee. I don’t know why…
Come on Zooey, noone trusts me with a beer of just any size
Me neither, EV!
My office is not yet tidy but the bed for my guests is made, I’ll clean up tomorrow morning and then will be banished from here until Sunday night. I try and log in from hubby’s machine once or twice, but I can’t promise. If I make it I’ll post some in my morning to get you something to read when you wake up. OK off I am. Good Night!
Good night, EV. Enjoy your company.
I’m off for a while.
Today is cooler than anticipated, so I’m going to whip up a batch of chicken enchiladas. I got the recipe from a friend.
Thanks, Walt & Med.
To Hackerbob… my neighbor died because he refused a liver transplant. It would have been his second. He destroyed two livers and the medical community wasn’t going to give him a third. This happened in the USA and he had insurance. So what’s your point? Not everyone that needs a transplant gets one.
EV, my daughter just got home from Germany. While she was there she had the flu and was checked for strep throat as well. She saw 4 different doctors while she was there. She kept asking who she should pay and all her host families did was laugh at her. I bring this up because I keep hearing the reich wingers fretting that they’ll have to pay for illegals. They already do they just pay a higher amount for the emergency room treatment they get. I’m just glad my daughter was in a country that valued the health of all humans more than this one does.
Hi Shayne, I’m sorry to hear she was not well, but you really can get very good healthcare here and not worry about the costs. There are some disgruntled people who holler about it being too expensive and not getting anything for their money. But those are the same people who used to ask my dad, whether he would write out a prescription for sunglasses, you know the ones from Ray Ban. He refused and they went elsewhere. Some reforms have put an end to this and our insurance system, like all other in the world suffers from the change in age structure of the society. People live longer stay old longer and need much more medical care for longer. Another problem here is high unemployment, because then the work agencies will pick up the health insurance so it can go on. So there has be a reduction in services and you have to pay an “entrance fee” of $14 every three months to your doctor.
I’m sure when your daughter was sick, the doctors didn’t write a bill to her host families either. This is professional courtesy to help out a kid from abroad.
All the raging from the GOP against universal healthcare is only so loud and insistent now, because they know you have never been closer to getting it. And when people have it, they will realize how much better off they are. And they may want more social safety. And this is bad news indeed for Corporate America.
When Obama succeeds in establishing a public health care system he will have changed your country much more thorough than it had been done in decades.
gummitch…
I wrote a post about this anti-contraception group.
Shayne – my oldest daughter got really sick one time when she was in the UK. She went to the hospital. We called the hospital and asked if she was there and the person that answered the phone called over to her and said she had a phone call. Also, she never had to pay for the care that she received while at the hospital.
Hackerbob resorts to the same kind of argument he always does. Ignoring the fact that organ donors are few and that the people on transplant lists have to be those that have put in the most effort to qualify for them. This kid would NEVER have been put on a list in this country because NO INSURANCE COMPANY would ever have agreed to pay for it. That being said organs go to the most survivable nothing to do with socialized medicine. It is this same illogical arguing that gets people so irritated with him.
A corporation has a legal duty to make as much money as it can for its shareholders.
In the health care industry that can be accomplished by: a) reducing expenses and/or b) increasing income.
To reduce expenses, an insurance company denies claims and/or procedures. To increase income, an insurance company increases premiums.
Capitalism and “health care” are inimicable.
If profits are first and foremost, the health of the nation suffers.
If the health of the nation is first and foremost, profits suffer.
The only intelligent solution is to remove health care from Capitalism – to socialize healthcare.
Failure to reform health care in this country and adopt what the rest of the ‘civilized world’ finds works for them lies at the door of two estates: the legislative who take the money from the lobbyists and sell their vote against the will and best interests of their constituents and the media, who fail completely to represent the issues and the choices.
Root cause: American exceptionalism, that by divine right, everything here is the ‘best’, no matter what evidence there is to the contrary. Sure health care is the best, if you can afford it….
There’s an ‘exceptional’ graph on this brief but relevant discussion:
http://www.tcf.org/list.asp?type=NC&pubid=1287
I can’t understand what the problem is with ‘socialism’. After all, it *is* a great national highway system and it *was* a great national electrical grid (until the utilities were deregulated).
Interesting discussion about that single liver transplant case and how it supposedly demonstrates how a national healthcare system is bad, bad, bad. The first question that came to mind for me was whether or not the mother offered to donate a part of her liver to her son.
A healthy liver is regenerative. Called “living donor liver transplant”, a portion (40-60%) can be taken from a healthy liver that is tissue-compatible with the recipient and both will “regrow” a full liver.
So, was the mother willing to undergo surgery herself to save her son’s life? He wouldn’t have needed to be on a transplant list if she had. Sure, it would have cost even more to the national health system (two surgeries rather than one) but I don’t see anywhere in the article that the mother, or anyone else in the man’s family, was willing to share part of her/his own liver to save this man’s life.
The simple reality is that this man would never have qualified for a liver transplant here in this country if he had insurance, and certainly wouldn’t have even been considered for transplant without coverage. His single best chance here in the U.S. would have been if he’d had coverage through the VA (read: socialized medicine).
It’s sad that he died, but I don’t think socialized medicine killed him.
hackerbob at 1:36 pm
“So you would exchange the insurance companies for the government?”
ABSOLUTELY! The CEO makes $400K a year, and nobody gets a bonus for denying a claim. There are no “gotcha” exclusions, or partial reimbursements, and the overhead doesn’t pay dividends to spoiled-brat shareholders with unrealistic expectations of ROI.